Sony Bravia KDL-46EX1

We're starting the new year by filling in the gaps in our product surveys and testing the few models that haven't yet been through our labs. Which brings us to the Sony Bravia EX1, a wireless TV connected to an external box.

Build quality and design: wireless?

In fact, it's not really wireless as there's a power supply cable to link it up to the mains. For the rest, the video signals come wirelessly from an external box with an aerial socket and sockets for external sources (games console, Blu-ray player etc.). Unfortunately, wireless transmission is limited to 1080i. 1080p signals are split into two 1080i streams. The EX1 doesn't work with 1080p/24Hz. You can connect directly to another device without going via the box,so as to use the TV as a sort of monitor, but you can't link the box and the TV by cable. This is a rather serious fault as we'll see further on when we look at image quality, which suffers from being wireless.

Otherwise, connectivity is rather poor and doesn't handle multimedia features at all. It only accepts photo files. The remote isn't backlit and the base doesn't rotate. We should say that the EX1 was developed according to a specific spec: to create a sober, stylish, slim (5.7 cm for this 46-inch) television that fixes easily to the wall with a minimum of cabling.

Default image quality
This rating isn't included in the overal rating

Keeping in with the EX1's concept, we tested it in wireless mode as far as possible. The default settings are, to say the least, disappointing: dynamic contrast is too marked, colour temperature tends too much towards blue, colours are false and there's too much flickering. Nothing out of the ordinary here then; we regularly come across such default settings!

Image quality in cinema mode

Unfortunately, switching to Custom mode, which gives the best results, doesn't sort out all the problems. The black density, and therefore the contrast, while still insufficient, does become acceptable. Colours are little more natural in spite of over-emphasis on bright colours. Fortunately, this isn't easy to see with the naked eye.
Certainly not as much as the flickering that we noted when we turned the TV on. After fiddling around a bit, we worked out that it was coming from the wireless connection. It disappeared altogether when we connected our player straight to the screen without going via the external box. You can see the flickering is quite prominent on the 1080p source image in our face-off:


Viewing angles are also poor, with colours completely distorted as soon as you move to one side of the screen. Colour temperature and the gamma curve (brightness distribution in light and dark zones) both deteriorate when you're either above, below or to the side of the screen. You have to say that while wireless transmission may be a nice idea, the results leave a lot to be desired in terms of image quality.

Sound quality

Nor does sound quality do much to redeem the EX1's overall rating. Aggressive and without depth, it's in the lower average of what you get with TVs. The screen's speakers, which have a low max volume and don't face forwards, don't help matters.

Energy consumption

The nail in the coffin comes when you see that the external box consumes 2W on standby where other TVs go lower than 0.3W. When it's turned on, energy consumption gets up to 215W, when current TVs should really be aiming at between 100W and 150W.