Subscores
The Sony Bravia EX723 television is the manufacturer's follow-up to the Bravia EX713, which won a five-star rating when we tested it last year. The version we're looking at today has an impressive 55'' display. Like its predecessors, the Sony Bravia EX723 uses a matte PVA panel made by Sony-Samsung, although the smaller 37'' version uses MVA technology. The backlighting is the same too, and the LEDs around the edge mean that the TV is only 4 cm thick.
The Motionflow 100 Hz system has been upgraded to 200 Hz, although technically Sony is only simulating 200 Hz by adding backlight scanning to the existing 100 Hz filter. The EX723 is still compatible with 3D, but this time the transmitter that communicates with your 3D glasses is built-in to the TV itself, as was already the case for some TVs in Sony's 2010 range.
Like the earlier members of the EX family, the 723 doesn't use Sony's 'Monolithic' design, preferring a more traditional look. The good news is that the finish on the screen itself is matte, which is a real step forward compared to Sony's very glossy top-of-the-range TVs. There's no need to worry about keeping it out of the way of direct light sources.
As well as online services and support for DLNA networks, the EX723 has several new features, including timeshifting, allowing you to pause live TV and record the rest of the programme to a USB device and Track ID to look up the name of a song played in a TV programme.
There are four HDMI inputs, along with component video, VGA, SCART and Ethernet ports dotted around the outside of the TV and at the back. A couple of USB ports on the side mean that you can connect one storage device with your own media content and use another for recording TV programmes.
Unfortunately, the media player is one thing that hasn't been upgraded and is still a disappointment. It only works with drives formatted using FAT32 and supports a handful of video formats. Without NTFS, you can't watch your own HD films, because FAT32 is limited to files no larger than 4 GB.
The remote control hasn't changed either. It's easy to use, but its blocky shape makes it difficult to hold, and the lack of backlighting is also disappointing.
The matte display
Connections at the back and side
Menu
Profile: just 4 cm thick
Unlike the remote and the media player, the XrossMediaBar interface we first saw on the PS3 has been updated (and is available by pressing the Home button). Rather than appearing on top of the picture, the settings take up most of the screen while the current video is automatically resized in the top left corner. It's handy to use, looks smooth and is responsive. Unfortunately, once you have chosen a particular menu and want to adjust individual settings, the system reverts to the older menus, which now look a little dated by comparison.
The EX723's PVA panel is one of the most responsive in our current crop of TV reviews, with an average delay of just 10 ms before the previous frame disappears from view, which bodes well for the crosstalk tests coming later. On the other hand, it's 66 ms or four whole frames behind a CRT monitor, meaning the input lag is too high for gamers. That's irrelevant for anybody else though.
The EX723 is clearly designed for watching TV programmes and films and it does an excellent job. Once you switch to Custom mode, its deltaE, the discrepancy between the colours in the original source and those shown on screen is just 2.1. That's more than enough to satisfy the most demanding users who insist on accurate colour reproduction.
Once again we were pleasantly surprised by the PVA display's ability to produce very deep blacks at 0.05 cd/m², giving it a contrast ratio way above the average of 2500:1 reached by last year's TVs. With whites at 200 cd/m², the contrast ratio is over 4300:1, which is an incredibly good result.
Overall, the picture comes close to perfection. The colour temperature was just a little too cold at 6800 K instead of 6500 K when displaying our grey test card, but this very minor problem is invisible to the naked eye.
When upscaling SD sources like DVDs, the upscaling lacks a little detail, as it usually does. We suggest you set the sharpness to 3, to artificially boost the amount of detail, but you can forget about that if you have some HD content: it looks absolutely perfect without the need for any tweaks. If you want to improve the smoothness of moving images, then the MotionFlow filter works perfectly in standard mode. Take it any higher and you risk seeing artefacts around fast-moving objects and the backlighting scanning reduces the brightness.
The panel in the TV we tested suffered from uneven backlighting, a problem also known as clouding or the Mura effect. As you can see in the photo above, light leaks out in areas of the screen that are supposed to be dark.
Alas, the results in 3D weren't as great as we'd hoped. With such a responsive display, we really weren't expect the EX723 to suffer from as much crosstalk as this in the top half of the frame, but there is definite interference between the signals designed for each eye. In practical terms, that means that you see double when watching in 3D with a very visible extra version of everything you can see on screen. We decided to investigate this problem further to see what caused it.
Here's what you see through the 3D glasses with two TVs, this Sony EX723 on top and the Sony HX903 below.
When the panel displays a new frame, it scans from the bottom up to the top, and it takes an average of 7 ms to draw the whole frame.
To reduce the amount of crosstalk, Sony blacks out both eyes for 3 ms, which should give the screen the time to get rid of one frame and redraw the next one. But as we saw, it only has time to get rid of the bottom half of the preceding frame. When one of the lenses becomes transparent again, the top half of the preceding frame is still visible, which is why crosstalk is much more visible at the top than at the bottom.
This is the first time we've heard such good sound from such a small TV. Instead off trying to bounce the sound off the wall or the floor, Sony has decided to point the speakers straight at the viewer, making the resulting sound much clearer. Both the mid-range and treble are well handled, and miraculously, even the bass is acceptable. If you really want to hear the bass, though, you'd be better with a real Home Cinema kit.
As well as having a great picture and excellent audio, the Sony 55EX723 only uses a minimal amount of energy thanks to its use of LED backlighting. On standby, it won't rack up much of a dent in your electricity bill using under 0.1 W. With the brightness at 200 cd/m², it's equally impressive, with our equipment showing energy consumption of 103 W for the 55'' version. Incredible stuff!
The Motionflow 100 Hz system has been upgraded to 200 Hz, although technically Sony is only simulating 200 Hz by adding backlight scanning to the existing 100 Hz filter. The EX723 is still compatible with 3D, but this time the transmitter that communicates with your 3D glasses is built-in to the TV itself, as was already the case for some TVs in Sony's 2010 range.
Build Quality and Design
Like the earlier members of the EX family, the 723 doesn't use Sony's 'Monolithic' design, preferring a more traditional look. The good news is that the finish on the screen itself is matte, which is a real step forward compared to Sony's very glossy top-of-the-range TVs. There's no need to worry about keeping it out of the way of direct light sources.As well as online services and support for DLNA networks, the EX723 has several new features, including timeshifting, allowing you to pause live TV and record the rest of the programme to a USB device and Track ID to look up the name of a song played in a TV programme.
There are four HDMI inputs, along with component video, VGA, SCART and Ethernet ports dotted around the outside of the TV and at the back. A couple of USB ports on the side mean that you can connect one storage device with your own media content and use another for recording TV programmes.
Unfortunately, the media player is one thing that hasn't been upgraded and is still a disappointment. It only works with drives formatted using FAT32 and supports a handful of video formats. Without NTFS, you can't watch your own HD films, because FAT32 is limited to files no larger than 4 GB.
The remote control hasn't changed either. It's easy to use, but its blocky shape makes it difficult to hold, and the lack of backlighting is also disappointing.
The matte display
Connections at the back and sideMenu
Profile: just 4 cm thick
Unlike the remote and the media player, the XrossMediaBar interface we first saw on the PS3 has been updated (and is available by pressing the Home button). Rather than appearing on top of the picture, the settings take up most of the screen while the current video is automatically resized in the top left corner. It's handy to use, looks smooth and is responsive. Unfortunately, once you have chosen a particular menu and want to adjust individual settings, the system reverts to the older menus, which now look a little dated by comparison.
Ghosting and Input Lag
| Responsiveness | ||
 |
||
| Light Background |
Dark Background |
Average |
This graph shows the ghosting time, measured in ms, that the TV takes to entirely remove the previous frame. The shorter the time, the more fluid moving images will appear
The EX723's PVA panel is one of the most responsive in our current crop of TV reviews, with an average delay of just 10 ms before the previous frame disappears from view, which bodes well for the crosstalk tests coming later. On the other hand, it's 66 ms or four whole frames behind a CRT monitor, meaning the input lag is too high for gamers. That's irrelevant for anybody else though.
Image Quality: 2D
The EX723 is clearly designed for watching TV programmes and films and it does an excellent job. Once you switch to Custom mode, its deltaE, the discrepancy between the colours in the original source and those shown on screen is just 2.1. That's more than enough to satisfy the most demanding users who insist on accurate colour reproduction.In Custom mode, the contrast ratio is 4312:1
Once again we were pleasantly surprised by the PVA display's ability to produce very deep blacks at 0.05 cd/m², giving it a contrast ratio way above the average of 2500:1 reached by last year's TVs. With whites at 200 cd/m², the contrast ratio is over 4300:1, which is an incredibly good result.
Colour reproduction in Custom mode: average deltaE: 2.1
Overall, the picture comes close to perfection. The colour temperature was just a little too cold at 6800 K instead of 6500 K when displaying our grey test card, but this very minor problem is invisible to the naked eye.
When upscaling SD sources like DVDs, the upscaling lacks a little detail, as it usually does. We suggest you set the sharpness to 3, to artificially boost the amount of detail, but you can forget about that if you have some HD content: it looks absolutely perfect without the need for any tweaks. If you want to improve the smoothness of moving images, then the MotionFlow filter works perfectly in standard mode. Take it any higher and you risk seeing artefacts around fast-moving objects and the backlighting scanning reduces the brightness.
Clouding on our test unit
The panel in the TV we tested suffered from uneven backlighting, a problem also known as clouding or the Mura effect. As you can see in the photo above, light leaks out in areas of the screen that are supposed to be dark.
Image Quality: 3D
Alas, the results in 3D weren't as great as we'd hoped. With such a responsive display, we really weren't expect the EX723 to suffer from as much crosstalk as this in the top half of the frame, but there is definite interference between the signals designed for each eye. In practical terms, that means that you see double when watching in 3D with a very visible extra version of everything you can see on screen. We decided to investigate this problem further to see what caused it.Here's what you see through the 3D glasses with two TVs, this Sony EX723 on top and the Sony HX903 below.
With a perfect result, we shouldn't see any trace of the 'R' frame on the left, and, vice versa, none of the 'L' frame on the right. For the time being, only plasmas from Samsung and Panasonic get this right.
| Glasses (0 = dark, 1 = clear) | Frame shown onscreen | Ghost frame visible | |||
| L | R | L | R | L | R |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
The dark grey sections represent the times that the right eye should see a frame and the light grey is for the left eye. The green area covers the crossover when both eyes should be covered. Each line represents one millisecond.
When the panel displays a new frame, it scans from the bottom up to the top, and it takes an average of 7 ms to draw the whole frame.
To reduce the amount of crosstalk, Sony blacks out both eyes for 3 ms, which should give the screen the time to get rid of one frame and redraw the next one. But as we saw, it only has time to get rid of the bottom half of the preceding frame. When one of the lenses becomes transparent again, the top half of the preceding frame is still visible, which is why crosstalk is much more visible at the top than at the bottom.
Audio Quality
This is the first time we've heard such good sound from such a small TV. Instead off trying to bounce the sound off the wall or the floor, Sony has decided to point the speakers straight at the viewer, making the resulting sound much clearer. Both the mid-range and treble are well handled, and miraculously, even the bass is acceptable. If you really want to hear the bass, though, you'd be better with a real Home Cinema kit.Energy Consumption
As well as having a great picture and excellent audio, the Sony 55EX723 only uses a minimal amount of energy thanks to its use of LED backlighting. On standby, it won't rack up much of a dent in your electricity bill using under 0.1 W. With the brightness at 200 cd/m², it's equally impressive, with our equipment showing energy consumption of 103 W for the 55'' version. Incredible stuff!Pros
- Supports 3D
- Accurate colours in Custom mode: average deltaE of 2.1
- Great contrast ratio: 4312:1
- Powerful Motionflow 200 filter and matte finish
- Low energy consumption: 103 W
Cons
- Big problems with crosstalk in 3D
- Viewing angles too narrow
- Media player doesn't support enough video formats
Conclusion
The Sony Bravia EX723 is an exceptional television. Inside its sleek design, it offers accurate colours and a HD picture that comes very close to perfection. But it's much more average in 3D, with very strong crosstalk meaning it loses a star.
OUR SCORE
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