This article is more than 1 year old

Sony Bravia KDL-EX703 32in Freeview HD TV

Small screen star?

Review Telly makers may be keenly touting 3D, but what rather more folk have been looking forward to this year is the debut of free-to-air HD programming that doesn't require you to have a satellite dish bolted to the side of your house.

Sony Bravia KDL-32EX703

Sony's Bravia KDL-32EX703: look says 'TV', not 'design statement'

Freeview HD's roll-out continues apace from its December 2009 debut, but it has taken until now for manufacturers to get TVs with integrated DVB-T2 tuners and MPEG 4 decoders out to the UK's electronics retailers. Sony's 26-60in Bravia Essential line, of which the KDL-32EX703 is one of the top-of-the-line models, are among the first.

Branding a TV as part of an 'Essential' series might suggest that it's a basic model, and while the EX703 might not sport some top-end features, it's certainly no pared-back offering. This model has a 1920 x 1080 full HD resolution, LED backlighting, 100Hz picture interpolation, internet connectivity, said Freeview HD tuner - it'll pick up standard-definition Freeview too - and a host of ports all wrapped up in a package that says, simply, 'I am a telly', not 'I am a conversation piece' or 'I am a design statement'.

At a given size, the Bravia Essential TVs run through from standard 50 interlaced fields a second with a fluorescent backlight, through 100 interlaced fields a second with the same backlight, which, in the top model, is replaced with an edge-mounted LED backlight.

Sony Bravia KDL-32EX703

No shortage of ports on the back

Uniform edge backlighting isn't going to give the contrast range that area-specific array backlighting will, but it does a darn good job here. Blacks look appropriately black, whites look white and colours are bright and rich. While I can't say, hand on heart, that the extra £200 the LED version commands over models with a fluorescent backlight is a must-spend, there's no question the EX703 presents a very nice picture.

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like