Davey Winder
Thursday, 28 August 2008 14:13
Your IT -
Home IT
Sony appears to have rediscovered its mojo, at least as far as innovation in the massively overcrowded flat screen television market is concerned, with what it claims is the thinnest and lightest LCD TV in the world...
It takes a lot to stand out in the flat screen TV business these days.
Most seem to take a bigger is better approach to differentiation. Sharp
held that particular crown with its 108 inch Aquos LCD until earlier
this year.
Then along came Panasonic with the stonkingly
huge 150 inch Astrovision plasma that it recently showcased at the
Beijing Olympic Games.
There is no doubting that these are big, equal to nine 50 inch sets and
boasting a resolution four times greater than the standard 1080p sets
we are used to.
Equally, there is no doubting that very few of us have the space or
budget for one of these at home. Which is why savvy Sony have gone for
a standard 40 inch set instead.
Sony has realised that what the consumer wants is a big viewing area
but wrapped up in a piece of kit that does not dominate the room it is
in. A set that can be hung pretty much anywhere. A flat screen TV that
really is flat, in fact.
It has already got the 3mm thick XEL-1, but that's titchy in all
regards. The OLED supermodel-thin option is big enough for the kitchen
at 11 inches, but that's about all.
Now the
Sony Bravia KDL-40ZX1
enters the picture at, rather amazingly, just 9.9mm deep and weighing
in at no more than 12.2 kg.
For an LCD television those are remarkable specs.
Initially restricted to the Japanese market, where it will go on sale
in November priced at YEN 490,000 (AUD $5176), it gets our sexiest
telly vote because it achieves that size-zero look by piping the video
from a separate receiver via a 5GHz wireless link.
This does mean that the set itself only has a single HDMI port, but
fear not because there are three more on the wireless box itself along
with a LAN socket and USB.
Then there are the white LEDs built into the edges of the TV frame
itself and the lack of traditional backlighting, which chisel off the
inches and add to the sexiness...