Guest blog by Karl.
Earlier in 2016, Sony released the Bravia WD653 range to offer outstanding value for money and have packed the set full of useful features. The styling has developed slightly from last year and this TV will look good in your bedroom, second room or living room.
It is classed as being a 1080p high definition panel, which means you will get brilliant results from the built-in Freeview tuner and it looks equally impressive with external sources such as Blu-ray players, a PS4 or Xbox One. Staying on the subject of picture quality, I found the colour very natural and the set handled movement very well – this is partly down to Sony’s Motionflow XR and their X-Reality Pro engine, which helps reduce blurring and really seems to work. While this set doesn’t offer the cutting edge technology such as 4K UHD it is aimed at people who want great value for money without losing out on quality.
I found setting up the internet connection a doddle and the built in Wi-Fi meant I didn’t have to run a long and expensive (and dog-chewable) Ethernet cat5 cable. For those of you who haven’t got round to buying or using a Smart TV, this set offers you all of the key features that you would expect. Want to watch a baby monkey riding around on a small pig? Just click on YouTube and voila… the set handles all of these smart apps with ease and I noticed a definite improvement in operational speed over my three-year-old 32” panel.
Another awesome feature is the TV’s ability to share your smartphone’s pictures. If you are a smart phone owner (Android or Apple IOS) then you can easily share your pictures wirelessly to the TV, if only to cringe at your less-than-amazing photography skills!
Nowadays a lot of us have pictures and movies stored on external drives and this TV had no problem reading my USB drive and the picture quality was as good as I’ve seen on Blu-ray (obviously this does depend on the recording quality). Linking in with this feature is the ability to record live TV onto a USB drive; with literally just the touch of a button you can record directly onto your portable device. This is especially handy if you don’t want a Freeview hard drive or are looking for minimal wall-mounting solutions.
Previous generations of Sony panels have been slightly tricky to wall mount, fortunately this is not the case with the WD653 range. They are slim sets but as usual they have a little more depth at the base of the set; Sony have included spacers to allow you to use a standard VESA mount bracket which means you have the flexibility to select from our wide range of brackets.
Long gone are the days of costly plasma sets. LED panels are much cheaper to run and this particular panel (in 40” size) receives an A+ rating with predicted electricity use of 70 KWh – although quite how Sony can predict how much gaming I’m going to do on this fantastic set is anyone’s guess!
It’s no secret that with ever-thinner TVs the space for speakers is minimised. This means that in newer TVs the sound is never going to blow you away; while the two 5w speakers do their best I would definitely look at upgrading to a Sony soundbar, soundbase or even a good separates system. That said, however, the sound was clear and had an acceptable mid-range but obviously lacked a little of the low range bass that might help make a game or movie a bit more impactful.
If you are a tech head I’d recommend looking at the Sony website for a full blow-by-blow account of inputs, outputs and so on. Personally, I need to see and touch something to make a decision so I’d recommend visiting your local Hughes store, have a chat with one of the friendly staff who will guide you through the various other options and ensure you buy the right panel for now – and the future. You can buy the Sony 40” WD653 online, collect from selected stores* in as little as one hour or even rent it for just £5.54 per week*.
Having used this set for a short while I have no criticisms and feel it offers outstanding value for money, with attractive simple styling and will perform well with many of today’s current technology.
* – selected locations; T&Cs apply.
