The KDL-55EX720 offers 14 Picture modes, seven of them for games, graphics, or photos.

There was no sign of blacks peppered with the streaks and blotches of lighter gray we’ve seen on other edge-lit LCD sets. While it does have some uneven screen illumination, this is only visible on very dark program material in a darkened room, and then mainly in the corners and, to a lesser degree, the left and right sides. At a bit under 2 inches thick without its stand, the KDL-55EX720 is as slender as anyone might need. The edge lighting must be distributed behind the screen by diffusers, and the thinner the screen, the harder it is to do this uniformly. So far, the race to produce the thinnest LED edge-lit HDTV has produced one quality in abundance: uneven onscreen light distribution. (Sony’s only 720p offerings for 2011 are the 22- and 32-inch BX320s.) Despite the unfortunate choice of model number, all of the EX720s are full 1080p.

For this review, we requested the 55-inch (diagonal) Bravia KDL-55EX720, the largest of the EX720 sets. All of the EX720s use fixed LED edge lighting, although our observations indicate that it has at least one dynamic quality-the way it handles fades to total black. The KDL-EX720 series offers the least expensive Sony 3DTVs. One is lower cost the other is the ability, at least in some HDTVs, to shrink the depth of the panel to something that seems to approach that of a credit card.

Edge-lit LED backlights have two primary advantages to manufacturers over the full-array approach that has made them the more widely used. Aside from lower power consumption compared with CCFL blacklights, LED backlights of either type offer another benefit: They can adjust rapidly in accordance with the changing signal. While the line-topping XBR-HX929 sets have full-array LED backlighting with local dimming, the remainder position their LEDs just beyond the edges of the screen. Sony’s 2011 lineup is dominated by LED-lit LCDs. The movement to replace the traditional fluorescent (CCFL) backlighting for LCD displays with LEDs has become a flood. Price: $2,400 At A Glance: Solid 2D performance

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