Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
This is an excellent tv. I have HDTV and the tv is awesome. It is everything I wanted.

Strengths:
very good built in speakers. It is a Sony, so it is reliable. Great picture.

Weaknesses:
it is a tv on steroids...

Price Paid:  $3000.00 from Sears

Summary:
We have had this TV since 2000,, over 2.5 years now, and we have not had a single problem with it. The picture is good with cable, and with 480p DVD it is excellent. We have experienced no problems at all, and I have moved it around a lot to hook up various components. glare is pretty bad during daylight, but blinds can fix that. Overall, from 2.5 years of use this tv is still excellent. I dont know why people complain a lot about Sonys reliability (I think many people complain jsut because its a big name) but we have a 13year old 27" Trinitron and it still works perfectly.

Strengths:
Size, easy of movement. Picture quality. Menus. Remote (its big, but I still think its excellent. big tv needs a big remote doesnt it?)

Weaknesses:
glare during the day. just get blinds, because in the dark this is amazing.

Similar Products Used:
no other RPs owned

Price Paid:  $3200.00 from Falls Church Virgini

Summary:
I first purchased the KP53HS10 and it had a beautiful pic! Then within a week or so we noticed when we would turn it on it would not show a picture but the red indicator light would just flash. I called and called and called several times to Sony. They recommended that I turn it on-then instantly back off - then on again. Oh yes that worked but do you know what kind of stress that puts on the electronics? I found it unacceptable and after complaining for almost 60 days with a guy named Jeff at Sony I demanded that my Sony at your service be honored and the set be replaced. Well they found the problem to be a resistor that affected all the sets. He wanted to just replace my resistor and I complained that after all this time i wanted a new set as now I am sure my MTBF on my set was shortened by doing this on-off-on thing for almost 3 months. The head of Sony service investigated and finally said that My Sony at Your Service should have replaced my set long ago. I had to pay the difference on the 61" but that was fine. Had the problem with this one a few times this time last year and Sony gave me the run around saying my warranty ran out from the date of my original purchase of the KP53HS10 and that my new purchase of the KP61HS10 did not start with a new warranty but carried over from the older 53HS10 and that but me 2 months out of warranty. BS!!! The set still has a good pic but I will never buy a Sony Product again because of their unethical tactics and lack of real customer care. Just bought an $800 receiver last night and though the Sony had great features and price I bought the better Onkyo instead.

Strengths:
Great Picture for the money.

Weaknesses:
Customer Service Management. The 1st Line Customer Service reps are great but limited on what they are allowed to do for you by their superiors

Similar Products Used:
Mitsubishi

Price Paid:  $3000.00 from abt electronics

Summary:
I have read other reviews that rip on the remote, however I would think that if you have a tv of this size that you would also have a dvd player/receiver etc. I use my receiver remote to control all of my audio components as well as my tv and dish. Even if that was not the case the remote is easy to function. Overall this is a wonderful tv and will not be useless after a couple of years due to the HDTV ready component to it. You may see cheaper tv's out there but you get what you pay for and this tv by far blows away the picture quality and input/output options of any lesser or comparably priced tv. I have had this tv for over a year and we have not had a single problem with it as of yet. We use the component video inputs for our dvd and the s-video for my PS2 these bring out what this tv was meant to be able to do, crystal clear pictures with amazing detail.

Strengths:
Picture size and quality.

Weaknesses:
None to this point.

Similar Products Used:
This is my first big screen tv.

Price Paid:  $2099.00 from Wow

Summary:
I was a little worried about getting an older model that's been discontinued, but I couldn't pass it up. I was able to get the 61HS10 for less than a 53HS30. Cable was a little fuzzy on some channels, so I bought a Radio Shack cable booster and gold plated cables and my cable signal is great (channel 2 is dirty but watchable, an issue with COX cable). Some channels are almost as clean as a DVD (especially ESPN and ESPN2). I use a Playstation 2 with the gold plated component cables into Video 5 for DVD's (Gran Tourismo 3 looks amazing).

The convergence was way off when it was delivered, but 15 minutes in Service mode fixed that. I also turned down the contrast and sharpness and that helped a lot. After the set is warmed up and the noise reduction and DRC do their thing, the picture is great, even with VHS. I thought I was going to need Direct TV or something, but that would be a waste. I'll switch to an HDTV signal when I can get more than 3 stations.

The speakers aren't bad, and are great for watching TV, but movies will leave you wanting more. That's when you'll want to switch over to a nice external surround setup and use the TV as the center channel.

My wife is still getting used to the sheer size of this thing, but I love just sitting and staring at it. By the way, my viewing distance is 11 feet, so those a little farther back will have an even clearer picture. If you're closer than that, you may want to consider the 53HS30 instead.

Strengths:
Nice clean picture for dirt cheap. Nothing comaes close at this price.

Weaknesses:
I can't get this remote to operate my Sony receiver or my Playstation 2, and the glare is pretty bad in all but low light.

Similar Products Used:
I replaced a Zenith 27" with this set. I compared it to Phillips, Hitatchi, Toshiba, RCA, and Mitsubishi 4:3 53-61" HDTV's.