Sony showed the biggest Bravia LCD TVs yet at CEDIA today, a couple of 52-inch 1920x1080 (1080p) panels with HDMI inputs. The KDL-52XBR2 has a piano black finish while the KDL-52XBR3 looks more like aircraft silver. We've seen a few of the earlier 1080p Bravia LCDs, and it's hard to imagine how they would improve them, but Sony keeps on trying, adding its Advanced Contrast Enhancer which it claims can deliver a contrast ratio of 7000:1. That might fix the biggest problem with LCDs: their black levels aren't quite black enough.
Sony also goosed the color in these models, adding what it calls a "wide color gamut cold cathode fluorescent lamp," a backlighting system teamed up with a chroma signal processor that Sony says gives you a wider and more-realistic range of colors. These two arty-looking monitors won't be cheap, though, $6,800 for the shiny piano black model; the silver one is $300 less. Both will be available in November.
But wait! There's more, after the jump.
At the same time Sony was showing off those higher-end models, the company also added a couple of 1366x768 LCDs to the Bravia line, the 40-inch KDL-40S2400 and 32-inch KDL-32S2400 (pictured at right). These don't look too shabby, either, and are cheap at $2600 and $1700. Overall, these are some truly attractive TVs, showing us there might be good reason why Sony suddenly jumped from fourth to first place in worldwide LCD sales in the fourth quarter of last year.
Press Release [Sony Electronics]