Sony KLV-40ZX1 "World's Thinnest" LED lit LCD TV

Here it is, the thinnest LCD in the world yet. It uses a wireless media receiver bundled in the package, to transmit upto 1080p signals and is surrounded with grandeur and lots of high handedness from the powers that be who supplied us with the piece, but who can blame them, as there is some serious work gone in to making such a slick LED LCD TV. Now, it’s our duty to see whether the hype is worth it, thus presenting what we do best: the real review. And I say this while Shayne is tapping away on the N97s much touted home screen, so expect a hardcore unbiased review of that too now. Back to Sony's thinnest LCD.

Design
Straightaway I need to give credit where it's due. The bezel is really very thin, and at the top it is less than 10 mm. The middle portions have another thin chassis to house the minimal PCB of the LCD panel. It looks just sexy when mounted on the wall, though mounting is a process which needs to be done carefully and maybe should be left to pro installation guys. (When you purchase a TV, the retailers always have installation people no  need to worry). The bezel is also my favorite kind, NOT GLOSSy. It has a faux brush texture, but very smooth surface, pure black all over. The bezel is singularly layered with this finish, and it looks slick, minimal and very stylish.  The LCD screen itself has a matte finish.

There is a single HDMI at the back, along with the power inlet. These 2 are considerably hidden, and face outwards from a small slot. The front panel’s bottom right lights up in luminous white and blue LEDs of the volume and channel up/down icons, though they themselves are not touch sensitive buttons, just logos to name the corresponding push buttons located on their underside.

Then we have the media receiver, which takes the responsibilities while the panel shows off. After all behind every successful "world’s thinnest" panel is a media receiver. This is like a larger set top box - straight edged rectangular with a glass panel on its façade. This panel can be folded down to expose a few control buttons on the front panel. The back has the connections which range from 3 HDMIs, and one each of component, composite and VGA in (for PC connections). The unit also supports IR blasting, meaning one can use the included IR extender cables to connect to and control other devices too. Last but not least, there is an optical out and the Cable tuner input.

Features and specs
The panel is teeming with supported features, but first the basics: it is 40 inch size with a native resolution of 1920 x 1080. It has the Bravia Engine 2 video processing chip, thus we will have fun with the menu once we start performance. Here is the 100 Hz Motionflow feature to smoothen video, and most importantly this HDTV is an LED lit model. It is edge lit via LEDS, thus touting greater brightness and lesser power consumption (and more price). So Samsung and Sony are at it again, with their cool new LED LCD TV models. The brightness, contrast ratings are not given anywhere.