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Sony KDL70XBR

The Sony KDL70XBR is a 70-inch LCD which costs the better part of 100 grand, and comes complete with all the televisual mod cons.

Ty Pendlebury Editor
Ty Pendlebury has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
  • Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
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Ty Pendlebury
2 min read

Got a tidy sum tucked away for a rainy day? Or how about a rainy decade? Because as far as sticker shock is concerned, there is nothing more certain to endanger your mortgage than a 70 grand LCD.

This BRAVIA is perhaps the ultimate electronics status symbol, and is sure to be hung on a boardroom wall near you.

The Sony KDL70XBR is one of four in the XBR series, which also includes the 40-inch KDL40XBR (AU$4299), the 46-inch KDL46XBR (AU$5299) and the 52-inch KDL52XBR (AU$7799).

Upside

 Despite the gargantuan proportions, the new Bravia has a lot of cutting edge features, including: 100Hz Motionflow for better tracking of motion; 24p for enhanced playback of Blu-ray disks; and an LED backlight -- this is the only Sony TV in the X or XBR series to use this.

Of course, this is a full 1080p panel and comes with dual HD tuners for PIP mode, and three HDMI ports for maximum connectivity.

In addition, the upmarket cosmetics of the XBR series stand out amongst a sea of piano black drones with their brushed aluminium faceplates and "floating glass" touches.

Downside

 There's a reason LCD has been restricted to small sizes for such a long time -- it's very hard to backlight large LCD screens without losing colour and contrast. It will be interesting to see how a screen of this size measures up in a performance sense versus its smaller kin.

Oh, and did we mention the price?

Outlook

 Do you need one of these? Well, no-one really needs a huge TV as such ... but we can imagine high definition games and movies would look amazing on this. The Sony KDL70XBR is not going to sell as many as others in the series, but is nonetheless an intriguing-looking television.