Tour & Design

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The KDL-46XBR10 is certainly a stylish display: it has a clean, simple design with only a few subtle indicator lights along the bottom of the bezel. The entire front of the screen is formed from a single piece of acetate; the screen is behind this.

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Back

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There is not much to talk about on the back of the KDL-46XBR10; there are no ports or sockets except for the single power connector on the bottom. That's because this display gets all of its signals from a seperate transmitter box which can be hidden away out of sight.

Sides

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The KDL-46XBR10 is also very thin; at is maximum depth, the display is less than an inch and a half thick.

Stand/Mount

 

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The stand that comes with the KDL-46XBR10 is a simple, stylish affair that does what it needs to do without fuss. It also allows the screen to rotate to about 15 degrees, and it looks like it can be removed if you want to wall mount the screen.

Aesthetics

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The XBR10 is a evry nice looking display; the single piece of acetate that forms the front makes it look very clean and simple. Our only major concern is that it is kind of shiny; as you can see from our photos above, it shows a lot of reflections.

Performance Features

Display Size & Technology

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The XBR10 is available in two sizes; a 46' model (the KDL-46XBR10) and a 52' model (the KDL-52XBR10).

 

Formats & Resolution

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This is a Full HD screen, which means it has a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels and can display every single pixel of a 1080p signal, the highest resolution HD format currently available to the consumer. This also means it can handle any of the lower resolution signals, and has inputs for a range of analog signals on the remote transmitter box.

Brightness, Blacks and Contrast Ratio

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We were not able to test the blacks or whites of this display, but previous XBR models have had deep blacks and bright whites. Sony claims a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, but like all manufacturer contrast ratio numbers, this should be taken with a pinch of salt. We'll know more when we get a review unit in to test out with our high-end CS-200 ChromaMeter. One thing that we do know is that the backlight is composed of a number of LED lights around the edge of the display, which means that this display cannot do local dimming, where the display dims the backlight for dark images. This can only happen if the LED lights are behind the screen, but on the XBR10, they are at the edge of the screen. Because the edge LEDs have to illuminate all of the screen, they can't be individually controlled. Some previous XBR models (such as the XBR8) used an array of LEDs that can perform local dimming, but not the XBR10.

Color

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We were not able to test the color gamut or other color behavior of this display.

Motion & Refresh Rate

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Like most of Sony's flagship models, the XBR10 includes 240Hz Motionflow motion processing technology. This means that the display interpolates 3 frames between every 2 frames that are contained in the signal to produce smoother motion. Again, we were not able to test this feature at the CEDIA show, but we have found on previous models (such as the XBR9 that we tested) the 240Hz processing made a slight, but noticeable difference over the 120Hz processing.

Viewing Angle

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We were not able to test the viewing angle of this display, and Sony didn't release any information on this.

Connectivity & Media

Audio & Video Ports

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There are no ports on the display itself; all of them are located on the wireless transmitter box. This has 3 HDMI, 1 VGA, 2 Component video inputs, plus 3 analog audio inputs linked to the various video inputs. There is also an antenna input and an analog and digital audio output. To work, the wireless transmitter must be within 30 feet of the display, and the signal can't get through any obstructions thicker than a few sheets of paper; it won't work through walls or wood, so you can't put the transmitter in a cupboard or other room.

 

Media & Other Connectivity

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The XBR10 is connected to the big wide world of the Internet via an Ethernet port, which allows it to stream video and audio from a number of sources, such as a DLNA server on the home netowrk or onlien services such as Netflix and Amazon on Demand. There is no USB port for directly connecting a USB thumnb drive or a camera, though.

Placement

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The ports being on the transmitter box means that there is no need for cables. This may be a big plus for those who hate having their hardware on display: the cables and connections can be placed away from the display. The signal can't get through walls, though, so you can't put it in another room or in a cupboard.

Audio

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We were not able to test the speakers on the XBR10.

Controls, Menu & Remote

Remote

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The remote control that will come with the XBR10 was not available for us to test out. We do know that the display supports Sony's own Bravia Link system, which means that the remote can control a number of other Sony devices over the HDMI cable. This only works with Sony devices, though; it does not work with those from other manufacturers.

Controls

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There are no controls on the display itself: all you get are three indicator lights on the bottom left corner of the display which show if the display si receiving a HD signal and a signal from the transmitter box.

Menu

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We were not able to use the menu on the unit we looked at at the CEDIA show, but it will use Sony's xross media bar menu system, which uses the left and right directional pad of the remote to move between categories, and the up and down to select the individual option. The menu system works well, but does take some getting used to. You can read more about it on our review of the XBR9 here.

Conclusion

 

Series Comparison

XBR10 Series

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The new XBR10 range has two models in it: a 46' and a 52'. The two have identical features.