Cheaper, More Expensive and…Better?: Sony takes a chance

Pictured here is the latest version of the Sony BRAVIA HDTV, armed to kill. Will it be the greatest necessarily though?

These 52- and 42-inch models leave out the expensive and cool Triluminos LED technology for less pricey edge lit LEDs like Samsung. But they are using the thinner frame to add wireless streaming technology to the units, which (sort of) makes up for the older technology in the picture itself.

So here’s the “extras” feature list: wireless HD, Internet TV Guide, BRAVIA 3 processing, Motionflow 240Hz, streaming from Amazon, YouTube and Netflix and Yahoo! Widgets. Willing to pay $4-5K for those features? We weren’t sure how many wouldn’t suffer from major price shock.

The KDL-52XBR10 and KDL-46XBR10 models are due to be released in mid-October with $5,000 and $4,500 price tags respectively, and that’s a grand more than a comparable Samsung with similar features. Is Sony making a fool’s gambit? Perhaps, and we’ll be here to report if that’s the case.