Fantastic picture quality but poor geometry

Having grown tired of my aging 20” Panasonic in my bedroom (not mention that my eyes aren’t exactly improving with age), and decided it’s time to upgrade. I’d had a 27” set in the bedroom on one occasion but it’s just too big for the surroundings. So I began researching 24” sets online and as usual, the wealth of info didn’t let me down. It came down to either the Toshiba 24AF44 or Sony KV24FS120. So off to the usual stores....Best Buy, Circuit City, Sears, etc to check them out. Best Buy was the only store that had both on display and I was able to make some side-by-side comparisons. I actually liked the picture quality of the Toshiba a little better, and it was $20 less, but they were out of stock, as was Sears. Circuit city didn’t stock the Toshiba. After walking around the store and thinking about it, I decided to go for the Sony, even though I’m not a big Sony fan because of consistently bad picture geometry problems with them in the past...crooked vertical and horizontal lines, horizontal crawl boxes at the bottom of the screen that ran up or downhill, etc. But the picture looked nearly as good as the Toshiba and the geometry appeared straight, which is rare for Sony. It’d been about three years since I’d last tried a Sony and who knows....maybe they’ve improved things in this regard. So I bought it. One of the other reasons I decided on the Sony as opposed to the Toshiba is the fact that the Sony has an onboard menu control, whereas the Toshiba has none. This means if the Toshiba’s remote should fail, you can’t access the menu to make adjustments. The Sony has all necessary controls beneath a flip-up front cover.

I had to take it out of the box to get it into my VW Jetta, and when I opened the box, the first thing I noticed was the spartan use of packing. It didn’t seem well protected with only four simple foam corner blocks. The box had a place where it’d obviously come into contact with the edge or corner of another object, but there was no damage to the contents, so I guess the packaging did its job. I stuck the TV on the back seat, the broken down box in the trunk and headed home in anticipation of good things to come.

What you get
The TV, remote, batteries, manual and warranty card.

Specs
• Warranty Terms - Parts: 1 year
• Warranty Terms - Labor: 90 days
• Product Height: 20-3/4"
• Product Width: 28-1/4"
• Product Weight: 72 -1/4 lbs.
• Product Length: 18-7/8"
• Screen Size: 24"
• Aspect Ratio: 4:3
• Digitally Compatible: No
• Flat Tube: Yes
• Dark Tube: Yes
• Comb Filter: Digital
• S-Video Inputs: 1 rear
• Component Video Inputs: 1 rear
• Composite Input: 2 (1 front, 1 rear)
• Front A/V Inputs: Yes
• Audio Outputs: No
• Watts/Channel: 5
• Speakers: 2
• RF Antenna Input: 1
• Simulated Surround: Yes
• Sound Leveler: No
• Language Options: English, French, Spanish
• V-Chip: Yes
• Sleep/Alarm Timer: Yes
• Channel Labeling: Yes
• Commercial Skip Function: No
• Remote Control Type: Standard
• Cabinet Color: Silver
• Adjustable Color Temp
• Picture Tilt Control
• Image Presets: Standard, Vivid, Pro, Movie
• Velocity Scan Modulation
• Onboard Menu, Channel, and Volume buttons

Appearance
The majority of new TV cabinets seem to be silver, and that’s ok. The KV24FS120’s styling is modern and attractive, with side front speakers.

Setup
Setup is a breeze. As soon as the set is plugged in, a menu appears to prompt the auto channel scan. Hit the Channel UP bottom to start the auto scan, which is extremely fast. Once the channels are scanned in, you can use the Add/Delete menu to dump the ones you don’t want.

Remote
The remote is small and easy to use if you’re familiar with Sony’s remotes. They’re not what I’d consider intuitive, but once you understand the process to access various menus, it begins to make sense and becomes second nature.

Sound Quality
Sound quality is very good for small speakers. Good balance between bass and treble.

Picture Quality
Picture quality is excellent with saturated colors and realistic skin tones. Sharpness is beyond reproach, and the smallest of text displayed on the screen can be easily read without my glasses. However, in typical Sony fashion, the horizontal lines of the TV Guide channel were forming a slight smile instead of running straight across the screen. When viewing DVDs, the top and bottom edges of the screen image were both angled upward to the right with a curve on both ends. Geeeez. Will they EVER get it right? The same guy who adjusts these things must STILL be there! I tried adjusting the tilt control, but didn’t help the bent horizontal lines and the definite “smile” of horizontal lines and crawl boxes within the bottom third of the screen. Truly annoying for a graphic designer like me who expects to see lines that are supposed to be straight! Not curved, bent, or running at an angle in relation to the cabinet opening edges. For me, this quickly and most definitely ruined an otheriwse excellent picture. I tried to deal with it for a couple days but just couldn’t...so returned it. So the search continues. I'll probably try the Toshiba next.

Bottom Line
If you get a KV24FS120 with good geometry, you’ll indeed have an excellent picture to look at. Problem is, it seems getting a Sony with good geometry is a hit and miss thing......mostly a miss for me. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have gotten a Sony 20” with good geometry. If poor geometry doesn’t bother you, the basic picture quality is simply excellent and one of the best I’ve seen in a CRT. I've rated this set a 4 because of the poor picture geometry.