Acceptable, but somewhat disappointing

When my old 19" TV died, which was nearly 20 years old, I decided that I wanted to replace it with something a little bigger and with a better sound and picture. I can't afford an HDTV, so I needed to limit the search to a standard TV. I thought that a 27" TV would be too big for my small living room, so I decided to get a 24". I also decided that I wanted a flat screen and component video inputs (I was also planning to buy a DVD player). This pretty much narrowed down my choices to only a few models, the top 2 being this SONY and the Toshiba 24AF44. Both had comparable features and got similar reviews, so I decided to buy whichever went on sale first, which turned out to the SONY.

I am a bit disappointed in the picture quality. It's not significantly better than the 20 year old 19" TV I was replacing, and the 24" screen isn't noticeably bigger than the 19", but the size and weight of the unit are noticeably different. (I had to buy a new TV cart, and they aren't inexpensive.) My biggest complaint about the picture quality is that solid colors (like a plain wall or a blue sky in the background) are sort of "flecked" looking, rather than solid and even. I can really tell that the picture is made of little dots. I can also see some horizontal striping and some flickering as the picture redraws.

One odd thing occurs with the picture when the TV is first turned on. I can take over 10 seconds for the picture to appear, then for the first couple of seconds it looks normal, then it suddenly gets brighter and rather washed-out looking, then it darkens again to a normal tone.

The picture is very sharp. Interestingly, cartoons and animated films are exceptionally clear and with good color. Text is very crisp and clean on screen. The blacks are very black and the whites are very white. One disadvantage to this is that when you have white text on a black screen, the text seems too bright and is surrounded by a big halo which actually diminishes it's readability.

One common complaint I've read about SONY TVs is problems with geometry. I've found this to be true. Straight vertical lines curve slightly to the right at the top of the screen. I'm sure many people wouldn't notice, but its annoying and distracting once you've noticed it.

I'm quite pleased with the sound quality. It's definitely an improvement over what I'm used to, though obviously not as good as a home theater system. One thing I really like is that the sound is so clear, I can hear it in the next room without needing to turn up the volume. This is nice if I'm watching TV while cooking or doing other tasks and moving around the house.

I don't like the speakers on either side of the screen. The speakers appear to run the full length of the screen, but in fact they are only in the middle and are about 5" long. This just makes the case unnecessarily wide. The speakers might as well be out of the way at the bottom on the screen. I really do NOT like the silver case, not that there's much of a choice these days. Having the picture framed by a shiny silver case is intrusive and distracting. When I'm watching TV, I want to see the picture, not the case. Black or dark gray would be better.