So far Sony hasn't delivered the same sort of consistency with its flat TV picture quality that it achieved – to world-conquering effect – with its CRTs. But with the KDL-46X4500 LED LCD TV, the firm finally gives its Bravia TV name some mouthwatering quality to go with the dazzling ad campaigns and marketing spin.

As you'd expect of a 46in TV costing £3,500, the 46X4500 is packed with technology and tweaks. The fun starts with the set's design, which niftily has an expanse of clear glass to each side, into which have been inset some very swish silver 'pole' speakers.

Good connections

The set is extremely well connected, too, with highlights of four HDMIs, two component video inputs, a port for playing various multimedia file formats from USB devices, and even a DLNA-enabled ethernet port for streaming files from a connected PC.

Please note, though, that surprisingly, this ethernet port doesn't let you connect to the new Sony online service, mentioned in the review in our previous issue of Sony's KDL-40V5500.

The standout feature of the 46X4500, though, has to be its LED lighting system, which illuminates pictures using an ingenious array of separate, individually controllable clusters of LEDs.

This is different to the static, edge-based LED backlight employed by the recently reviewed Sony 40ZX1.

The main advantage of the dimming approach versus edge based LED lighting or the static, single backlight of normal LCD TVs is that it enables really deep black colours to sit right alongside really bright picture elements.

This is because the LED clusters in dark picture areas are switched right down, while those in bright areas can be run at full power. Cue a claimed contrast ratio for the 46X4500 of 1,000,000:1.

The flatscreen also uses full RGB dimming for its LED array, rather than the much cheaper black and white option used by most rivals currently deploying similar technology. This method, Sony claims, should produce a more natural white balance.

Bravia Engine 2 Pro

Other key 46X4500 specs include the inevitable full HD resolution, Sony's admirable Bravia Engine 2 Pro video processing. The 100Hz processing is further supported by the company's MotionFlow system for inserting new frames of image data to make motion more fluid.

Proprietary Live Colour Creation circuitry for enhancing colour vibrancy also features and, of course, there's Sony's 24p True Cinema for Blu-ray playback.

Inevitably, the sheer complexity of the 46X4500's myriad options make it rather complex to use. But to be fair, the TV's so-called Xcross Media Bar interface, with its dual-axis approach, makes accessing everything the TV has to offer as straightforward and as fast as it probably could be.

Picture

Although Sony's recent LCDs have shown signs of improvement, we were still caught completely off guard by the sheer awesomeness of the 46X4500's pictures.

Take its black level response, for instance. There's practically no trace at all of the grey clouding impact during dark scenes found to some extent on any normal LCD TV. Even better, the rich, deep blacks sit right alongside dazzlingly bright whites and superbly well saturated colours.

In other words, there's practically no sign of the general flatness noted with single light screens when they portray shots containing a combination of dark and bright material. The remarkable dynamism of the 46X4500's pictures doesn't come at the exclusion of subtlety, though.