Although not very attractive, the Sony KDL32W600D is still a good-looking HDTV to look at. In fact, a 32-inch monitor with an HDMI port looks nicer than it used to be. Its bezel is flat and black, punctuated only by the Sony logo and power light. Measuring 3 inches at its thickest point, this set isn’t exactly wide. It sits on a rectangular plastic base that keeps the screen relatively low and very stable but doesn’t allow for any pivot adjustments.

Some basic control buttons are mounted on the back of the right edge of the screen, while an HDMI port and a USB port sit on opposite sides of the left side of the screen. An additional HDMI port, along with component and mixed hybrid video inputs, a mini-audio jack output, a digital audio output, and a coaxial connector for a cable or antenna can be found on the rear of the screen. They are well-positioned if you want to mount the set on the wall.

Its remote is small, flat, and simple. The buttons are not backlit and are clustered fairly closely, thus blindly coming into numbers takes some application. On the other hand, the direction pad and volume and channel buttons are large and separate enough to be easily accessible by your thumb.

As a 32-inch LED-backlit screen, the Sony KDL32W600D is somewhat of a really modest energy user however blames on the FHD visual percept. It consumes 57 watts under normal use with the power saving features turned off, and 33 watts with power saving set to low. High power-saving features made the screen too dark for comfortable viewing. The similar-sized VIZIO E320i-B2 hits the middle ground between the two settings by consuming 35 watts, and the larger TCL 40-inch LE40FHDE3000 uses 50 watts.

Performance

The Sony KDL32W600D uses a 60Hz panel, unlike some other budget sets, including the Sigma NE32AB1, which uses 120Hz panel technology. In my tests, the KDL32W600D produced a respectable picture, though it didn’t really excite me in terms of brightness, black levels, or color. After basic activity with power-saving options disabled, the TV matched a peak brightness of 194.69 cd/m2 and a corresponding black level of 0.1 cd/m2 with a huge contrast ratio of 1,926:1.

As far as color accuracy goes, blue should lean more toward green, and red tends to appear darker than ideal for a 32-inch LED HDTV. For comparison, it’s slightly below the 40-inch TCL LE40FHDE3010, which boasts a higher contrast ratio and even better black levels, at 4,821:1 and 0.06 cd/m2, severally, whereas the Vizio E320i-B2, 303.81 cd. Provides peak brightness of /m2. , but its black level is 0.14 cd/m2. However, the color skewing is poor on the TCL sets.

It’s only a 720p screen, so you’re not getting full 1080p HD resolution, but that’s not a major drawback for its small size and price. Black Swan was a bit faint and cloudy on Blu-ray, with dark and textured dark colors not clearly visible on screen. In Piranhas on Blu-ray, very sunny party scenes were flying in, and the green of the plants and the blue-green of the water seemed less saturated.

Nothing bad to the point of pale or green skin, but there’s no sense of “pop” in the colors and the mediocre contrast ratio makes both shadows and highlights feel flat. Viewing angles are excellent, however, with the picture only slightly pale when viewed from a distance, matching Sony’s claim of a 178-degree range.