Faulty KDL55HX923

We're not happy with The extent of Sony's response, either - will pursue next week; review remains unpublished online for now.

Hi clare,

what i said in my last post is correct, Sony are still in talks about this now, not so long ago people were led to believe the new batch in August would be the end of it but thats unlikely to be the case, whats even more baffling is Sony are still distributing replacement sets and they are the same!, i have told Sony what to do with the Adhesive process ( if indeed the diagnosis is accurate) that would in my opinion solve this, they must know this, however this may take time and each subsequent day the discussions are getting more and more prevailant with frustrated customers that want answers and satifactory replacement sets.

is that too much to ask.

Hi Clare/Andy - have you had a good response from Sony yet or are they dragging their heels hoping that it will all go away quietly if they say nothing?

got my 2nd replacement set from Sony.

worse than first. had enough now of all of this so sent it back for full refund.

very very disappointed in sony putting up with the "good enough" mantra....its not good enough at this price level.

very very impressed with the Sony dealer they have been excellent and completely supportive. sony dealer has told me they've now told sony they are not will to sell any more of these models as they are just wasting too much of their time. as of today they've got 8 more sets to send back!!!

hello all,this thread is really quite shocking...some early batch product launch`s suffer the odd teething problem,but its clear from this and other forums,that its more than that.Iv been a sony tv nut all of my life and were currently looking to update our brillant but sorely outdated  sony 44" rear projection tv..so it really came down to the HX923 55" or the samsung D8000 55"...

now as stated the samsung has suffered a fair amount of issues around banding/clouding ect...reading hours of posts on av forums/samsung owners sites ect,the D 7000/8000 some QC issues aswell..but it seems its fairly mixed..a bit "pot luck" i think...but samsungs attitude to these early reports seems to differ from that of sony in that they seem to recognise that if "the customer is not happy" then a replacement set is forthcoming..whether thats directly or through the retailer(J.L,robert wyte,total digital,richer sounds ect),their are some people who have gone through 4 d8000 sets before they are satisfied...

now whilst this is obviously not ideal,there doesnt appear to have been much quibbling from samsung,now contast that with the sony situation and it seems they are very much behind the curve on customer service.

Im not sony-bashing here,i love their tv`s.......we`v seen both hx923 and d8000 on full input demos and they are both stunning...the sony did have right hand crease and the samsung did have slight top corner clouding but for £1k more with corporate customer service seemingly stuck a decade behind some other brands...the aftersales issue becomes the tipping point...which is a shame because iv only ever owned sony tv`s.

I hope everybody gets a good resouloution with this..

cheers

andre

No, still not had a satisfactory response, Sony say they're "still investigating the issue". In the meantime we've published our review online, but added a link to this thread and noted the comments made by owners.

another sony store employee over on avforum checked all of their HX923's yesterday and has decided all have to go back, think they had 8 x 55" in stock and 6 x 46". based on the various forums its difficult to find anyone who's keeping theirs.

my dealer has had every single one they sold returned (and all of the replacements)

there is another batch of sets due in the UK in August which some owners/ex-owners (me included) are hoping will be fixed so we can re-purchase. if this next batch are just more of the same its going to be a real shame and a bit embarassing for sony.

not sure where i'm going to buy one from though as my current dealer has told me it is their intention not to order or sell this model anymore due to all of the returns and lost sales not to mention their time its wasted.

Hi Andy,

If you don't get a satisfactory response, maybe an update in the magazine would also be a good idea to inform potential owners of this issue.

I'll pass the suggestion on to my magazine colleagues.

i think andy/clare said WHF are doing a review of the 55" model and its competitors so that would be a good chance to mention the current farce that's going on in terms of us owners/ex-owners. mind reading the forums all of the competition sets (d8000 and vt30) seem to have their own foibles and rapid return rates as well. all in all 2011 doesn't seem to a brilliant year for high end TV's.

seems to be a total lack of focus on getting the basics right...i.e can the TV display good quailty uniform picture in 2D and more focus on can we pack in lots of gimmicky features that noone wants and use that as the reason its our flagship model then charge a premium for it.

surely from all of the returns and complaints manufacturers can see that you can pack in all of the "IP TV", "3D" stuff you like but if the TV cannot display a decent image and at the premium end a damn near perfect image (usual allowances for content being viewed) then people won't even get to the features as they'll have boxed it back up and be asking for a refund.

Its a real shame pioneer didn't hang about in the TV market and progress to LED at least they seemed to "get it" when it came to building a premium panel.

If it had, the scale of losses in its TV division might have taken down the whole company. And anyway, the LCD TVs – and thus presumably any future LED models – were ousourced.

this is the rub.....sony have never come forward and said they can produce these sets without this issue even at a minor level which kind of implies they are all going to have the issue to some degree. both my 55" sets did. so for me until they can change the production process and eliminate the problem i'm not sure i could ever be fully happy with my purchase so for now i got my money back. at £2800 for the 55" i had i felt it had to be right at that money and accepting a minor flaw or however they wish to sugar coat it just isn't on in my book. real shame as apart from this the PQ on the rest of the screen was excellent.

OK, we have a fresh statement from Sony, which acknowledges there may be issues with 'un-uniform', b but that's "within specification."

"After a thorough investigation, our engineers have not detected any process or production issues for these TV products. These TV products have a special structure at the front of an LCD panel for achieving vivid picture by improving its optical characteristic.  The structural characteristic might provoke a slightly visible un-uniformity of the brightness around the outer periphery of the display. 

All shipped products have passed our internal quality test and such un-uniformity is within the specification.  We are already explaining this to the few customers that have contacted us.  If any customers have a question about these products then please contact our customer services on 0844 846 6555."

We've included this statement in our review, along with the continued advice that  - especially with the likelihood of variations in performance - prospective purchasers try before they buy. There are certainly sets out there that suffer little/no problems, but it appears others may be more seriously affected.

thanks for the update clare!!!!

i LOVE it "un-uniform" funny that feature isn't mentioned in the list of other features the HX923 has...i must have missed that one

so having sent two of these back already I guess at least we now know that production process won't change so we either get another set or keep getting sets sent to us and sent back until we get one that is less-un-uniform OR we just ensure we ask to view the set in the store first and I mean view the actual set you'd receive NOT the display model OR we just forget this whole thing and wait for the new LG flagship model and see if they have "uniform" picture which seems like a not unreasonable request when spending nearly £3000 on a TV !