SI: Sony Bravia 2011 Line Up Introduced in Europe & Japan, Pricing Details Revealed

[Christopher]

We all know that CES product extravaganza usually would be a good indicator of what to expect pretty much for all markets and not just the US, however it looks like January 20th was a big day for Sony Europe and Sony Japan, where the company officially revealed the Bravia family line up and also announced some pricing information. It is interesting to note that in the Japanese event in Tokyo has not revealed any information on the high end model – the HX92 series range.

However, the event that took place in Copenhagen brought forth some interesting details and classification of the Bravia offerings. Expect to see the following in Europe: there are three ranges that Sony would like you to look at while choosing your new TV:

• Cinematic Range which represents HX72 (40 and 46″ models), HX82(46″ and 55″) and high end HX92 (46″, 55″ and 65″) models. The latter will be supplied with a pair of two new and improved 3D glasses and the KDL-65HX92 will even have Skype HD camera included in the package. For all the bells and whistles please see the slide below. Note that USB recording is included as a feature and will support USB Hard Drives (Sony recommends Western Digital brand) and USB flash drives. The US models are lacking that feature apparently. Expect the 55″ model sell for 3300 Euro.

• Presence Range features one and only Edge LED NX72 series. The 55″ model will be released in March/April for 2400 Euro.

• Essential Range consists of budget and lower end Bravia models including Edge LED EX32, EX52/72 as well as regular CCFL LCD models such as BX32/42 and CX52. It’s interesting to note again that the range in the CX line up (32″, 40″ and 46″) has a pretty beefy specification sheet and includes pretty nice features such as X-Reality, Skype, WiFi, DLNA, Clear Phase Speaker, S-Force Front Surround 3D, S-Master Digital Amplifier, Presence Sensor, Web Browser, etc. I would have loved to see these two: S-Force Front Surround 3D, S-Master Digital Amplifier included with the HX models as they represent Sony’s technology used in many Audio products as well as new 2011 Handycams.

Here is a pricing table available for some of the models above:

In Japan similar models were introduced except the high end HX models (most likely will be revealed later since they won’t be shipping those until late summer) and a number of Internet enabled apps will be included, for example what surprised us the most is a Twitter application is present in Japanese models and has been totally omitted in the US and EU models, and I am sure we all on this side and the other side of the pond tweet a lot! Bravia XBR10 was the last one to feature Twitter here in the US back in 2009.

Lots of other apps are included and are specific to Japanese market like DMM.tv, U-Next, Shufoo, Public Transportation schedule, Life-X (a combination of photo sharing services), acTVila and even Felica.

Sony’s CES Bravia Line-up In Japan from SpacePigTV on Vimeo.

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