Sony MFM-HT205 Monitor/TV

The Sony MFM-HT205 has a handsome, easel-like, brushed-aluminum bezel design that looks much like a luxury-model entertainment monitor than a high-definition TV. Sony’s latest TFT monitor, the MFM-HT205, is pitched in as an all-in-one solution for both PC and TV use. It has component, composite, and S-Video connections for TV use as well as the standard DVI connection for PC use. What is different with this model compared to other monitors/TV is that it has a built-in TV tuner and a TV remote.

The MFM-HT205 looks beautiful and metallic with a silver front and black back. The 16:10 ratio widescreen panel is situated nearer the top of the unit, with a large but by no means overwhelming speaker grille below. The interesting design of the unit means that the front actually curves outwards. There’s also side-mounted S-Video/Composite plus Stereo Audio inputs and a headphone jack - just like Sony’s TVs.

The MFM-HT205 offers some advanced screen adjustments, such as four different gamma settings. It also includes treble, bass, and balance controls for the integrated speakers, which sounded bright and full for a desktop monitor.

As for its performance, Sony clocks this unit at 6ms response time. The panel features Sony’s X-Black coating which has an interesting effect. It gives the picture a certain depth/richness, however at the same time this might cause problems for people wanting to use the monitor in sunlit areas because it had the tendency to add glare to the screen as well. Either way, the effect is overall a good one. When connected to the DVI-D input, the monitor offers spectacular image quality. DVI, as you’d expect, is pixel-perfect when using the 1680×1050 native resolution. There was no light image noise visible on gray areas noticed.

Connecting an HDMI DVD player using an HDMI to DVI cable gave fairly good results, but really there’s not much point in pairing this monitor with a set-top DVD player when you can just use a software DVD player from your computer. Nevertheless, when using this setup, 720×480 (480p) video looks extremely pixelated as the screen was reproducing the output of the player exactly without trying to “improve” the picture. This happens because of the fact that the DVI input was designed for monitor use and not for video purposes.

Although a lot of people will have their own computer speakers anyway, this monitor also features two 3.5mm jacks for sound, one for the DVI input, the other for HD15. That’s a great addition because it essentially means you could have two computers hooked up to this screen.

The built-in speakers obviously aren’t that fantastic, but with slight tweaking with the Treble and Bass in the menu up, they actually sound a lot better. The SRS fake-Surround processing also gives things an interesting sound.

The Sony MFM-HT05’s design stands out, but its screen doesn’t make as positive an impression. In the course of the review, the set is only praised as a monitor but is found wanting as a high-definition television. This screen will make a lot of people who want to use it for gaming, web browsing, or other computer functions, very happy indeed - but will disappoints videophiles looking for a TV set.

Source:
http://www.engadget.com
http://reviews.cnet.com
http://msn.pcworld.com
http://reviews.digitaltrends.com