Sony who are being soundly beaten in the flat panel TV market by Samsung, who have had a lot of success recently, selling a new generation of LED TV’s, is now trying to discredit the Korean manufacturer.
Off the record Sony International PR executives are telling journalists that Samsung LED TV claims are a “farce”. They claim that their Sony Bravia LCD TV’s, that have witnessed a massive decline in sales globally are superior to the Samsung LED TV offering.
 Click to enlarge |
This is despite the fact that it is the Samsung LED TV offering that is being praised by critics around the world. In recent weeks leading magazines like What Hi Fi Sound and Vision, Home Cinema Choice and SmartHouse have chosen the Samsung LED TV offering over the Sony Bravia product when choosing their 2009 TV award winners.
Out of three keyconsumer electronics magazines in the UK not one has chosen a Sony Bravia TV in their awards. Instead they have chosen Philips, Samsung, Panasonic, LG and Toshiba TV’s for accolades.
Last Friday the Sony consumer electronics division, responsible for Sony Bravia LCD TV sales, reported massive losses and a 36.5% decline in sales as consumers turn away from Sony products.
Sony executives are claiming that the term LED TV is a “term exploited by some companies to increase the status of their brands in the mindshare of average consumers”.
Sony have admitted that Samsung marketing for their LED TV offering in Countries like Australia, the USA and the UK is hurting sales of their Bravia LCD TV offering.
In a move to damage Samsung’s LED message Sony has produced a chart for both retailers and consumers. The chart shown below claims that LED backlight technology is not what Samsung makes it out to be.
Sony Insider claims that light-emitting diode televisions (LED TVs) are LCD television sets that use LED as back light. LEDs in their current form are much too large to be individual pixels on a conventional television. The use of a true LED display is therefore reserved for much larger screens in sports grounds and other commercial locations.
 Click to enlarge |
Dynamic RGB LEDs which are positioned behind the panel (aka backlit). This method of backlighting allows dimming to occur locally creating specific areas of darkness on the screen. This means you see truer blacks and much higher dynamic contrast ratios. Edge lit (White Edge) LED’s are positioned around the rim of the screen which use a special diffusion panel to spread the light evenly behind the screen, like the Sony ZX1/XBR10. The edge lit method allows for LED-based TVs to become extremely thin.
The light is diffused across the screen by a special panel which produces a uniform colour range across the screen.
In Australia Sony, who sales of their Bravia LCD TV’s plummet earlier this year following the launch of Samsung LED TV’s has now resorted to giving away a PS3 and a 3 year warranty on their Bravia TV offerings. They have also resorted to heavy discounting in an effort to win back lost market share.
They have refused to comment for this story.
