I just purchased it & it will arrive today. I sold my Mitsubishi 55807 after 2 years of great service, due to the fact that it doesn't fit into our TV nook & we have a 15 month old baby who needs the space the TV takes up. The Sony will fit right in. I've done a TON of investigating & visiting of stores. Here's what I've seen so far. Aesthetically, this set is the best looking in it's size/price range. Very well styled & very attractive outer shell. Now on to the important stuff. After viewing the 51" Hitachi, 50" Toshiba, 52" RCA, 48" Mitsubishi, & 50"? Panasonic, & this TV, they all have distinct personalities, but I narrowed it down to just 2 TV's. When given GOOD HDTV signals, the Hitachi & Sony are superior in image detail, color, & overall clarity to any of the other's mentioned. When comparing the two directly, the Hitachi's picture seems a bit brighter (I've always found Sony's to have a slightly darker picture) while the Sony seems just a bit more detailed. Overall I think I might have liked the Hitachi's HD picture just a touch better, but I've read that with a little service menu tweaking, the Sony catches up very quickly. The Hitachi HD seemed to be a bit smoother, but I think it was because of Sony's detail level. For DVD's, the Sony seemed to be the best of the bunch. The picture it provided was simply great. I loved Sony's menu system & available features. The Sony's audio seemed better to me as well as was the remote.
Now on to the weaker things. When given a basic cable signal, both the Sony & the Hitachi were more grainy than any of the others. The Toshiba was by far the best picture with a lower quality signal & the Sony was the worst with the Hitachi close behind. I'm positive this correlates directly to the fact that these two sets provided greater details in their HD & DVD picture. Don't get me wrong, the picture for cable was perfectly acceptable on the Sony & Hitachi (better than my 55807), but still considerably worse than the Toshiba. This is where the Toshiba shines. On the negative side for the Tosh, I could see some streaking or tiny lines however in the picture at times which I didn't like.
The stretch modes were best on the Mitsubishi (and similar Pioneers which were the best, but way up in price so I don't mention them). Next in line for stretch was the Toshiba. The gap was pretty big from there. Sony's modes were ok while the Hitachi was the worst of the bunch. Sony's best mode was a zoom mode where you can position the picture. I thought it lost very little picutre & looked much better than what the Hitachi did. I still like the natural stetching of the Mits. & Pioneer where the middle stays normal & the sides stretch more. Some people hate that though.
In the end, it was down to the Hitachi & Sony. I thought the pictures were VERY comparable for HD although slightly in favor of the Hitachi while DVD performance leaned toward the Sony. The cable output on the Hitachi was worse than the Sony & so were the stretch modes. The Sony also would fit perfectly right into my TV nook while I would have to get a contractor to widen it by 1 inch for the Hitachi. The Sony looked nicer too. So, I picked the Sony. If the size wasn't a factor, it would have been a VERY tough choice, but I think I'd still go with they Sony. They both have their pro's & con's.
Hope that helps, I'll report more later.
-Todd