Sony Bravia KDL22S5700 LCD television

Sony’s Bravia KDL22S5700 is a 22in LCD television that’s stylish, portable and capable. It’s not a Full HD TV, but given its screen size, it doesn’t need to be. Its picture quality is better than we expected.

It looks similar to the Bravia KDL20S4000], and it's an attractive television. The bezel is only available in white, but you can choose from models with one of four different coloured accents. We were a little disappointed to find that the green model wasn’t entirely green and the pink TV wasn’t entirely pink — the white styling is a little too safe and conservative for our liking. A green LED clock is hidden in the lower bezel. It can be turned off if you don’t want it, but we think it adds a bedroom-friendly aspect to the television’s design. The unit’s remote control is easy to use, with the majority of buttons well labelled.

As you’d expect from a small screen that’s most likely going to sit on a bedside table or desk, the Sony Bravia KDL22S5700 has an angled stand somewhat like a digital photo frame. A carry handle is built into the rear of the television. We would have loved to see a telescopic aerial integrated into the television for extra portability; an external battery pack might be asking a little too much of the relatively thin design.

Despite being a small television the Sony Bravia KDL22S5700 has all the ports you’ll need, with two HDMI, two component, three composite and one D-Sub connector ensuring you will be able to hook up most modern devices. USB2.0 and Ethernet also make appearances, though the positioning of the Ethernet port on the side is a strange choice.

The Bravia KDL22S5700 is the only non-Full HD panel in Sony’s line-up, with a native resolution of 1366x768. The advanced Bravia Engine 3 takes care of image processing for the panel, with some impressive results. The television handles 1080p sources all the way down to 480p DVDs without any problems. The on-board up-scaling imparted a good level of image detail to the DVD version of The Matrix, with good colour and black levels. Limited image adjustment is available through the picture setup menus, which use Sony’s XMB interface.

We were surprised to see 24p cinema frame rate support in a 22in TV, and the end result is a television largely free of judder and image distortion. There is no 100Hz mode, but the image is generally smooth when watching high-definition Blu-ray content.

The integrated speakers of the Sony Bravia KDL22S5700 are good for a small television, with adequate treble and mid-range to make dialogue feel realistic and natural. There’s little to no bass response, so music doesn't sound great, but for television and watching the occasional movie the TV has acceptable audio. A headphone port is also available.

Network connectivity and USB storage playback are good additions on a small unit — especially if it’s used in the bedroom, where it isn't likely to be near a PC or Blu-ray player. The usual audio and picture file types are supported, but we were disappointed by a lack of compressed video support. If Sony implemented decoding for DivX, XviD or even WMV file types we think the Sony Bravia KDL22S5700 would become the go-to gadget for watching downloaded or home-made media files away from your PC or main TV.

All up, the Sony Bravia KDL22S500 is a great package. It's stylish if slightly bland, it has plenty of connection options and multimedia features, and it delivers good picture quality for a small screen. If you need a second TV around the house, give it some serious consideration.