Review: Sony X95 LED LCD 4K smart TV
Sony’s X95H LED LCD smart TV offers a great viewing experience without burning a hole in your pocket.
The TV market may be swooned by high precision OLED displays, but 2020-style LED LCD models can be great without burning a hole in your pocket.
That’s my conclusion after trialling a 65-inch Sony X95H 4K smart TV now selling in Australia.
The Japanese multinational has a different TV line-up in 2020. The top-of-range is the premium Z8H series, at this stage a single 85-inch 8K LED/LCD TV that is game ready for the coming PlayStation 5 with HDMI 2.1 connectivity. That means it can cope with the most demanding games coming to PS5. That’s just as well, because the first 8K content we’ll likely see in Australia is games. Being 8K makes the Z8H a monster for image resolution.
The next series is A8H comprising 55 and 65-inch 4K OLED sets. OLED offers the premium TV viewing experience but comes at increased cost – $3495 and $4495 respectively.
Then there’s what I reviewed: the X95H series comprising 55, 65 and 75-inch sets. The X95H series may be third in line, but it’s what Sony is keen to promote.
It is probably the series that most consumers would upgrade to, given its relative affordability. The 55, 65, and 75-inch sets sell for a recommended $2295, $2695 and $3995 respectively. They are available online from Sony and major retailers.
The range has a modern, minimalist look with the display dominating the appearance, rather than the frame and legs. There is a thin, anodised brushed-aluminium bezel around the screen; Sony calls the colour gunmetal grey. There are tiny legs at left and right which can slide inward should you mount the set on a relatively thin table.
The X95H’s best feature is display quality. It’s not premium OLED (organic LED), but you get the appearance of very dark blacks and bright whites as OLED offers. Sony uses what it terms “full array LED” where pixel lighting is controlled in groups for better overall contrast. Unfortunately Sony won’t reveal the number of pixels in each zone. That shouldn’t be a mystery.
Nevertheless black, white and colour reproduction is bright, vivid and colourful, and while I could see slightly jagged edges if I stood right close to the set, at any distance the edges of images are really sharp.
You might already own an LED/LCD set, but there’s lots of innovation on offer in 2020 that wouldn’t be available on sets bought a few years ago.
This 4K set supports high dynamic range (HDR) that better displays details in bright and dark areas of images. There’s Sony’s Triluminos feature which increases the range of colours and shading options, and its X1 Ultimate processor that upscales picture resolution from 720-line free-to-air and 1080p quality to 4K. It’s the same processor used with the premium Z8H 8K set.
There’s wider viewing angles, a feature called X-Motion clarity that reduces blur during motion, and certified Netflix calibration. The TV uses metadata supplied by Netflix during streaming to enhance the accuracy of images. There’s Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos for better image quality and audio accuracy using metadata that accompanies movies.
The technological tweaks that TV manufacturers offer can seem overwhelming and you can feel blinded by the science. It’s simpler to say that Sony’s X95H offers a battery of technology to improve the images of whatever you view, and the result is impressive.
Audio quality is solid too with down-firing woofers for mid range and lower range audio located at the bottom left and right, and tweeters at the left and right edges about halfway up.
The set supports all of Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit and Apple Airplay. You can use voice commands to address whatever digital butler you prefer. You can control the TV from Amazon Alexa and Apple HomeKit devices that are part of your home network. You can use voice to adjust the volume, change channels, search for content or load an app.
Support for Google Home is baked into the TV. You can control your home connected devices using Google Home from this set.
The X95H range are Android TVs with the easy, intuitive menu system that Android offers. The menu is arranged in rows; apps make up the top row, a “Play Next Feature” of suggested media comes next, followed by a “Sony Select” row of recommended apps.
That is followed by individual rows for each app with recommended content. You can control which of these rows appear on the TV menu.
You can tweak the TV menu to throw a lot of relevant content your way, and make choices from the screen as to what you see.
As expected this Android TV has Google Chromecast built in so you don’t need a specific Chromecast dongle. It will cast at the available resolution for Netflix, Disney, Stan and some others. You can cast in 4K if an app and its content supports it, and experience Dolby vision if the media supports it.
This year’s remote is considerably thinner than last year’s Sony remote, and is Bluetooth, so you don’t need to point it at the TV. It’s reasonably uncluttered, and easy to navigate. There are dedicated Google Play and Netflix buttons and navigation is intuitive, You can easily head back a step, or go straight to the home screen or to free-to-air TV in a single press.
The remote also has a quick settings button, and you can prioritise the particular menu items displayed to prioritise those you select more often.
The remote offers both voice and typing for searches. You can search for specific movies, or movies with a specific actor across services. The TV preferences Google Play movies in search results, but you can get Netflix, Stan, YouTube and Disney + movies in search results too.
You are spoiled for choice on Android TVs with apps: Binge, Prime TV, YouTube, Kayo Sports, Netflix, Foxtel and Disney+ are all available for a start. All the catch-up services are there too: SBS On Demand, ABC iview, 7plus, 9Now and 10 play.
Sony says these catch-up apps can also fire-up streams of all the free-to-air TV channels now that SBS has finally come aboard. Sony tells me this is the first year their sets have done this.
It means you won’t miss out on your favourite TV shows if you can’t plug your set into an external aerial, or you’re in an area with poor TV reception. You will of course need the internet.
The back panel offers four HDMI slots with HDMI eARC for sending audio from your TV to a soundab, and HDMI CEC which lets you control devices connected to your TV with the remote.
The only thing really missing is support for the fastest PS5 games with HDMI-2.1 That is available on the premium Z8H and a slightly cheaper model, the X90H.
In all, the X95H is a great LED/LCD TV with excellent quality at an affordable price. If you have a spare $3995, lash out and buy the big 75-inch set and enjoy a near cinematic experience in your living room.
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