Sony releases new 4K TVs in Australia

SONY has released a new range of 4K TVs but will continue not to offer special 4K content to Australian customers.

Sony X9500B ultra high definition TV

SONY has released a new range of 4K TVs but will continue not to offer special 4K content to Australian customers.

The Japanese manufacturer has announced 8 new ultra-high definition or 4K TV models for the Australian market. They range from the 85-inch X9500B costing $19,999 available now, to the 49-inch X8500B available next month. The cheapest available to date, a 55-inch model, costs $3499.

It’s new Bravia 4K line-up concentrates on the basics: strong screen colours without oversharpened images, powerful sound through forward facing magnetic fluid speakers on the X9000B range, and its proprietary X-Reality PRO engine, which takes lower quality footage and upscales it to 4K quality.

Sony claims the picture quality of upscaled content has a greater depth of colour and offers more detail than rivals Samsung and LG, and to try to prove the point, displayed its TVs next to its rivals’ premium 65-inch models and invited journalists to compare picture and sound quality.

Sony’s display certainly delivered more saturated colours with good detail; the question is which offered the most accurate representation of colours at default settings.

Sony also has revamped its smart-TV interface with separate movies, albums, music, app and channel screens that link both to Sony’s paid streaming services such as Video Unlimited and Music Unlimited, and a user’s home network media files.

Users can chose directories from across their home network from which media will be catalogued for selection on the TV.

There’s around 500 available apps to chose from for the apps interface.

In the US, Sony kicked off its high definition TV marketing by offering users 4K content on USB or a hard drive.

In Australia, it’s relying on users to source 4K content themselves, to upscale vision streamed via the internet or from BluRay disks or games. While not of 4K quality, BluRay vision looked sharp on the 85-inch 4K model we viewed, as did games on the PlayStation 4.

Users can create their own 4K content using the Sony Xperia Z2 smartphone or its FDR-AX100E 4K camcorder which costs $2499.

The upscaler had less of an impact when trying to improve lower resolution video streamed from the internet. The new TV’s have a mobile high definition link (MHL), a powered HDMI connector which lets users play 4K video from the Xperia Z2.