AUGUST 2020 T3 49Mid-range 4K TVs
SONY XH9505
he cheapest TV in our test, the Sony XH9505
is eminently affordable, with the 65-inch set
coming in a cool £800 less than the LG CX.
That price starts to look better and better as
you run down this TV’s feature list. For starters, its LCD
panel is direct lit, and separate zones of its LEDs can
output different levels of light during any given shot,
which always contributes to superior contrast. And while
60 separate dimming zones isn’t a huge amount, it’s not
just the number that counts; it’s what you do with them.
In most ways, the pictures produced are pretty
glorious. They’re extremely bright: its peaks of just over
1,000 nits in Standard mode and around 980 nits in
Cinema mode sit at the higher end of the LCD TV
spectrum. These brightness levels are very consistent,
too, which plays into its colours; they retain as much
punch and naturalism during dark scenes as bright ones.
However, things get complicated with HDR shots that
contain a strident mix of very bright and very dark areas.
You can at times see quite extended areas of light around
the bright objects – though crucially, thanks to Sony’s
impressive backlight controls, the blooming is both faint
and undefined at its edges.
In terms of audio, the new features Sony has
introduced work wonders. The Multi-Audio system, forT
The audio features work
wonders, creating a
prodigious soundstage
starters, helps to create a prodigiously large soundstage
that casts sound far to the left and right of the screen.
From here on in, things get more mixed. So, for
instance, while it supports the HDR10, HLG and Dolby
Vision HDR formats, it doesn’t support the HDR10+
format. To be fair, there’s much more Dolby Vision
content around than HDR10+ content, but there are TVs
out there now that support both formats.
There’s also no support for such (potentially) key
next-gen gaming features as for 4K 120Hz HDR playback,
Automatic Low Latency Mode switching and Variable
Refresh Rate support. Provided you remember to activate
the Game mode manually when you’re gaming, though, it
reduces input lag to a pretty respectable 18.5ms.
The Sony XH9505 isn’t perfect. It lacks a few features
now starting to appear pretty routinely on rival flagship
4K TVs, and its backlighting occasionally makes its
presence felt a little too strongly. But it still combines
barnstorming sound with pictures which, for the vast
majority of the time, are truly things of beauty.SONY
XH9505
PRODUCT 01:
A brilliant 4K LED TV, delivering dazzling
HDR and superb motion for sportsBrightness levels are consistent, which plays into its colours; they retain the
same amount of punch and naturalism during dark scenes as in bright ones