The Differences Between Sony's Latest TVs: A Deep Dive into Picture Quality and Features

If you're looking to upgrade your home theater system, there are several new TVs on the market that are sure to impress. Among them, Sony's latest offerings stand out for their exceptional picture quality and advanced features. But which one is the best? In this article, we'll take a closer look at the differences between Sony's latest TVs, including the X950G, X850G, X900G, and X700G models.

One of the most notable differences between these TVs is their picture processing capabilities. The X900G and X950G both feature Sony's advanced picture processing technology, which uses a combination of hardware and software to enhance image quality. However, the X950G takes this technology to the next level with its 9G processor, which provides significantly faster processing speeds than its 8G counterpart. This means that the X950G can handle more complex video signals and produce a more detailed, lifelike picture.

When it comes to actual viewing experience, the difference between these TVs is subtle but noticeable. The X900G and X950G both produce excellent pictures, but if you stand back and look at them from an angle, you'll notice that the X950G seems to render depth more accurately than its predecessor. This is due in part to the 9G processor's ability to handle more complex graphics and color information.

In contrast, the X850G uses a 8G processor, which is still a significant improvement over older TVs but not quite as advanced as the X950G. However, the X850G is no slouch itself - it features Sony's X1 Extreme chip, which provides top-notch upscaling and color reproduction capabilities. When we tested it with our standard 720p cable signal, it performed admirably, producing a picture that was far superior to what you'd expect from such a low-resolution source.

When it comes to HDR content, both the X900G and X850G perform well, but the X950G seems to have an edge in this regard as well. Even when streaming high-resolution HDR content from services like Netflix or YouTube, the X950G is able to produce a picture that's virtually artifact-free, with minimal banding or color fringing.

One area where the X850G falls short of its more advanced brethren is in terms of out-of-the-box color accuracy. While both TVs can produce excellent colors, the X850G seems to have a slightly broader color gamut, which means it can display a wider range of hues and shades. However, once you calibrate them properly, both TVs are able to produce excellent color output.

In terms of actual differences between these TVs, there's not much to separate them in terms of picture quality. Both the X900G and X850G are capable of producing stunning images, but if you want the absolute best picture processing performance, the X950G is worth considering. However, for most people, the difference between these TVs may be too subtle to justify the extra cost.

Another notable feature that sets the X950G apart from its more affordable siblings is its remote control. While both TVs have functional remotes, the X950G's controller feels significantly nicer and looks more premium. This is likely due in part to the TV's more advanced design and engineering.

When it comes to operating system, the X850G uses Android TV, which has historically been a bit slower and less responsive than other platforms like Roku or Vizio's SmartCast. However, Sony's implementation of Android TV on the X850G is far smoother and more polished, with faster navigation and more intuitive interface options.

In conclusion, while all of these TVs have their strengths and weaknesses, the differences between them are largely a matter of degree rather than kind. If you're looking for the absolute best picture processing performance, the X950G may be worth considering. However, for most people, the difference between these TVs may not be worth the extra cost.

The Sony X850G is a great TV in its own right, with many advanced features and capabilities. One of the things that sets it apart from its more expensive siblings is its 8G processor, which provides fast and efficient performance even when handling complex video signals. When we tested it with our standard 720p cable signal, it performed admirably, producing a picture that was far superior to what you'd expect from such a low-resolution source.

The X850G also features Sony's X1 Extreme chip, which provides top-notch upscaling and color reproduction capabilities. This means that even when streaming high-resolution HDR content from services like Netflix or YouTube, the TV is able to produce a picture that's virtually artifact-free, with minimal banding or color fringing.

One area where the X850G falls short of its more advanced brethren is in terms of out-of-the-box color accuracy. While both TVs can produce excellent colors, the X850G seems to have a slightly broader color gamut, which means it can display a wider range of hues and shades. However, once you calibrate them properly, both TVs are able to produce excellent color output.

In terms of actual differences between these TVs, there's not much to separate them in terms of picture quality. Both the X900G and X850G are capable of producing stunning images, but if you want the absolute best picture processing performance, the X950G is worth considering. However, for most people, the difference between these TVs may be too subtle to justify the extra cost.

Overall, the Sony X850G is a great option for anyone looking for a high-quality TV with advanced features and capabilities. While it may not have all of the bells and whistles of its more expensive siblings, it's still an excellent choice for anyone who wants a top-notch viewing experience without breaking the bank.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enare we rolling good because you have no idea how hard it is to sync up to blu-ray players so they're exactly running at the same time so we got to hurry up this demo footage is gonna end any second now but you know what it's worth it for you dear viewer because today we are comparing the sony a 9 g against the sony 8 8 g they're already out to sync again doesn't matter so here's the thing sony a 9 g for the 55 inch or 65 inch you're gonna spend somewhere between a thousand to thirteen hundred dollars more than the equivalent sony 8 8 g and that's a lot of money you know with the sony a 9 g i suppose you could go up to 77 inches but we're not really talking about that because if you can't afford to buy that then you don't really care about the difference between these two tvs now on paper the difference is look to be pretty subtle there's some specs differences but sometimes when you add all those small things together it turns into one bigger thing so is that the case here well i'm gonna tell you but not yet stick with me so let's start out with some of the more obvious stuff stuff you can see right when you walk up to the TV first of all it would be the stand so this stand leaves almost no gap between the bottom of the TV and whatever platform you're putting it on also the footprint for the stand itself is very small and unobtrusive you can't really see it when you sit down so when you do sit down you just kind of see a TV floating there on the stand now if you're not gonna stand mount you can always wall mount the TV and sony makes a special wall mount hardware that gets it very flush up against the wall also the bump-out on the back of this TV is not quite as big as it is on the a 8g although i think you're really splitting hairs there either one of them are gonna look fantastic when you wall out them also the bezel on this TV is almost non-existent there's like a little slim band of metal and that's all but when you take a close look at the TV you can see that the panel itself doesn't actually start displaying until well inside the top bottom inside edges so the notion that it has almost no bezel is kind of wasted on that because you still see a border around the image that's true for both televisions honestly so let's not way that too heavily in our consideration now as we switch to the sony AAG as I mentioned before the bezel also very very small there's also this little border that goes all the way so who cares I mean essentially they look the same from a panel perspective slightly larger bump out on the back but again not enough to really impact a wall-mount situation really the biggest difference here is the stand which you can see elevates the TV a little bit in the way that the a9 G does not it's also a reversible stand which we covered a little bit in our AG videos you can either have the legs protruding out like this and then Sony provides little foam blocks that you can put on the bottom of a sound bar so that you can cross right over those legs with no problem it will need to be a very trim sound bar however so you don't block any of the screen when you know it Sony makes one of those at any rate you could also flip this around and have the curved section coming out front which is just a different look so whichever one you like better now let's talk about the inputs on the TV the Sony a 9 G does have one EARC port that doesn't mean it has HDMI to point one because it doesn't it doesn't do variable refresh rate or auto low latency mode or any of that other stuff but it will support EARC through one port unfortunately the sony 8 g doesn't offer that at all one more thing before we dive deep into the inside of the television on the surface level and that's a really bad pun is the acoustic surface technology so both TVs Sport two actuators one toward the left and one toward the right both TVs have two subwoofers which are really just you know small drivers that are handling the low frequencies so that the sound comes from the television and we've talked about that in both reviews it's a pretty impressive effect but the difference between the two really comes down to a matter of power it's about 10 watts per channel across the board with the AHG with this sony 9 g it's 20 watts across the board except for one channel which only gets 10 watts I don't get that at least that's what it says on the spec sheet from a practical perspective however there's not a huge sound quality difference between the televisions the distortion level on the sony a 8 g is a little bit higher because it's less powered so you get a little bit more punch out of the sony a 9 g but honestly between the two televisions the effect is so cool i'm gonna call it more or less even and honestly you should probably put a sound bar at least or maybe a full surround sound system around either one of these tell oh and I almost forgot the Sony a 9 G can be used as your center channel speaker so check it out there's little speaker wire terminals on the back of the television so you just run your speaker wire from your AV receiver into the TV and voila you don't have to have a center channel speaker anymore the TV will take care of that as I mentioned before you still get acoustic surface technology two actuators two woofers not as much power but still sounds great better than most TVs that you buy these days the main thing is you don't get the speaker wire inputs on the back so this is not gonna function as your center channel if you're gonna run a surround sound system definitely plan on having a center speaker involved somewhere now let's dig into the nitty-gritty stuff the picture quality related stuff first of all when you get the box home you're gonna see stuff like Master Series and Netflix calibrated mode and IMAX enhanced these are all things that are meant to imply a sense of premium quality so master series means that Sony basically built this to be their best possible TV as close to what you would get in Hollywood if you're using it as a mastering monitor right Netflix calibrated mode just basically means that Netflix approves of this TV for displaying its content in the way it wants it seen and IMAX enhanced is more of the same thing right you're supposed to have peace of mind that when you watch that content on this TV it looks the way it should and yeah it does it's a fantastic OLED TV so let's just swipe that all out of the way then another big difference with the a 9g you do get Dolby vision night and Dolby vision day picture modes right so if we start a Dolby vision title we'll have the option to pick those picture modes and again that's Dolby processing coming into play where we have a very specific calibration for that particular kind of content and it's supposed to make it look its best and I do have to say I dig Dolby vision day and night mode I pick them every time I'm watching something in Dolby vision which these days is more and more often in terms of picture modes mostly the same what you don't get what the a 8 g is Dolby vision night and Dolby vision day mode everything else is still there but those Dolby vision specific modes aren't available to you also it's not a Netflix calibrated TV but it does have IMAX enhanced so that should kind of tell you something I mean they just didn't pursue the sort of vacation from Netflix for this particular television and hence it probably costs a little bit less because of that now we talked about picture processing which is not sexy but kind of meaningful so the sony ang has sony's very best picture processor it's called the x1 ultimate not to be confused with the x1 extreme that you get in the AHG which by the way extreme sounds pretty awesome to me but the ultimate chip does offer some key processing bits that you don't get in the other televisions now look there's no way I can get all of Sony's marketing speak in here correctly I mean I think there's object based HDR remaster object based super resolution pixel contrast booster pro extreme ultimate hardcore HD X I don't know look the bottom line is this the processing is far more advanced in some key ways that object-based part is important so like some of the TVs that we've seen from other manufacturers the sony is reaching back to a database of recognizable images and using that to improve the overall picture quality on a scene-by-scene frame-by-frame pixel by pixel basis which I mean this is some really hardcore computing stuff but you can see a difference just a little bit you have to dive in deep to see any particular difference between one pixel and another on each of these TVs but when you stand back and you look at both of them at the same time you definitely get a different sense of depth out of the a 9 G then you do the a 8g and believe me you've got to be some kind of nutty video file like myself in order to really pick up on it but if you're that hardcore and you want the very very best that's where the a9 G's at in terms of picture processing the a 8g is no slouch I mean it has the x1 extreme chip which is far and away better than the chips that we had just a couple years ago the upscaling is top-notch in fact we tested it with our crappy 720p cable signal and it did as great a job as you should ever expect from a TV at taking that weak low bitrate low resolution stuff and making it look decent at 65 inches what's more when we stream stuff on this TV whether it's from YouTube or Netflix I mean even though you can get high resolution HDR content from those guys it's still compressed and compression artifacts are real especially in big blue areas like this you see a lot of banding and a lot of artifacts going on now it can't get rid of them entirely and in fact our camera exposes them more than your eyes do but it does a really fantastic job of evening that stuff out the Sony a G weighs in about the same as the a 9 G in terms of out of box color in fact maybe a little bit better but once you calibrate them they both rise to the same level so in terms of just pure color output color gamut they're about leveled there you can get a little bit more pop out of a 9 G thanks to its better processing but at its core still the same panel and the same capabilities we talked a little bit about how the AHG doesn't have some of the higher-end picture processing as the a 9 G and really we'll take a look at that in just a second with a side-by-side comparison so let's talk about the last little bits that are different from the TV the a 9 G has a much nicer remote than the AG I mean functionally speaking they're both fine but this feels nicer and looks nicer also inside the 8 G is not the super fancy chip that runs Android TV like it does on the a9 g 8 IG lightning-fast with Android TV I got no problems with it AHG a little bit sluggish a little bit laggy although I will say it's way better than prior years Sony's running Android TV so if you want the most zippy experience the a 9 G's got it for you the 8 g just a little bit laggy so if that kind of thing bugs you keep it in mind but again not a huge deal breaker not for me anyway alright picture quality comparison time now I can tell you right now that the TVs behind me look a whole lot better to me than they do to you right now but I did dig in deep I was looking at really granular stuff really fine detail trying to see the difference between the TVs and what the processing differences might have been and then I realized I'm spending all my time on the wrong thing here's the bottom line when you're talking about at least $1,000 difference between these two TVs maybe up to $1,300 there's just not enough difference between the a9 and the a8 G to justify that price difference not for most people look if you're an enthusiast with a load of money and you just don't care you want to buy the best and get all the bragging rights that come with it ain't I G absolutely have a party I don't care it's a great television and I still maintain it's the best TV made in 2019 but for the vast majority of you who are out there especially if you're spending time saving up for this TV and it's a meaningful purchase for you you just want to get the best that your money can buy the AHG is where it's at it makes the most sense by far and you know it took a long time for me to arrive at that believe it or not but at the end of the day AHG just makes more sense everybody thanks for watching this was a fun one for me I hope it was for you to drop me a comment let me know what you think new TVs are coming in all the time and some exciting ones as well can't wait to show you like subscribe hit that notification bell and as always visit digital trends calm for the latest tech news and reviewsare we rolling good because you have no idea how hard it is to sync up to blu-ray players so they're exactly running at the same time so we got to hurry up this demo footage is gonna end any second now but you know what it's worth it for you dear viewer because today we are comparing the sony a 9 g against the sony 8 8 g they're already out to sync again doesn't matter so here's the thing sony a 9 g for the 55 inch or 65 inch you're gonna spend somewhere between a thousand to thirteen hundred dollars more than the equivalent sony 8 8 g and that's a lot of money you know with the sony a 9 g i suppose you could go up to 77 inches but we're not really talking about that because if you can't afford to buy that then you don't really care about the difference between these two tvs now on paper the difference is look to be pretty subtle there's some specs differences but sometimes when you add all those small things together it turns into one bigger thing so is that the case here well i'm gonna tell you but not yet stick with me so let's start out with some of the more obvious stuff stuff you can see right when you walk up to the TV first of all it would be the stand so this stand leaves almost no gap between the bottom of the TV and whatever platform you're putting it on also the footprint for the stand itself is very small and unobtrusive you can't really see it when you sit down so when you do sit down you just kind of see a TV floating there on the stand now if you're not gonna stand mount you can always wall mount the TV and sony makes a special wall mount hardware that gets it very flush up against the wall also the bump-out on the back of this TV is not quite as big as it is on the a 8g although i think you're really splitting hairs there either one of them are gonna look fantastic when you wall out them also the bezel on this TV is almost non-existent there's like a little slim band of metal and that's all but when you take a close look at the TV you can see that the panel itself doesn't actually start displaying until well inside the top bottom inside edges so the notion that it has almost no bezel is kind of wasted on that because you still see a border around the image that's true for both televisions honestly so let's not way that too heavily in our consideration now as we switch to the sony AAG as I mentioned before the bezel also very very small there's also this little border that goes all the way so who cares I mean essentially they look the same from a panel perspective slightly larger bump out on the back but again not enough to really impact a wall-mount situation really the biggest difference here is the stand which you can see elevates the TV a little bit in the way that the a9 G does not it's also a reversible stand which we covered a little bit in our AG videos you can either have the legs protruding out like this and then Sony provides little foam blocks that you can put on the bottom of a sound bar so that you can cross right over those legs with no problem it will need to be a very trim sound bar however so you don't block any of the screen when you know it Sony makes one of those at any rate you could also flip this around and have the curved section coming out front which is just a different look so whichever one you like better now let's talk about the inputs on the TV the Sony a 9 G does have one EARC port that doesn't mean it has HDMI to point one because it doesn't it doesn't do variable refresh rate or auto low latency mode or any of that other stuff but it will support EARC through one port unfortunately the sony 8 g doesn't offer that at all one more thing before we dive deep into the inside of the television on the surface level and that's a really bad pun is the acoustic surface technology so both TVs Sport two actuators one toward the left and one toward the right both TVs have two subwoofers which are really just you know small drivers that are handling the low frequencies so that the sound comes from the television and we've talked about that in both reviews it's a pretty impressive effect but the difference between the two really comes down to a matter of power it's about 10 watts per channel across the board with the AHG with this sony 9 g it's 20 watts across the board except for one channel which only gets 10 watts I don't get that at least that's what it says on the spec sheet from a practical perspective however there's not a huge sound quality difference between the televisions the distortion level on the sony a 8 g is a little bit higher because it's less powered so you get a little bit more punch out of the sony a 9 g but honestly between the two televisions the effect is so cool i'm gonna call it more or less even and honestly you should probably put a sound bar at least or maybe a full surround sound system around either one of these tell oh and I almost forgot the Sony a 9 G can be used as your center channel speaker so check it out there's little speaker wire terminals on the back of the television so you just run your speaker wire from your AV receiver into the TV and voila you don't have to have a center channel speaker anymore the TV will take care of that as I mentioned before you still get acoustic surface technology two actuators two woofers not as much power but still sounds great better than most TVs that you buy these days the main thing is you don't get the speaker wire inputs on the back so this is not gonna function as your center channel if you're gonna run a surround sound system definitely plan on having a center speaker involved somewhere now let's dig into the nitty-gritty stuff the picture quality related stuff first of all when you get the box home you're gonna see stuff like Master Series and Netflix calibrated mode and IMAX enhanced these are all things that are meant to imply a sense of premium quality so master series means that Sony basically built this to be their best possible TV as close to what you would get in Hollywood if you're using it as a mastering monitor right Netflix calibrated mode just basically means that Netflix approves of this TV for displaying its content in the way it wants it seen and IMAX enhanced is more of the same thing right you're supposed to have peace of mind that when you watch that content on this TV it looks the way it should and yeah it does it's a fantastic OLED TV so let's just swipe that all out of the way then another big difference with the a 9g you do get Dolby vision night and Dolby vision day picture modes right so if we start a Dolby vision title we'll have the option to pick those picture modes and again that's Dolby processing coming into play where we have a very specific calibration for that particular kind of content and it's supposed to make it look its best and I do have to say I dig Dolby vision day and night mode I pick them every time I'm watching something in Dolby vision which these days is more and more often in terms of picture modes mostly the same what you don't get what the a 8 g is Dolby vision night and Dolby vision day mode everything else is still there but those Dolby vision specific modes aren't available to you also it's not a Netflix calibrated TV but it does have IMAX enhanced so that should kind of tell you something I mean they just didn't pursue the sort of vacation from Netflix for this particular television and hence it probably costs a little bit less because of that now we talked about picture processing which is not sexy but kind of meaningful so the sony ang has sony's very best picture processor it's called the x1 ultimate not to be confused with the x1 extreme that you get in the AHG which by the way extreme sounds pretty awesome to me but the ultimate chip does offer some key processing bits that you don't get in the other televisions now look there's no way I can get all of Sony's marketing speak in here correctly I mean I think there's object based HDR remaster object based super resolution pixel contrast booster pro extreme ultimate hardcore HD X I don't know look the bottom line is this the processing is far more advanced in some key ways that object-based part is important so like some of the TVs that we've seen from other manufacturers the sony is reaching back to a database of recognizable images and using that to improve the overall picture quality on a scene-by-scene frame-by-frame pixel by pixel basis which I mean this is some really hardcore computing stuff but you can see a difference just a little bit you have to dive in deep to see any particular difference between one pixel and another on each of these TVs but when you stand back and you look at both of them at the same time you definitely get a different sense of depth out of the a 9 G then you do the a 8g and believe me you've got to be some kind of nutty video file like myself in order to really pick up on it but if you're that hardcore and you want the very very best that's where the a9 G's at in terms of picture processing the a 8g is no slouch I mean it has the x1 extreme chip which is far and away better than the chips that we had just a couple years ago the upscaling is top-notch in fact we tested it with our crappy 720p cable signal and it did as great a job as you should ever expect from a TV at taking that weak low bitrate low resolution stuff and making it look decent at 65 inches what's more when we stream stuff on this TV whether it's from YouTube or Netflix I mean even though you can get high resolution HDR content from those guys it's still compressed and compression artifacts are real especially in big blue areas like this you see a lot of banding and a lot of artifacts going on now it can't get rid of them entirely and in fact our camera exposes them more than your eyes do but it does a really fantastic job of evening that stuff out the Sony a G weighs in about the same as the a 9 G in terms of out of box color in fact maybe a little bit better but once you calibrate them they both rise to the same level so in terms of just pure color output color gamut they're about leveled there you can get a little bit more pop out of a 9 G thanks to its better processing but at its core still the same panel and the same capabilities we talked a little bit about how the AHG doesn't have some of the higher-end picture processing as the a 9 G and really we'll take a look at that in just a second with a side-by-side comparison so let's talk about the last little bits that are different from the TV the a 9 G has a much nicer remote than the AG I mean functionally speaking they're both fine but this feels nicer and looks nicer also inside the 8 G is not the super fancy chip that runs Android TV like it does on the a9 g 8 IG lightning-fast with Android TV I got no problems with it AHG a little bit sluggish a little bit laggy although I will say it's way better than prior years Sony's running Android TV so if you want the most zippy experience the a 9 G's got it for you the 8 g just a little bit laggy so if that kind of thing bugs you keep it in mind but again not a huge deal breaker not for me anyway alright picture quality comparison time now I can tell you right now that the TVs behind me look a whole lot better to me than they do to you right now but I did dig in deep I was looking at really granular stuff really fine detail trying to see the difference between the TVs and what the processing differences might have been and then I realized I'm spending all my time on the wrong thing here's the bottom line when you're talking about at least $1,000 difference between these two TVs maybe up to $1,300 there's just not enough difference between the a9 and the a8 G to justify that price difference not for most people look if you're an enthusiast with a load of money and you just don't care you want to buy the best and get all the bragging rights that come with it ain't I G absolutely have a party I don't care it's a great television and I still maintain it's the best TV made in 2019 but for the vast majority of you who are out there especially if you're spending time saving up for this TV and it's a meaningful purchase for you you just want to get the best that your money can buy the AHG is where it's at it makes the most sense by far and you know it took a long time for me to arrive at that believe it or not but at the end of the day AHG just makes more sense everybody thanks for watching this was a fun one for me I hope it was for you to drop me a comment let me know what you think new TVs are coming in all the time and some exciting ones as well can't wait to show you like subscribe hit that notification bell and as always visit digital trends calm for the latest tech news and reviews\n"