The Sky Glass: A Revolutionary 4K HDR TV Experience

For being the best gaming TV on the market, there's no variable refresh rate as it's a 60Hz panel. There's no adaptive sync like FreeSync or G-Sync and while the HDMI ports are claimed to be 2.1, I tested all three with a high-speed cable that I know does work with 2.1 on PS5. It limited me to a lower quality non-RGB color at 4K60 and it also doesn't support any auto low latency modes on Xbox. You can see that we do get lots of nice ticks next to most resolutions and options except for 120Hz and there is a specific game picture mode you can use which should give you the best response time. So, there's no fancy gaming bells and whistles that you might hope for although not necessarily expect at this price point.

However, front and center of SkyGlass is this new UI. There is also motion detection if you walk past the TV it'll bring up a kind of screen saver of show recommendations but you can turn this off. A very cool new feature is the built-in far-field microphones so you can waltz in say "hey sky" and it'll turn on "hello Sky" and then you can give commands for it to switch channels, inputs, open apps, change volume. There's a couple of second delay but it does work quite well. Hello Sky Vol 40. Yeah okay although you can still use the mic built into the remote if you prefer and if you actually want to turn off that built-in mic uh to the TV if you have any privacy concerns.

But what really makes SkyGlass stand out is its new playlist feature. You just press the little plus button on the remote while you're hovering over a show, whether it's in the TV guide, a recommendation, or even in an app and then in the playlist menu it'll find episodes of that show available through all the channels and apps that you're logged into. It searches and collates it all for you which is actually really handy so you don't have to go searching in every platform yourself. Speaking of which, we do get the usual suspects like Netflix, Amazon Prime, iPlayer, 40D, Disney+, Discovery+. That's all very cool.

But one downside of not having a physical set-top box with a hard drive is it can be a bit frustrating that hard drives are not allowed. Let me try that again with a hard drive in it is that you can't download shows so if they get taken off uh one of the streaming apps or Sky no longer show it then you can't keep it forever so you're always reliant on streaming content. You can't store anything locally but also bear in mind this has just come out so we'll likely see software updates new features and apps added over time.

UK Pricing

In the UK, Sky Glass starts at £649 for the 55-inch model, £849 for the 50-inch model, and £1049 for the 48-inch model. If you want to buy it outright or like your phone, you can also buy it on a contract at £13, £17, and £21 per month for each size and then you have the Sky subscription on top starting from £26 a month I believe. What's interesting is that if you get a 55-inch Sky Glass and also the Sky Ultimate package together, that will cost you £43 a month. That's actually a very accessible way to not only get Sky but also a pretty good 4K HDR TV and you don't have to pay for any extra sound system because the speakers in this are so bloody good.

Warranty

SkyGlass comes with a two-year warranty, and if you do cancel your Sky subscription but you have bought the TV, then you can continue to use it. It doesn't just break the TV because you've canceled Sky but then of course, you won't have access to their content.

Conclusion

For a reasonably priced great sounding good-looking all-round 4K HDR TV, Sky Glass is actually a really interesting proposition and crucially the ability to have Sky TV without a dish or a box for most people that's reason enough to give this a go. I will leave a link in the description if you want to check this out but if you do have any questions then let me know in the comments below and also let me know what you make of Sky Glass would you be tempted to buy one and also if you did get one would you buy it outright or on a subscription? Let me know what you think. Thank you so much for watching guys don't forget to hit that little subscribe button if you enjoyed the video and I will catch you next time right here on The Tech Chat

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: encheers tom it is finally here sky glass the first tv built by skye with everything built in beautiful noise i have the large one here the 65 inch and i cannot wait to get this set up and see what it is like to use at home in the studio so hopefully this doesn't just completely smash the tv but i should be able to do the big reveal james i might need your hand with this so the very first thing you'll notice when you unbox sky glass is well the packaging it's fully recyclable so there's no chunky polystyrene or plastic wraps and together with carbon offsetting this is actually a certified carbon neutral tv so hats off to sky for that and also a big thank you to skye for sending this tv over for me to have a bit of a play with and also sponsoring this video although as always all opinions are my own now you can wall mount this if you prefer and the design means it'll be fully flush to the wall with the ports facing down so they're still accessible and the instructions are included as well but i'm going to attach the stand which comes in a separate box and then plonk it on my fancy new tv stand all in i think it took me about 20 minutes to put this together and also i had a few distractions so then once you mount the stand to the back of the tv all you need is that power cable that can thread through the back of the stand and that is it you're good to go and to be honest that's the most magical thing about this no more satellite dish needed on the side of your house if you can even get one installed no more sky box taking up space and adding a bunch of cables to your setup everything is streamed and it really is how it should be in this day and age hello skye so sky really is shaking things up here in the uk uh because not only is the hardware new of the tv itself uh but the software the sky ui that we are using and you spend well all your life in if you watch as much tv as i do then this is completely revamped for sky glass and there's a whole lot more going on and so unlike other smart tvs there's no separate menu you pop up for your apps or anything this is it sky is the smart tv hub with your tv guide you've got your streaming apps and also these new playlists that you can add to it's a familiar sky feel but with a whole lot more content up front and to be honest it can get a bit overwhelming at first although in my experience after a couple of hours of using it and playing around you do get used to where everything is now one small issue of me trying to make this video for you guys uh is that if i play any movies or tv shows the copyright police will probably barge in and take this away from me so i'll do my best but this is as i say the 65 inch the large it also comes in a small and medium 43 and 55 and also five colors i've got the anthracite one here which is a very dark gray almost black and of course the new sky remote matches the color of your tv as well which is very snazzy the anodised aluminium metal frame is perforated for the speakers as is that pretty chunky chin at the bottom but all this has a purpose and otherwise the bezels are nice and thin there's no obvious logos getting in the way and sky will also sell customizable front panels that can magnetically attach to that bottom front speaker also the metal stand is both sturdy and as you can see not too wide so it will easily fit on any tv stand around the back there's a good selection of ports including a coax if you want to use a traditional tv input we've got a usbc port a cat5 ethernet lan port and power now i'll come back to this in a second but while these are hdmi 2.1 ports they are missing a few features although we do also have wi-fi six built in and so if you have a wi-fi six router as well you'll get a faster and more stable connection so that's new but so is this we have a brand new refreshed remote control which is a little bit smaller and a bit sleeker than the old sky q1 that i've been using also uh the buttons are a bit rejigged so it took me a minute to figure out where everything was surprisingly unlike a lot of tv remote controls we don't have any shortcuts to uh streaming apps but then you can actually use your voice whether through the remote or actually the tv oh and also again unlike the skyq remote this little dial thingy is not touch sensitive anymore so you can't just swipe left or right to fast forward or rewind you have to actually press it but it's still lovely to use and i do like this more grippy texture now in terms of picture quality i don't go into as much detail as the guys over at rtings.com or vincent hdtv test but at a high level we're getting a 4k hdr quantum dot led tv but i have done my research and actually the panel that skye is using here is from a company called tv vision based in amsterdam and actually they're the supplier for philips tvs as well although beyond that everything else has been designed and built by sky and so on the whole picture quality is good for a 4k led lcd it does like a little bit of pop especially in hdr as brightness peaks at a fairly meager 570 nits which is okay but not great and also not ideal if you have a super bright living room but it does seem to have a slight anti-reflective coating to it so you can see the reflections are a little bit smudgy and more diffused than you get with most tvs which then makes them less distracting when you're watching something now we do get hlg hdr 10 and dolby vision hdr formats which is great and that's along with 360 dolby atmos surround sound support let's talk about audio because sky reckon the six built-in speakers uh and the fact that they've optimized for this design and firing upwards sideways and at you are actually good enough that you don't need to then go and buy a separate soundbar or speaker system and the truth is they're right the sound on this is incredible it's a 215 watt speaker system and i've used pretty much every flagship tv you can buy right now from the likes of sony lg samsung and to my ears at least this is hands down the best sounding tv you can buy a wide sound stage genuinely punchy bass and clear vocals really make this a selling point of sky glass don't get yourself killed out there and it also automatically adjusts the sound based on what you're watching or you can pick it yourself plus in the settings you can tweak the audio a little bit if you want to boost the bass or prioritize speech so quite honestly you don't need to have a separate sound system with this which not only saves you money assuming you don't already have one you have to go out and buy a sound bar but also saves a bit of energy because you're not powering a different device you haven't got to plug something else in which also cleans up your cables it just sort of adds to that all in one kind of imac for tvs kind of vibe that sky glass gives although we do get e-arc support with the hdmi if you do fancy plugging in a more recent high-end speaker system but let's talk about games what's it like to play on skyglass well it's pretty good considering the price and i've been having a great time playing on it but it won't win any awards for being the best gaming tv on the market there's no variable refresh rate as it's a 60hz panel there's no adaptive sync like freesync or g-sync and while the hdmi ports are claimed to be 2.1 and i tested all three with a high-speed cable that i know does work with 2.1 on ps5 it limited me to a lower quality non-rgb color at 4k60 and it also doesn't support any auto low latency modes on xbox you can see that we do get lots of nice ticks next to most resolutions and options except for 120 hertz and also there is a specific game picture mode you can use which should give you the best response time so there's no fancy gaming bells and whistles that you might hope for although not necessarily expect at this price point but front and center of skyglass is this new ui there is also motion detection if you walk past the tv it'll bring up a kind of screen saver of show recommendations but you can turn this off although a very cool new feature is the built-in far-field microphones so you can waltz in say hey sky and it'll turn on hello skye and then you can give commands for it to switch channels inputs open apps change volume there's a couple of second delay but it does work quite well hello sky vol 40. yeah okay although you can still use the mic built into the remote if you prefer and if you actually want to turn off that built-in mic uh to the tv if you have any privacy concerns but it does feel quite futuristic and it means anyone who's watching can interact with it playlists are also brand new to sky glass you just press the little plus button on the remote while you're hovering over a show whether it's in the tv guide a recommendation or even in an app and then in the playlist menu it'll find episodes of that show available through all the channels and apps that you're logged into it searches and collates it all for you which is actually really handy so you don't have to go searching in every platform yourself speaking of which we do get the usual suspects like netflix amazon prime iplayer 40d disney plus discovery plus so that is all very cool but one downside of not having a physical set top box with a hard drive is it hard drives is it let me try that again with a hard drive in it is that you can't download shows so if they get taken off uh one of the streaming apps or sky no longer show it then you can't keep it forever so you are always reliant on streaming content you can't store anything locally but also bear in mind this has just come out so we'll likely see software updates new features and apps added over time all right so how much well this is where things get really interesting in the uk it's 649 849 and 1049 for the three sizes respectively if you want to buy it outright or like your phone you can buy it on a contract at 13 17 and 21 pounds per month for each size and then you have the sky subscription on top starting from 26 a month i believe so what you could do is get a 55-inch sky glass and also the sky ultimate package and together that will cost you 43 pounds a month that is actually a very accessible way to not only get sky but also a pretty good 4k hdr tv and you don't have to pay for any extra sound system because the speakers in this are so bloody good also sky do say that this is just a start for glass and over time they'll introduce new hardware so again like your phone chances are in a couple of years you might be able to upgrade to a new tv model plus all sky glasses is that the plural i guess those sky glasses come with a two year warranty and if you do cancel your sky subscription but you have bought the tv then you can continue to use it it doesn't just break the tv because you've canceled skype but then of course you won't have access to their content so for a reasonably priced great sounding good-looking all-round 4k hdr tv this is actually a really interesting proposition and crucially the ability to have sky tv without a dish or a box for most people that's reason enough to give this a go and i will leave a link in the description if you want to check this out but if you do have any questions then let me know in the comments below and also let me know what you make of sky glass would you be tempted to buy one and also if you did get one would you buy it outright or on a subscription let me know what you think thank you so much for watching guys don't forget to hit that little subscribe button if you enjoyed the video and i will catch you next time right here on the tech chatcheers tom it is finally here sky glass the first tv built by skye with everything built in beautiful noise i have the large one here the 65 inch and i cannot wait to get this set up and see what it is like to use at home in the studio so hopefully this doesn't just completely smash the tv but i should be able to do the big reveal james i might need your hand with this so the very first thing you'll notice when you unbox sky glass is well the packaging it's fully recyclable so there's no chunky polystyrene or plastic wraps and together with carbon offsetting this is actually a certified carbon neutral tv so hats off to sky for that and also a big thank you to skye for sending this tv over for me to have a bit of a play with and also sponsoring this video although as always all opinions are my own now you can wall mount this if you prefer and the design means it'll be fully flush to the wall with the ports facing down so they're still accessible and the instructions are included as well but i'm going to attach the stand which comes in a separate box and then plonk it on my fancy new tv stand all in i think it took me about 20 minutes to put this together and also i had a few distractions so then once you mount the stand to the back of the tv all you need is that power cable that can thread through the back of the stand and that is it you're good to go and to be honest that's the most magical thing about this no more satellite dish needed on the side of your house if you can even get one installed no more sky box taking up space and adding a bunch of cables to your setup everything is streamed and it really is how it should be in this day and age hello skye so sky really is shaking things up here in the uk uh because not only is the hardware new of the tv itself uh but the software the sky ui that we are using and you spend well all your life in if you watch as much tv as i do then this is completely revamped for sky glass and there's a whole lot more going on and so unlike other smart tvs there's no separate menu you pop up for your apps or anything this is it sky is the smart tv hub with your tv guide you've got your streaming apps and also these new playlists that you can add to it's a familiar sky feel but with a whole lot more content up front and to be honest it can get a bit overwhelming at first although in my experience after a couple of hours of using it and playing around you do get used to where everything is now one small issue of me trying to make this video for you guys uh is that if i play any movies or tv shows the copyright police will probably barge in and take this away from me so i'll do my best but this is as i say the 65 inch the large it also comes in a small and medium 43 and 55 and also five colors i've got the anthracite one here which is a very dark gray almost black and of course the new sky remote matches the color of your tv as well which is very snazzy the anodised aluminium metal frame is perforated for the speakers as is that pretty chunky chin at the bottom but all this has a purpose and otherwise the bezels are nice and thin there's no obvious logos getting in the way and sky will also sell customizable front panels that can magnetically attach to that bottom front speaker also the metal stand is both sturdy and as you can see not too wide so it will easily fit on any tv stand around the back there's a good selection of ports including a coax if you want to use a traditional tv input we've got a usbc port a cat5 ethernet lan port and power now i'll come back to this in a second but while these are hdmi 2.1 ports they are missing a few features although we do also have wi-fi six built in and so if you have a wi-fi six router as well you'll get a faster and more stable connection so that's new but so is this we have a brand new refreshed remote control which is a little bit smaller and a bit sleeker than the old sky q1 that i've been using also uh the buttons are a bit rejigged so it took me a minute to figure out where everything was surprisingly unlike a lot of tv remote controls we don't have any shortcuts to uh streaming apps but then you can actually use your voice whether through the remote or actually the tv oh and also again unlike the skyq remote this little dial thingy is not touch sensitive anymore so you can't just swipe left or right to fast forward or rewind you have to actually press it but it's still lovely to use and i do like this more grippy texture now in terms of picture quality i don't go into as much detail as the guys over at rtings.com or vincent hdtv test but at a high level we're getting a 4k hdr quantum dot led tv but i have done my research and actually the panel that skye is using here is from a company called tv vision based in amsterdam and actually they're the supplier for philips tvs as well although beyond that everything else has been designed and built by sky and so on the whole picture quality is good for a 4k led lcd it does like a little bit of pop especially in hdr as brightness peaks at a fairly meager 570 nits which is okay but not great and also not ideal if you have a super bright living room but it does seem to have a slight anti-reflective coating to it so you can see the reflections are a little bit smudgy and more diffused than you get with most tvs which then makes them less distracting when you're watching something now we do get hlg hdr 10 and dolby vision hdr formats which is great and that's along with 360 dolby atmos surround sound support let's talk about audio because sky reckon the six built-in speakers uh and the fact that they've optimized for this design and firing upwards sideways and at you are actually good enough that you don't need to then go and buy a separate soundbar or speaker system and the truth is they're right the sound on this is incredible it's a 215 watt speaker system and i've used pretty much every flagship tv you can buy right now from the likes of sony lg samsung and to my ears at least this is hands down the best sounding tv you can buy a wide sound stage genuinely punchy bass and clear vocals really make this a selling point of sky glass don't get yourself killed out there and it also automatically adjusts the sound based on what you're watching or you can pick it yourself plus in the settings you can tweak the audio a little bit if you want to boost the bass or prioritize speech so quite honestly you don't need to have a separate sound system with this which not only saves you money assuming you don't already have one you have to go out and buy a sound bar but also saves a bit of energy because you're not powering a different device you haven't got to plug something else in which also cleans up your cables it just sort of adds to that all in one kind of imac for tvs kind of vibe that sky glass gives although we do get e-arc support with the hdmi if you do fancy plugging in a more recent high-end speaker system but let's talk about games what's it like to play on skyglass well it's pretty good considering the price and i've been having a great time playing on it but it won't win any awards for being the best gaming tv on the market there's no variable refresh rate as it's a 60hz panel there's no adaptive sync like freesync or g-sync and while the hdmi ports are claimed to be 2.1 and i tested all three with a high-speed cable that i know does work with 2.1 on ps5 it limited me to a lower quality non-rgb color at 4k60 and it also doesn't support any auto low latency modes on xbox you can see that we do get lots of nice ticks next to most resolutions and options except for 120 hertz and also there is a specific game picture mode you can use which should give you the best response time so there's no fancy gaming bells and whistles that you might hope for although not necessarily expect at this price point but front and center of skyglass is this new ui there is also motion detection if you walk past the tv it'll bring up a kind of screen saver of show recommendations but you can turn this off although a very cool new feature is the built-in far-field microphones so you can waltz in say hey sky and it'll turn on hello skye and then you can give commands for it to switch channels inputs open apps change volume there's a couple of second delay but it does work quite well hello sky vol 40. yeah okay although you can still use the mic built into the remote if you prefer and if you actually want to turn off that built-in mic uh to the tv if you have any privacy concerns but it does feel quite futuristic and it means anyone who's watching can interact with it playlists are also brand new to sky glass you just press the little plus button on the remote while you're hovering over a show whether it's in the tv guide a recommendation or even in an app and then in the playlist menu it'll find episodes of that show available through all the channels and apps that you're logged into it searches and collates it all for you which is actually really handy so you don't have to go searching in every platform yourself speaking of which we do get the usual suspects like netflix amazon prime iplayer 40d disney plus discovery plus so that is all very cool but one downside of not having a physical set top box with a hard drive is it hard drives is it let me try that again with a hard drive in it is that you can't download shows so if they get taken off uh one of the streaming apps or sky no longer show it then you can't keep it forever so you are always reliant on streaming content you can't store anything locally but also bear in mind this has just come out so we'll likely see software updates new features and apps added over time all right so how much well this is where things get really interesting in the uk it's 649 849 and 1049 for the three sizes respectively if you want to buy it outright or like your phone you can buy it on a contract at 13 17 and 21 pounds per month for each size and then you have the sky subscription on top starting from 26 a month i believe so what you could do is get a 55-inch sky glass and also the sky ultimate package and together that will cost you 43 pounds a month that is actually a very accessible way to not only get sky but also a pretty good 4k hdr tv and you don't have to pay for any extra sound system because the speakers in this are so bloody good also sky do say that this is just a start for glass and over time they'll introduce new hardware so again like your phone chances are in a couple of years you might be able to upgrade to a new tv model plus all sky glasses is that the plural i guess those sky glasses come with a two year warranty and if you do cancel your sky subscription but you have bought the tv then you can continue to use it it doesn't just break the tv because you've canceled skype but then of course you won't have access to their content so for a reasonably priced great sounding good-looking all-round 4k hdr tv this is actually a really interesting proposition and crucially the ability to have sky tv without a dish or a box for most people that's reason enough to give this a go and i will leave a link in the description if you want to check this out but if you do have any questions then let me know in the comments below and also let me know what you make of sky glass would you be tempted to buy one and also if you did get one would you buy it outright or on a subscription let me know what you think thank you so much for watching guys don't forget to hit that little subscribe button if you enjoyed the video and i will catch you next time right here on the tech chat\n"