Sony KD65Z9D

LED TAKES THE BACK SEAT TO OLED ONCE AGAIN.

AS THE MASTERS of Hollywood, Sony is often seen as the purveyor of perfect quality colour when it comes to displays. Yet it appears the company has been left behind this year as the rest of the pack move forward with OLED technology; while Sony is releasing OLED TVs this year, at $6,000, it’s hard to swallow this TV packing LCD technology at this price.

As our test results show, this panel almost hits perfect blacks, but not quite. Most disappointing, though, is the contrast ratio. At 25,098:1, it’s superb compared to other LCD screens, but can’t compete with OLED. At least the colour calibration is perfect out of the box — it was profiled 100% correctly when we set it to pro-colour mode. However, we found that, while sRGB coverage was brilliant, at 99.3%, this came at the cost of DCI P3 coverage, which seems to be the ‘new’ standard to measure TVs by, at 74.1%. Brightness out of the box was also insane, at 448cd/m2, which we had to lower to 120. It’s also not the most energy efficient, pulling in 188W during profiling. Once again, we see a TV that claims HDR compatibility, yet lacks either of the two industry approved logos. Sigh.

There’s simply no denying it — OLED is the superior panel technology, no matter how many tweaks and tricks the likes of Sony can make to its LCD TVs. As such, we find it hard to recommend this TV considering the price.

SONY IN 2017

Once again, Sony was one of the few companies who didn’t get back to us in the two weeks between our request for information on its 2017 line-up and the deadline. Luckily, we were at CES 2017, so got a pretty good overview of its plans for the year, and it happens to have a great news website.

So here’s what’s in store for Sony’s TV plans for the year. The good news is that Sony is jumping aboard the OLED bus. Its Bravia 4K OLED A1 series combines the prowess of an OLED panel with the X1 Extreme 4K HDR processor previously outed in Sony’s ZD9 series. According to Sony, this allows them to take existing footage and upscale it to both 4K and add HDR-like quality to the overall image, even if the base footage is neither. Rumous suggest that Sony has turned to OLED masters LG to supply their OLED panels, though we can’t verify this right now.

Sony isn’t merely great at image quality, though; it’s also known for its sound systems. The new A1 series will be enabled with Sony’s Acoustic Surface technology, which basically uses the entire panel as a speaker. We’ve yet to hear the results, so keep your ears peeled. As seen above, Sony is still sticking with LCD technology for its more affordable sets, and both its OLED and high-end LCD screens will support HDR; we’re just not sure which version yet. Sony will even be offering 1080p screens with HDR support... but again, the company isn’t saying exactly which version. Please, guys, will some of you stick with either the Dolby Vision or 4K Ultra Premium logo to help consumers out (and we’re not even including the latest standard). As tech journalists, it’s hard enough; we can only imagine how hard it’s going to be on the typical consumer.

SONY 65Z9D

$6,026 www.sony.com.au

CRITICAL SPECS

3,840 x 2,160; 65-inch; LED technology; 4 x HDMI; HDR enabled

ONCE AGAIN, WE SEE A TV THAT CLAIMS HDR COMPATIBILITY, YET LACKS EITHER OF THE TWO INDUSTRY APPROVED LOGOS. SIGH.