- This is a knife
and this is the Sony X95K.
Ugh.
The knife slices, it dices,
but the TV can display your favorite content
with over 400 dimming zones and a bunch of mini LEDs.
Yeah.
We're gonna unbox it and see if it's cool.
Check out the buttons, the remote,
which is new and improved, and maybe the OS.
And most importantly, does the chassis look good,
because it's got that Sony premium?
Did I do this wrong?
Knock knock.
(hand bangs)
Hello?
(packaging ruffles)
Oh, nice.
You certainly can't see the TV with all this crap on it.
So let's get it off.
(packaging ruffles)
(cardboard whistles)
All right.
She's outta the box, and as you can see
it has a checkered pattern kind of backing
and it's all plastic.
(hand knocks)
You might think a premium set like this
would have some metal but it doesn't,
but at least it makes it a little bit lighter.
Parts of it are perforated so some heat can come out.
I think I might be looking at some active fans behind this.
Not sure though.
But what we're here to do is put the feet on.
In the box there were two feet.
They're very slim and slick.
They've got this kind of
bronze kind of look to them.
Brush, metal finish.
I think that this is kind of a versatile color.
I think it's gonna look good
in a all white kind of Nordic looking room.
I think it'll match different wood tones.
It seems pretty versatile.
It looks good with black and that's what this is, so.
Let's get these legs on.
There's a number one here.
Should I do this without instructions, guys?
Now there's actually three different configurations
that you can put the legs in, which is pretty cool.
You can go narrow or you can go wide,
and when you go wide, you can also go low,
or you can go high, and that's to accommodate a sound bar,
much to my chagrin.
Guys, just buy bookshelf speakers please, please.
I don't need the extra height for a sound bar
because I'm not a sound bar person.
I and aesthetically I think the wider looks,
it just looks cooler.
But the ideal is obviously wall mounted
with a cable channel that goes behind the wall
so it just has that cordless-like floating look.
That's the best.
And if you're above a fireplace, which so many people are,
just get a pull down mount
and then people will forgive you for having a fireplace TV.
Look how sucked up the feet are to the screen.
Whoa.
Depending on how deep set your TV is on the console,
you might even just use that taller setting
without a sound bar just so it doesn't look weird.
'Cause otherwise, if you're using this, like,
sucked up version, you might want to,
you might need the TV to be closer to the front edge,
but we'll take a look at what that looks like
once we get this stood up.
You know, I actually think this is my first time
screwing something with the LTT screwdriver.
Ah.
We got it. Wow.
I'm pretty surprised with, even what I would describe
as a fairly wide console like this, this barely fits on.
I was just shy of 55.
(tape measure winds)
Ow.
That's that's pretty far.
You're gonna have to have one of those
really long, wide IKEA ones.
I don't know why they do this.
I guess it just has to do with the, the nature of the board.
Like if the board is just square like this,
you're getting more IO per edge,
but convenience wise it'd be better
if it was just all on the side
'cause the side IO is just so much easier to access,
especially if you wall mount this thing.
I used to have a a wall mounted TV
that was not on any kind of arm that you could pull out,
and I was always just like trying to bend it off the wall,
getting like my chrome cast between my fingers,
and like literally 25 minutes to try to plug this crap in,
and there's no way you're gonna be able
to do it from the bottom.
The side was a blessing,
but if it could all be side that'd be better.
On, off built in mic switch. That's interesting.
You got HDMI one here
and then the remainder of the HDMIs are down here.
Number three and four
are the HDMI 2.1 that can do 4K, 120 hertz.
Then you've got LAN.
It probably only supports a hundred up a hundred down,
which is lame but that's the standard in the industry.
You've got an optical digital audio out.
That's good for like toss link.
I actually did have to use that before
'cause I had an older AVR.
If you have like vintage speakers and stuff
that can come in handy.
Then they've got a connector for the remote
if you wanna have, like,
a remote extension for your IR blaster.
Then there's a USB, and back up to this side, another USB,
a video in, S center speaker in.
So this is unique to this TV.
It's basically,
what it allows you to do is to
have a surround speaker configuration.
Let's say it's 5.1 or even 3.0.
The point is you can have a left and right speaker
and then wire this into your AVR as a center speaker.
Using your TV as a center speaker.
Would I recommend it? Probably not.
The reasons why is
you're probably not gonna have a good sound match
with your left and right speaker.
So if a sound pans across the screen,
like, let's say it's a car driving by, and it goes
(imitates car engine) (engine revs)
you might have a timber mismatch,
so it does doesn't sound consistent
as it switches from one speaker to the next.
And the second reason why I wouldn't do that
is 'cause the center channel speaker
is in some ways the most most important speaker,
but it's also kind of the least important speaker
'cause there's such a thing as a phantom center speaker
which is just an illusion that your brain makes
when you have a left speaker and a right speaker.
Your brain just, like, kind of creates a center speaker
if you hear sound coming out of left and right equally,
you'll think it comes from the center.
So I probably just wouldn't screw around adding
what are probably bad soundings TV speakers to your mix.
Just me. Also another stupid thing about this port.
I believe it only supports Sony speakers.
I believe you can only, that's why it's S center.
So yeah, three reasons to not use that port.
Another thing that's in the box is all of these panels
which you can use to cover up all this IO.
You can see that there's cable management channels here
and then you can route the cable out the bottom
which is very cool.
But let's see how these go on and off.
You can route your power cable at the bottom of this.
If I was wall mounting this
I might just not bother putting this panel on because,
especially if you have an arm that's mounted
to say, these (indistinct) mounts right here,
the arm's right here,
you're gonna want the cable to go up the arm.
So you might end up just having these sit in a shoebox
in a closet for six years
'cause you're not gonna throw 'em out
in case you sell the thing at some point, right?
And then there's actually these curved ones
that belong on this side.
(panel clicks) (hand slaps)
Honestly, it doesn't really matter
what the back of the TV looks like for most people.
(sneezes abruptly)
But if you are one of those people
who has the back of the TV in the middle room
'cause you have like a great room or something like that,
this could look worse.
(hand slaps) (man scoffs)
Ah. That was so climactic.
Plus two points
to the amount of fun peels they let you have.
(tape squeaks)
Okay, now I'm finally in a position to evaluate
the look of the feet
and whether or not I'd use the low or high setting.
See what I mean?
Like how sucked up that is.
It's only like a centimeter
or like a half inch off the table.
This is as close as it can be to the front
unless you have the feet hanging off.
So you're gonna have that.
I think it's fine if you're kind of at eye level with it,
but if it was high up on, like,
some kind of mantle or something,
you might actually not be able to see
the very bottom of the screen
and then imagine if you will,
if it was really far back
you would need to have a deep ass table for that but.
Sit on the couch here, Bell. Take a seat.
- I love sitting
- It looks good? - Yeah.
- Looks fine?
- [Bell] The feet look smaller when it's farther back.
so it looks better.
- Interesting.
- [Bell] I like big feet.
- Mm.
Oh. Now I wanna see the new remote.
Comes with batteries.
They are Sony branded.
I would say this is not a very premium feeling remote.
It is plasticky.
It does have a brushed look on the front.
I don't think that's metal though.
It has some flex in this direction.
But tactility is pretty good.
It has four, count 'em,
four different streamer specific buttons.
Normally you cannot remap these
which is annoying for people with kids
because if you have kids you know
it doesn't matter too much
if your kid hits the settings button
or the volume button while you're watching something
or while their sibling's watching something.
As soon as they hit one of these streamer buttons,
everything shuts down and the channel changes
and then the other kid gets mad
and then you gotta stop what you're doing and you got.
But they pay the bills with these buttons
so that's the way it is.
We're gonna turn this puppy on,
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It rhymes. Ha.
Oh cool. I just used the Google Home app.
That's a nice thing about this TV's OS being just Android.
You don't have to mess around with, like, the LG apps.
They don't ask you to use them,
but LG apps suck if you do have to use them.
I like the option to use the phone.
You didn't have to use the phone for setup.
There was an option to use the TV
but then you've got to use your remote to type stuff,
which sucks.
Bravia.
Yeah, I'm reading this, Sony. I'm reading all of it.
I wonder if I even have to agree to all of these.
(scoffs) I agreed to none of them. (laughs)
That is a dark pattern.
Okay, so they have voice recognition,
but you remember that switch on the back of the TV?
You can toggle with this hardware switch on and off.
If you don't wanna the microphone stuff at all
just switch it off.
Acoustic auto calibration
optimizes the audio output of your TV speakers
by measuring the listening environment
using the microphone on the TV remote control.
Sit where you normally do watching TV,
hold it at chest level, point it toward your TV
and then don't move.
(TV beeps)
I guess I moved, whatever.
All right, here we are.
And this looks super familiar to me
because I am an Nvidia Shield user
and that also runs on Android.
So here it is.
Now one thing though, is that this TV uses the same SOC
as the last year's model.
So that's why it's actually running Android 10
and not 11 or 12.
Kind of a drag.
One thing I wanna check out is some of the settings
in terms of the image modes.
For picture modes you've got vivid, standard,
cinema is gonna be the most color accurate on this display.
And you'll note that there's no filmmaker mode.
Like, what the heck, Sony?
The other brands have filmmaker mode and it's great
because it's not just a color profile,
it also turns off other things that enthusiasts tend to hate
like motion interpolation or motion smoothing.
So filmmaker mode is like your best bet,
once if you see that on a TV,
you just know it's probably the most color accurate
and it's not gonna have that other malarkey turned on.
Just makes it easier.
One of Sony's claims to fame
is its SOCs though and it's processing.
like its AI picture modes,
and sharpening and stuff like that.
I and other purists
tend to just turn that processing off anyway,
so if you're going to do that
then that's another reason not to pay a premium for a Sony.
For some reason this "Pinocchio" thing just creeps me out.
Ambient light sensor could be useful
if you're in a room where, you know,
you're watching your TV day and night,
you don't wanna screw with the settings
in terms of having it be super bright during the day
if it's a sun bathed room,
and you want the brightness to be sufficient,
but you don't have to change the setting
so later that evening you make it dark
'cause it's it's too dang bright and searing your eyeballs,
you can just use this ambient light sensor feature
where it's gonna read the room, if you will,
and adjust accordingly.
One thing I wanna talk about though mainly
is the technology behind the backlight.
The dimming zones and stuff.
So let's head over to YouTube and turn on
one of those cool dimming zone test videos
to see what it looks like.
So this TV has something like 425, 435 dimming zones.
It's 36 by 12 I believe.
So right now we're watching this little dot go around
and I can see there's a bit of a halo around it
that looks like it's about that big.
This TV is kind of a hybrid in that it's a VA panel
or vertical alignment,
which are known to have great blacks,
not known to have great viewing angles,
so Sony actually incorporates another layer
in their panel stack
that kind of helps the viewing angles out.
But even still, if you're off axis to any large degree,
you're gonna see way more blooming and other artifacts
than you will if you're sitting in a more regular position
in the front.
And keep in mind, guys,
that even if you're using an OLED
or some kind of futuristic micro LED TV
where each pixel is a self missive and can turn right off,
you will still have blooming.
It's called veiling glare and it'll actually just,
it's an artifact of your own eye's lenses.
So you could never completely remove it.
Don't kid yourself that you're not gonna see any halos
if got an OLED, you still will.
You'll just see less.
On that moon I can see, like,
the whole ball is pretty much like this.
Try the speakers out here.
- [Nick Fury] There was an idea.
- Oh boy, that's tinny.
- [Tony Stark] To bring together
a group of remarkable people.
- It's like they're talking to me through a tin can.
(Music on TV peaks) Oh boy. All right.
There's obviously zero bass,
but that's par for the course of the TVs
'cause people want thin TVs,
you just can't get enough speakers in there.
It doesn't sound great.
Get a sound bar, it'll help it be more hearable,
understandable, comprehensible.
(chuckling mischievously)
Now be aware, guys,
as far as HDR and this does support Dolby Vision HDR,
you will get better backlight performance
out of the larger versions of this TV,
as they have more dimming zones.
The 75 inch has 600 dimming zones
and the 85 inch has 768 zones.
So even accounting for that size,
it's more zones per square inch.
So my overall impressions with this TV
and this picture quality is it's fine.
It's a nice TV.
It's gonna be nicer than a lot of people's TVs out there,
but it just really comes down to a value.
This thing typically retails for 2,800.
You can get it for 2,300, but at that price point
you can get one of the entry level LG W OLEDs.
You might even be able to get a C series for that.
And if not, you could always go down to a B
'cause there's really not much difference with the B's
unless you're watching sports
in a really bright environment,
maybe there's an argument to make
for a brighter, full array of local dimming LCD.
Although if you really wanna go large and have the 85 inch,
it's gonna be cheaper to not get an OLED in that case,
and if you really want a premium set
I would go for a QD OLED from Samsung display.
If you are into the LCD's and you want a mini LED,
you can get a value one from TCL.
They're already on their third generation mini LED
and this is Sony's first generation of it.
So I just don't see myself going for this TV.
I'm either gonna go for a cheaper but still good mini LED,
or if I'm gonna pay this premium price,
I'm gonna get an OLED.
All right, so thanks for watching, guys.
If you like this video, hit like, hit subscribe,
and check out our other content covering displays.
We've got a lot of TV reviews and monitor reviews too.
In fact, we covered those QD OLED's
on this channel and our sister channel,
Last Tech Tips.
Check it out.
Oh look, the earth.