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Review: Sony KDL-55W805C

Introduction and features

As I went through the motions of unboxing and setting up the Sony KDL-55W805C, I have to admit I found it hard to muster up much enthusiasm.

The thing is, I've been so spoiled this year with outstanding cutting-edge TVs boasting such next-generation glories as native 4K UHD resolutions and HDR playback that the idea of testing a TV with just an HD pixel count already feels like stepping back in time.

Fortunately my initial apathy towards the 55W805C didn't last long.

Partly because common sense set in and it occurred to me that with 4K content still thin on the ground HD is still a force to be reckoned with, and partly because it soon becomes apparent that despite not offering a 4K pixel count, the 55W805C is capable of delivering some seriously good picture quality.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's jump back to my first impressions Sony's brave new HD set.

For the most part it sets its stall out well. It's design runs completely counter to that of the previously tested 75X9405C, ditching that model's ultra-chunky surround in favour of a much more on trend ultra-slim frame that's barely a centimetre across along its top, left and right edges.

The 55W805C also sticks out relatively little around the back, and sits on a remarkably thin and unobtrusive metal bar stand.

Build quality

The 55W805C looks better from a distance than it does up close.

The frame around the screen is a bit plasticky, and the TV doesn't sit particularly solidly atop that skinny stand. The space saving design will likely win it many fans, though - even though clearly a set this skinny won't be able to compete sonically with the output of the massive forward-facing speakers built into some of Sony's higher-end models.

Connections on the 55W805C are excellent.

You get four HDMIs, for instance, when a number of TVs we've tested recently have only managed three. Plus there are three USBs on hand to play back multimedia files from USB drives (or for attaching a USB HDD for recording from the TV's tuners), and the 55W805C's svelteness hasn't stopped Sony from finding the room to build in Wi-Fi alongside a network cable port.

It's with its picture specifications, though, that the 55W805C really starts to get down to the business of justifying its relatively high cost for a non-4K TV.

Particularly promising is the provision of Sony's previously impressive X-Reality Pro processing engine, which uses a large built-in database to quickly recognise different types of source content and thus reduce the burden on the TV's picture processors.

This should result - in theory, anyway - in more successful real time results.

Local dimming

The 55W805C also employs local dimming in its edge LED lighting engine to deliver a better contrast performance. Sony has delivered the best edge LED/local dimming results of any TV brand for the past couple of years, so hopefully it will be able to continue this trend with the 55W805C.

Another sign of the high level of processing power Sony has injected into the 55W805C despite its 'mere' HD status can be seen in its MotionFlow system. Its combination of a native 100Hz panel, backlight controls and frame interpolation is potent enough to deliver a claimed 1000Hz effect.

You always have to treat these sort of figures with a healthy amount of scepticism, and it's also the case that you'll rarely if ever find yourself wanting to use any TV's motion processing on its highest setting.

But such figures are, at least, useful for giving you an indication of the sort of processing power a TV is packing.

The 55W805C also supports 3D playback (though doesn't come with any included 3D glasses), but it doesn't get Sony's Triluminos technology for delivering an expanded colour palette. This would have helped seal the 55W805C's premium pricing deal, but its absence isn't really surprising.

Android TV - for better or for worse

When it comes to the 55W805C's smart features, Sony has boldly once again thrown in its lot with Google, despite this relationship not bearing very successful fruit in the past.

Google's latest integrated smart TV system is called Android TV and… it's a bit of a mess, alas. Almost everything about it runs counter to the more streamlined, focussed approach now being adopted by most smart TV engines.

The interface is full screen, there's a focus on quantity of content over quality, there's precious little integration of live TV features, there's no real scope for customising the system, and there's too great an emphasis on the sort of content - especially games - that most TV users will have little interest in.

Ironically the most useful thing about Android TV is its compatibility with Chromecast - a much more streamlined Android content sharing system that just emphasises how unnecessary and OTT Android TV is.

Fortunately the 55W805C's smart features aren't restricted to Android TV.

For the set also carries Sony's own Discover system, which actually delivers a much more successful, flexible, focussed and usable way of finding and accessing content. Furthermore, following an imminent update, the 55W805C will carry YouView, providing you with catch-up services for the most popular UK terrestrial broadcast channels - as well as the convenience of an electronic programme guide (EPG) that can scroll back through time to on-demand content as well as looking ahead.

Picture Quality

With most brands starting to treat HD TVs as relatively low-rent sets, it's reassuring to find the 55W805C delivering mostly outstanding image quality that means picture enthusiasts don't have to find the cash for a 4K UHD set if they want a truly cinematic, engaging picture.

Unlike the majority of TVs the 55W805C gives you a really lovely image right out of the box - no matter what source you feed it. This is because Sony has been able to continue its recent trend of being able to successfully adapt its picture settings automatically to suit whatever types of image it may be receiving.

This is a significant achievement given that research continues to show that the vast majority of us never touch our TV's picture settings once we've got a new TV home.

It's also pleasing to see a brand willing to create images that actually suit/get the best from the panels they're appearing on rather than merely following increasingly dated video industry standards.

Though I should add that the 55W805C does have picture presets available that can hit those standards if that's your preference, as well as providing a decent collection of picture calibration tools if you fancy fine-tuning things manually.

Contrast

Getting into more detail about what makes the 55W805C's pictures so enjoyable, the good news starts with their contrast. Once again Sony proves itself a master of edge LED backlighting, managing to combine superbly deep, rich black colours with an exceptional level of clouding-free uniformity.

You don't have to take as much brightness out of the picture to maintain this black level uniformity as you do with most edge LED TVs either, meaning pictures enjoy plenty of punch despite their black level strength.

The 55W805C's ability to deliver deep blacks without compromising light output excessively also helps it produce seriously impressive amounts of shadow detail. Dark scenes thus enjoy pretty much the same sense of depth and detail that bright ones do, avoiding the relatively hollow appearance for dark scenes witnessed to some degree on most other LCD TVs.

This gives images a consistently immersive, cinematic look that seems certain to endear the 55W805C to movie fans.

Colour

The 55W805C combines its excellent light handling with some vibrant but also engagingly subtle colours, too.

It's true that the 55W805C doesn't offer the same degree of colour finesse as Sony's 4K, Triluminos-carrying TVs, but this is hardly surprising. Compared more fairly with other HD TVs around today, the 55W805C's colour palette looks superb. The colour performance even holds up during dark scenes, thanks again in part, no doubt, to the excellent backlight management.

The combined precision of the 55W805C's lighting and colour tones has a further knock on benefit. Namely that it helps the set deliver a spectacular sense of detail from native HD sources.

Clearly we're not talking about the same degree of precision you can get from a good quality native 4K TV, but if you want a TV that's capable of getting every last drop of detail out of high definition content, the 55W805C won't let you down.

Sony's 55-inch HD flagship for 2015 even retains the majority of this clarity when showing images containing motion.

Even in its native state, with no motion processing active, the panel inside the 55W805C proves to be impressively responsive, suffering only minor loss of resolution over moving objects, as well as minimal judder.

Motion processing

The sharpest results, though, are obtained if you use Sony's MotionFlow processing, which does a great job of smoothing away judder and blur without, crucially, leaving images looking unnatural.

So long as you stick with a relatively low-powered MotionFlow setting, anyway.

While a TV as good as the 55W805C deserves to be fed as HD-rich a diet as possible to unlock its maximum potential, it's important to stress that Sony's set is also exceptionally good at remapping standard definition content to its HD screen. It pulls off the key trick of adding detail without emphasising noise, and also does better than most upscaling engines when it comes to retaining colour vibrancy and accuracy when showing even low-quality standard definition sources.

The only real issues I managed to uncover with the 55W805C's 2D pictures are that contrast and colour can reduce if you watch from more than around 35 degrees down the TV's sides (in keeping with the majority of other LCD TVs), and that its contrast and noise reduction settings can have an unusually heavy impact on motion clarity, meaning you may find you need to reduce the former and turn off the latter with some motion-packed sources.

I guess I should point out, too, that for all the 55W805C's black level quality, some TVs that use a direct LED lighting system rather than an edge LED one can deliver an even better contrast performance.

But such direct LED TVs usually cost more than the 55W805C.

3D

The 55W805C's 3D performance is hit and miss.

On the upside I was hugely impressed by the brightness and colour vibrancy of the set's 3D images, despite the fact that this is an active 3D system that requires you to wear shuttering glasses. Sony's set does a good job of delivering the small details from HD 3D Blu-rays too, and its motion processing is good enough to tackle the extra judder problems often associated with 3D playback.

The 55W805C's excellent contrast performance, meanwhile, proves handy in delivering a particularly good sense of depth and space in the 3D frame, especially during dark scenes.

The downside is crosstalk ghosting noise.

For while the 55W805C doesn't exhibit the double-ghosting phenomenon anywhere near as often as many previous Sony 3D TVs have done, oddly when the crosstalk does appear it's unusually aggressive - brighter and more defined in its appearance. Which means that your eye is more likely to be drawn to it - especially when the 55W805C's 3D pictures look otherwise so pristine.

Usability, Sound and Value

Unfortunately the 55W805C's usability takes a hit from Sony's decision to adopt the Android TV platform. This platform is cumbersome and dictatorial in its presentation, making finding your favourite content often feel like a chore.

The good news is that you can just about manage to avoid Android TV, sticking instead with Sony's own, much slicker, more flexible and more friendly Discover system, which lets you access content via a series of tidy, scroll-through horizontal shelves at the bottom of the screen.

Later in the year the set will also receive an update giving you YouView support, providing easy, EPG-based access to the UK's main terrestrial catch-up TV services.

It's still a pity, though, that making the 55W805C easy to use essentially means dodging a feature - Android TV - that I'd once hoped might prove to be one of the TV's biggest selling points.

Sound

With Sony's X8405C TV setting new, high resolution-friendly audio standards this year, the rather thin, underpowered sound produced by the 55W805C comes as something of a shock. Action scenes tend to sound thin and unconvincing, bass is in extremely short supply, and voices can sound a bit shrill and mechanical.

The sound also seems to be struggling to project itself clear of the TV's bodywork - a fairly typical issue with TVs that use down-firing speakers.

The best that can be said of the 55W805C's sound is that it doesn't often succumb to obvious distortions. But overall I guess you'll just have to chalk the 55W805C's uninspiring sound down to a side effect of buying such an exceptionally thin TV and start planning for some kind of external audio solution if you can.

Value

The 55W805C is to some degree a hard sell.

After all, there are now a number of 4K TVs out there that cost (in some cases, substantially) less than this HD model, and it's looking increasingly inevitable that 4K will eventually become a dominant AV force.

For now, though, there's no denying that 4K content is still struggling to get off the ground.

Also, most of those cheaper 4K TVs carry screen sizes considerably smaller than the 55-inch one on the 55W805C. So I think there will be plenty of people who could still be interested in a big-screen HD TV that's as capable of delivering a truly cinematic level of picture performance as this Sony.

Verdict

It's a sign of how fast the TV world is changing right now that Sony's decision to launch a premium HD TV like the 55W805C in 2015 feels like a brave move. Can such a TV really impress without a 4K resolution when there are 4K TVs around that cost less?

Fortunately it can.

Thanks to a rich specification list that includes Sony's ever-impressive X-Reality Pro processing, edge LED lighting driven by a local dimming engine, some potent motion handling and a content-rich smart TV system, it delivers a truly high-end, big-screen experience.

That's all despite the lack of 4K, average audio performance and the fact that the headline-grabbing Android TV system turns out to be more of a hindrance than a help.

We liked

The 55W805C's design is eye-catchingly slim, and the picture quality it produces is eye-catchingly brilliant - full of contrast, colour and clarity.

Some aspects of its smart TV system work well too.

We disliked

The 55W805C's slimness proves a hurdle to really convincing sound quality, and Android TV proves to be something of a mess.

The set costs a lot for a non-4K TV too, though its specification elsewhere just about justifies the price.

Verdict

So long as you don't see yourself being fussed about 4K for the next few years, the 55W805C is a compelling TV.

Its engagingly slim form plays host to a long list of features that includes everything the TV needs to produce one of the finest pictures I've seen from an HD TV. It's well connected too, and while Android TV turns out to be a bit of a chore it's still got plenty of smart TV appeal.

from TechRadar: Technology reviews http://ift.tt/1eCz989