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I preferred the Sony's bright-room image to that of the other two in most scenes, although it wasn't as good overall as Samsung models I've tested previously.Ĭolor accuracy: The Sony was solid before calibration, aside from a slight bluish tinge, and afterward was excellent. The Sony's screen finish was superior to the TCL and Hisense at dimming bright reflections and preserving contrast and black levels, although the difference wasn't major. Since Standard is about 100 nits (roughly 10%) brighter than Custom, it's a decent choice if you want maximum brightness for HDR but don't demand the accuracy of Custom. Unlike previous years the brightest high dynamic range (HDR) mode wasn't Vivid, instead it was the more-accurate Standard. For an accurate picture with SDR I used the Custom setting with brightness at Max and Peak Brightness turned up to High - it worked, but I'd prefer Sony to have a separate, accurate picture mode for bright rooms, like Vizio with its Calibrated mode. Vivid is Sony's brightest standard dynamic range (SDR) setting and as usual it has highly inaccurate color. I did appreciate that my X90J sample unlocked five free movies, however. New for this year is Sony's BRAVIA Core streaming service, which delivers Sony Pictures and some Imax movies in "UHD BD equivalent quality with streaming up to 80Mbps." If you're a stickler for image quality and like the selection, it may be worth buying the films there instead of a competing service like Vudu, Apple or Amazon, but personally I'd choose the greater compatibility of another service. All told, I still prefer the simple, app-based menus of Roku, in part because Google TV still seems cluttered with stuff I don't want, but it's a more capable system than Samsung, LG or Vizio. Search leans heavily into Google Assistant voice commands, with suggested phrases like "Show me free movies" front-and-center, and I appreciate the ability to dive deeper into sections like Comedy TV Shows or New Movies. Choices include major names like from Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV Plus, Disney Plus, HBO Max and Sling TV, but as usual Netflix isn't included.
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The For You section lets you choose which services appear in Google TV's list of recommended shows.
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