Sony KD-65XF9005: the latest Full Led TV from Sony

Presentation

The Sony XF9005 television therefore has a 10-inch 100/120 Hz 65-inch (165 cm) panel displaying an Ultra HD definition of 3,840 x 2,160 px and the Sony X1 Extreme processor, already present on the 65ZD9 and 65XE9305. This processor has already proven itself in several areas, including digital noise reduction, scaling of textures and smoothing of color gradients. The Full Led backlight system is an improved version of last year's Sony KD-65XE9005. Sony increased the number of zones and added MotionFlow Clarity. This system compensates for the decrease in brightness caused by the insertion of black images by increasing the brightness of the moving areas; As a reminder, the insertion of black images makes it possible to deceive the retinal persistence and improves the sharpness of moving images, but often results in a decrease in brightness. For the rest, the Sony KD-65XF9005 TV has a 20 W audio system, a DVB-T / T2 (TNT), DVB-S / S2 (satellite) and DVB-C (cable) tuner and fairly complete connectivity. Android TV is always on the move with its batch of applications (Netflix 4K, YouTube, VLC, etc.) as well as the very practical Google Cast functionality.

The Sony KD-65XF9005 is sold at a price of 2,500 €. It is available in 49 inch (KD-49XE9005), 55 inch (KD-55XE9005) and 75 inch (KD-75XF9005) (123, 139 and 189 cm) versions for € 1,500, 1,800 and € 4,500 respectively. The 49-inch version is the smallest local full LED dimming TV on the market.

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Image quality

VA technology provides better contrast than IPS technology, at the expense of smaller viewing angles. The Sony 65XF9005 is also quite directive. We measured a loss of brightness of 61% at 45 °. On the other hand, thanks to the Full Led backlight, the television maintains a good level of black. The screen coating is semi-gloss and the anti-reflective treatment is quite effective. Once the screen is on, there is no more reflection.

The native contrast ratio is very good (4,460: 1), but lower than that recorded last year on the Sony XE9005 (7,700: 1). This value is obtained by setting the contrast variation to "Medium", which improves the native contrast without disturbing the gamma. The blacks are deep: you can watch a film in the dark without suffering from the presence of a gray background. We measured the brightness peak at 1090 cd / m², a high value greater than the 1000 cd / m² necessary to get the most out of an HDR image.

Sony TVs have a reputation for being perfectly calibrated and this Sony KD-65XF9005 is no exception. The "Cinema Pro" mode offers a colorimetric rendering close to perfection. The average delta E measured at 2 is less than the value of 3 below which the eye can no longer distinguish the colorimetric drifts. Only the bright green tones have a delta E slightly above 3.

As with all 2017 models, the gamma set by default to -2 provides an average curve of 2.4, the standard for Ultra HD content. For the other sources, the setting on 0 brings a gamma to the perfect average value of 2.2. The curve is stable over all the gray levels. Note, the TV does not automatically detect the type of source (Full HD or Ultra HD) and therefore does not adjust the gamma accordingly, unlike what LG does on its TVs.

The temperature curve is fairly stable and the average (measured at 6,960 K) is fairly close to the 6,500 K reference. This temperature is obtained with the "Expert 2" setting. The other settings provide much colder rendering.

The Sony X1 Extreme processor is very powerful. It perfectly manages the scaling of SD, HD and Full HD content on the Ultra HD panel, color oversampling and motion compensation. The Reality Creation scaling engine is always the best in the field and ensures quality upscaling without distorting the original source. The different settings also make it possible to improve the contours (sharpness), reduce the noise, remaster the colors or even strengthen the textures (resolution). Compared to last year's Sony X1 from Sony 65XE9005, the X1 Extreme processor provides Super Bit Mapping 4K HDR (14-bit processing of solid colors to avoid banding), Object-Based HDR Remaster (improved colors and contrast) and Dual Database Processing (better noise management and improved detail).

The remanence time is measured at 12 ms, a good value, especially for an Ultra HD television. Combined with Sony's excellent motion compensation system (MotionFlow), this value provides a clear image in motion. With this 100/120 Hz panel, the black image insertion system (BFI) to deceive retinal persistence is very efficient and improves sharpness without artificially increasing fluidity. We could not highlight the changes brought by the new X-motion Clarity system: when the "Net" mode is selected, the brightness decreases significantly.

In "Cinema Pro" mode, we measured the delay in display at 105 ms, a high value which will not allow playing in good conditions, but fortunately this has no effect in home cinema. In "Game" mode, the input lag goes down to 40 ms; this is more than on the Sony 65XE9005 which managed to go down to 31 ms. The Sony KD-65XF9005 displays a little more than 2 frames per second (fps) behind the source (at 60 Hz). This delay is not a problem for solo play, but it is limited for competitors. As a reminder, the latest Oled TVs (LG 55C7V, Panasonic TX-55EZ950) limit the input lag to 20 ms.

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Clouding

The thermal signature confirms the use of the Full Led system. The temperature of the TV is uniform, except for the location of the video processor and power supply. Despite the use of this system, the average difference in white homogeneity still rises - as on the model from last year - to 12%, a relatively high value for a Full Led model. The risk of clouding is less present than on an Edge Led model because the filter (which can be damaged during transport) plays a less important role in the distribution of light. Finally, we did not notice any light leaks on our test model. However, blooming is sometimes annoying, especially with subtitles and more generally on all light objects on a black background.

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3D

This model is not compatible with 3D.

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Ergonomics

The design of the Sony KD-65XF9005 TV is minimalist. The Japanese manufacturer has swapped the central foot for two bevelled champagne-colored feet that can accommodate a Sony HT-9000F sound bar. The black borders of the screen are quite fine and the finishes are exemplary on our test model.

The screen outline is quite thin for a 65-inch model. Sony has removed the golden border present on its models from previous years for a more sober outline, but not of lower quality.

The Full Led backlight system is a little thicker than an Edge led, but the difference is not necessarily obvious. In all cases, the footprint on the ground is in any case dictated by the depth of the foot which is here 29.7 cm.

The rear of the 65XF9005 is unadorned. There is nothing to hide the cables, but the feet still have a basic cable management system to channel them behind the TV (within reason, two to three cables per foot).

The connection is identical to that found on the XE9005. It has four HDMI 2.0a inputs HDR and HDCP 2.2 compatible, a component / composite video input, an Ethernet port, an optical digital audio output, a headphone output, three USB ports including a USB 3.0, a dual-tuner TNT (DVB- T / T2), satellite (DVB-S / S2) and cable (DVB-C). Like its cousin, the TV still has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with Wi-Fi Direct, Miracast and Google Cast compatibility. The latter allows you to do without the Google Chromecast 2 dongle.

For its televisions, Sony trusts Google and its Android TV system. We thus find the well-known interface of Android TV, with the Google Play application store with thousands of compatible software, including of course Netflix, YouTube, Allociné, Spotify, VLC, etc. The Android TV 7.0 platform offers unlimited possibilities, at least on paper. Sony's media player ("Video") supports a large number of files, including MKV Ultra HD in HEVC (H.265) and certain applications allow you to go even further and read the ISO of DVD or Blu-ray. However, very few applications are optimized for SoC (System-On-Chip) found on TVs. As a result, video playback applications like VLC sometimes lack fluidity. The Android TV experience nevertheless improves from year to year, especially in terms of stability. As with the 2017 model, we did not encounter any particular problem with this television, unlike the first Android TV televisions that crashed or lost connection with the remote control.

The Sony KD-65XF9005 does not take over the splash-resistant remote control of the Sony KD-55XD9305, KD-65ZD9 and XE9005. It is satisfied with the more classic remote control, but also more pleasant, because pressing the keys does not cause any extraneous noise. This remote control is equipped with a microphone, almost essential for carrying out research. Very light, it is easy to take in hand, gives access to all the functions of the TV and even benefits from multimedia keys. On the other hand, it is not uncommon to press the "Action Menu" key in place of the "up" arrow, which is sometimes annoying. Note also the lack of backlight, which is a shame for a TV at this price.

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Audio

The two 10 W speakers on this television are doing honorably. They deliver a fairly clear sound. The frequency response is good between 150 and 2,500 Hz. In the end, the audio rendering is not incredible, but it is in the good average. As usual, to get the most out of this TV, you have to turn to external speakers, such as a sound bar, a home cinema system or even PC speakers.

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Consumption

The power consumption was measured at only 83 W on our test pattern. Relative consumption is therefore only 71 W / m². On this point, the Sony XF90 does not do better than the Sony XE85 (56 W / m²) and KD-65XD9305 (69 W / m²), but surpasses - by very little - the Samsung UE55KS9000 (72 W / m²). Standby consumption is still less than 1 W after several minutes at 20 W, the time that Android goes into deep standby.

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Conclusion

In line with the Sony KD-65XE9005, the Sony KD-65XF9005 television is an excellent LCD television. It offers a perfectly calibrated image, a high-performance image processing system and good brightness for HDR content. If the 65 inch version presents a good quality / price ratio compared to the Oled models, this is not the case of the 55 inch version whose price is too close to the Oled models.

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