Best 49" - Sony 49XG9005?
Discussion
Recent What HI FI winner. Currently available for £874 at John Lewis with 0% finance. Looking very tempting.. was going to go with another Samsung because I like the operating system but is the Sony OS as bad as what some say or is it OK? I'll only be using the tv for Netflix, Prime, Iplayer etc.
I bought mine about a year ago and have been very pleased with it. The YouView interface is just about ok for freeview and I think its that which get the most criticism. For streamed stuff I find jumping from one service to the other pretty good and can't think of any real issues with it.
Assuming it's the same as our lower-level XG81 TV:
You can turn off YouView and revert to Freeview but then things like some of the catch-up apps don't work as they're part of YouView on Sony TVs.
The hassle I have with the YouView EPG is, if, a program finishes at 7.55 and you move the EPG across to 8 then scroll though and find a program you want to watch, you can't select it until you first go back to the current time. The Toshiba Smart TV we had for few months popped up a menu and you select the current channel.
I tend to remember channel numbers not names and find I can't tell which channel I'm watching unless I open the guide. And sometimes it doesn't seem to change - ie watch BBC1 and want to switch to BBC1 HD, select it from the guide and you think it's changed, but it hasn't.
It can't pause live broadcast - we'd got used to this on the cheapy Toshiba we had a for a months before its screen developed a vertical line. Pause feature worked fine with a 32GB memory stick. Sony doesn't even recognise memory that small (but live pause doesn't work whatever size memory is available).
The streamed stuff works fine - perhaps a bit slow, ie a few seconds, to get going. It's slow pulling stuff my Synology NAS but actually much slower using Synology's own app rather than the built in one.
I also find the sound from the built-in speakers odd sometimes, but can't put my finger on it. It's as if the sound is somehow disconnected from the person speaking - bit like you get with lip sync but that generally looks spot-on (not always though). I've seen the same comment on other Sony TVs. Again, the Toshiba we had was very good in that respect, although it was unusual in that it had forward facing speaker built into the bottom of the set (bit like a built-in soundbar. I've tried mine with an old home cinema system with centre speaker and it was still a bit odd.
You can turn off YouView and revert to Freeview but then things like some of the catch-up apps don't work as they're part of YouView on Sony TVs.
The hassle I have with the YouView EPG is, if, a program finishes at 7.55 and you move the EPG across to 8 then scroll though and find a program you want to watch, you can't select it until you first go back to the current time. The Toshiba Smart TV we had for few months popped up a menu and you select the current channel.
I tend to remember channel numbers not names and find I can't tell which channel I'm watching unless I open the guide. And sometimes it doesn't seem to change - ie watch BBC1 and want to switch to BBC1 HD, select it from the guide and you think it's changed, but it hasn't.
It can't pause live broadcast - we'd got used to this on the cheapy Toshiba we had a for a months before its screen developed a vertical line. Pause feature worked fine with a 32GB memory stick. Sony doesn't even recognise memory that small (but live pause doesn't work whatever size memory is available).
The streamed stuff works fine - perhaps a bit slow, ie a few seconds, to get going. It's slow pulling stuff my Synology NAS but actually much slower using Synology's own app rather than the built in one.
I also find the sound from the built-in speakers odd sometimes, but can't put my finger on it. It's as if the sound is somehow disconnected from the person speaking - bit like you get with lip sync but that generally looks spot-on (not always though). I've seen the same comment on other Sony TVs. Again, the Toshiba we had was very good in that respect, although it was unusual in that it had forward facing speaker built into the bottom of the set (bit like a built-in soundbar. I've tried mine with an old home cinema system with centre speaker and it was still a bit odd.
Cheers for replies
^^^ I'm torn between the Samsung and Sony - Samsung has stronger reviews.. but Sony won the Whathifi award. A few months ago I bought a Samsung QLED for my daughters room - long story short but electrician damaged the screen wall mounting it and had to pay local Samsung repairer £484 to replace the QLED panel/screen. The chap who replaced it was a bit of a tech-geek and said he wouldn't have anything other than Android OS because he uses certain apps (I think one of them was able to watch the latest new-release films!). My daughters QLED is good, but it doesn't blow me away. I have a B&O BV11 in the living room and that is a fantastic picture.
^^^ I'm torn between the Samsung and Sony - Samsung has stronger reviews.. but Sony won the Whathifi award. A few months ago I bought a Samsung QLED for my daughters room - long story short but electrician damaged the screen wall mounting it and had to pay local Samsung repairer £484 to replace the QLED panel/screen. The chap who replaced it was a bit of a tech-geek and said he wouldn't have anything other than Android OS because he uses certain apps (I think one of them was able to watch the latest new-release films!). My daughters QLED is good, but it doesn't blow me away. I have a B&O BV11 in the living room and that is a fantastic picture.
The YouView setup on Bravia is deeply irritating. Specifically, you can’t use it for catch-up TV (and it is the only option for some channels as mentioned above) without tuning all the channels in from Freeview. We don’t have an aerial (Sky dish instead) so it is impossible to use catch-up, which in itself doesn’t require an aerial. Rather bizarre.
The latest update to Android TV OS is a bit better, but it’s still quite laggy.
The panel is fab though, and we tend to feed it from Fire TV rather than use the on-board apps.
The latest update to Android TV OS is a bit better, but it’s still quite laggy.
The panel is fab though, and we tend to feed it from Fire TV rather than use the on-board apps.
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