Shintu Dhang
Sony has been present in the Indian market for a long and has great insights into consumer behaviour. The company had recently launched the Bravia X75 Android TV series in India with Amazon Prime and Netflix pre-installed and with dedicated buttons on the remote. The company post launching the TV sent us a 43-inch Android-based TV for review.
So we are all set to review the all-new Sony Bravia X75 Android TV and see if it is worth considering for your next big purchase? Find out in our review.
DESIGN AND CONNECTIVITY
Though its design isn’t as striking as the premium Sony TV, the X75 is pretty elegant. This TV is has a very thin bezel on three sides, and the bottom bezel is slightly thicker which you won’t notice as the extra bezel slide towards the back emulating a slim bezel design. This model has bottom-firing speakers which are neatly hidden from the view. The power LED and IR receiver is placed on a tiny chin below the Sony logo on the bottom bezel, at the centre.
The TV is quite slim and can be wall-mounted or placed on a desk using the matching black minimalist stands. The necessary stand is provided in the package, along with a wireless remote and a pair of AAA batteries. One thing which I noticed is the missing wall mount inside the TV package. After reading the manual, it was clear that Sony decided to offer wall-mount only if needed. In the connectivity department, you get three HDMI ports — one of which supports ARC, two USB 2.0 ports, headphone out, and cable antenna port, all of which are placed along the left edge of the rear module. AV input ports, LAN port, HDMI, optical audio and the power port are placed at the back of the TV.
Though most of the connectivity ports are placed along the side of the TV, they are a good 20-inches inwards from the edge, making it quite hard to reach if you wall-mount the TV. I would have preferred to see them at least closer to the edge. There are a couple of wireless connectivity options too — Bluetooth 5.0 to connect to wireless speakers or headphones, and dual-band Wi-Fi.
PERFORMANCE
Everything has already been addressed above and now it comes down to how this TV performs. The TV is loaded with the licenced Android TV Operating system which will get continuous improvement and update by Sony. The TV comes with 16GB storage and 3GB of Ram. The TV can stream 4K content without any glitch. In fact, I was amazed that the Youtube app showed 4K content for streaming directly. The Sony TV comes with preinstalled media streaming applications out of the box which is a helpful addition. No need to take extra efforts, it’s all built-in for you. The TV performs really well, thanks to the powerful Sony’s X1 processor and it does best what’s it’s designed for that is play high-quality content and UI smoothly. Since the TV is powered by the Android TV operating system you can use any Android phone to work as a remote. Thanks to Chromecast, I was able to cast most of the content on the TV directly including Youtube videos straight onto TV just by a press of a button from the android smartphone. This TV was also able to bring back my childhood nostalgia with the immersive gaming experience, all thanks to the powerful X1 processor. The TV has built-in WiFi as well as the option to connect via ethernet cable. The audio output, however, could be better, as the speaker is downward facing because of the slim panel the sound output is somewhat flats the quality. The TV has no bloatware or any custom UI so big thumbs up to Sony.
BLUETOOTH REMOTE
It comes with a full-function remote control that supports IR and Bluetooth. The power button on the remote talks with the TV using IR when switching ON, and then everything operates over Bluetooth. The remote is voice-enabled, so you can invoke Google Assistant by pressing the corresponding button and issue voice commands; it works smoothly as intended. The remote has plenty of keys including hotkeys for Youtube, Netflix, Prime Video, and Youtube Music, along with navigation keys, an input key, volume control, a mute button, settings button, D-pad and some traditional keys that make it easier to switch your favourite channel. Though it offers plenty of options, it was unnecessary. We would have loved a minimalist remote with only the required keys.
PICTURE QUALITY
The picture quality of this TV is impressive for the price. The 4K panel is reasonably bright with good contrast. The colour reproduction of this TV is great and colours feel quite natural even at the default settings.
This TV supports Dolby Vision, and HDR10 content encoded in that format looks good on this screen. In 4K HDR content, the picture feels a little darker than ideal, with aggressive contrast in some scenes, possibly because of the lower peak brightness of the screen. Regular non-HDR 4K content looks sharp on this TV, with accurate colours and sufficient details. Most of the 1080p Full HD content looks equally good too. 720p videos remained absolutely watchable, though not as sharp. Anything lower than 720p looks washed out, which is the case with almost every 40-50 inch 4K TV that I have tested till date. The viewing angles are impressive which no colour shift when watching the TV from sharp angles.
The picture is calibrated well out of the box. But for some reason, there are no options to adjust brightness, contrast, sharpness, saturation, etc. which was weird in my opinions. The overall picture quality is top-notch and much better than some affordable 4K Smart TVs
FINAL VERDICT
Sony Bravia X75 4K Android Smart TV is a promising TV with plenty of features. The TV runs on Android TV certified operating system and comes with the official Google Play Store which offers millions of apps just for the TV. Sony is a known brand in the TV segment and managed to consistently give incredible performance and picture quality. The only thing which limits the user from buying this TV would be the pricing, it has been priced at ₹66900/-. Other brands like Xiaomi and Vu has their range of TVs at a more affordable price. But if you’re looking for a long-lasting product along with brand loyalty, then there is no reason you wouldn’t choose this TV over others. I would personally recommend this beast worth a buy.
