Sony XBR-55X800G 55" 4K UHD LED Smart Android TV with HDR (2019)

As with many other reviewers, the first television that was shipped to me arrived with a broken screen. Amazon replaced it of course and I had a new one 4 days later. Upgrading from an old 42 inch plasma was long overdue, and I think I made a good choice. I am NOT an Android person, so that feature isn't something I can comment on. This was clearly designed more to be mounted on a wall, but that's not an option for me. So... Things I really HATE about this (and you probably will too): - The base stands really suck. Aside from feeling cheap (half plastic, half metal...WTF?!?), the television tilts slightly backwards. It's really odd and no sure why Sony did this. I'm replacing with this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N4KI7RJ - The remote is a brick from 1992 and you have to really mash the buttons down to get them to function. - Power cord is pretty short. Again, if you mount it on a wall, this won't be an issue. - Shipping was slow and receiving the broken one was a bit frustrating. Amazon was cool about it though and even sped up the shipping on the replacement. (Bit of advice...CALL customer service, don't chat) Things I really LIKE about this: - Setup was pretty easy and not overwhelming (unpack it carefully - the metal base stands come in two parts each and are not packaged together in the box) - Picture quality is amazing. I use the new 4K Firestick with it and everything is clear and crisp. - My two cats never paid any attention to the old plasma television, but this one...they were fixated when NatGeo Wild was on...it was hilarious, but also says something about the quality and size. Overall, I am pleased with this item and would recommend it. Yeah, there are better options out there, but this one is a good value for the price from a well-known brand. -

Back in the winter, when I decided to set up a home theatre system, I knew I had to get a new TV. In the past, it would always be between Sony or Panasonic, but Panasonic TVs seem to be only sold in other countries. Or at least they are no longer sold by who I would buy a TV from, namely Amazon or Best Buy. I considered briefly getting a TCL at the time, since they were getting rave reviews, and were considerably cheaper. I just couldn't believe, though, they would last for years and years at the prices they were going for. Every Sony TV we've ever had in my family has lasted forever. The last thing I needed was a TV that would only last a couple of years. This TV was $150 off at the time, if I remember correctly, and I bought it the day before the price went back up to the regular price. Even though mine is only a 49", it was still too heavy to carry upstairs by myself or any distance. (A good sign in my opinion.) Attaching the stand was simple, and it connected immediately to my Wi-Fi. I had it connected that way for months, with no problems, but decided one day to use an ethernet cable since my Netgear Wi-Fi extender upstairs was on the same stand, and has ethernet jacks. Connected with a cable works just as well, too. I've never had any problems with streaming, never a need for buffering. The TV is also connected to a Sony STR-DH790 7.2-ch receiver and a Panasonic UB420 DVD player; with new Monster HDMI cables ($15), with a speed of 21 Gbps. Apparently, anything slower than 18 Gbps is not supposed to be used with the newer devices. With the HDMI connected to the eARC/ARC HDMI jacks on both the TV and the receiver, when I turn on the TV, the receiver also turns on and the speakers switch from internal to the eight speakers I have connected to my receiver. When I turn off the TV, the AV receiver also turns off. When I turn on the Panasonic DVD player, both the TV and receiver come on, but don't turn off when I turn off the player. The TV goes to the DVD input, too. I don't have to change inputs myself. Sound wise, the TV sounded fine to me before I got the receiver and hooked up the speakers. But, of course, a TV's internal speaker can't compete with a bunch of home theatre speakers. App wise, it has everything I want; namely Amazon Prime, Netflix and YouTube; and I've had no problems using the apps. Picture wise, it's absolutely gorgeous. It's easy to switch to whatever picture choice you want, too, but I don't see much difference between them. Am I happy I got this TV? Most definitely, especially since I got it before the price went back up. I'm also happy I got a Sony, since at least I don't have any fears that the TV will have a short life, even though, of course, it might. I expect it to last forever. :)

This is hands-down, the best HDTV I’ve owned. It has an IPS panel with a VERY WIDE viewing angle and no input lag (more on that below). I switched from a Vizio to this model - a 43” X800G. Out of the box, the vivid setting looked phenomenal, with very bright colors and contrast ratios. I tuned the custom setting to create a more tame mode for everyday viewing. Some professional reviews have stated this model has poor input lag. I’m not sure why they say that, or if the firmware has been updated in more recent models, but I can assert that is simply not the case. I have a Nintendo Switch and a PS4 connected to it. I’ll either use my custom setting (with the MotionFlow, etc, turned off), Vivid, or the gaming setting. Button presses are instantaneous. This model doesn’t appear to have any “dirty screen door” effect. That is, on other TVs, you may see artifacts in bright pictures due to the placement of the LED lighting. This model, in particular the 43”, doesn’t have those artifacts. It really is a phenomenal TV, especially when it’s on sale. The display technologies in HDTVs nowadays are daunting. You really have to do your research in order to get the best value for your money. I can attest this after using a hum-hum Vizio model with a murky VA-panel type. Some criticisms: the Android TV interface is slow at times. I sped mine up by deleting frivolous apps and removing any extras that I had added. Clear caches where you can. Don’t rely on the built in guide for TV viewing (don’t allow apps to add to it either). The sound quality is “OK”, but that’s par the course for flat panels these days

After spending a bit of time getting things set up, the TV wouldn't connect to any of my Bluetooth devices, which is one of the main reasons of my purchase, other than the size. After spending many hours looking on the internet, I found that this Sony TV will only connect to what is called A2DP Bluetooth. Now I never heard of that, I thought "Bluetooth" is just "Bluetooth". I did an on-line help chat with Amazon and they guided me through some steps to see if it would work to no avail it didn't. So Amazon replaced it with the same model a week later. The new TV still had no connection to my Bluetooth devices. Then I went to Sony's web site and did a on-line chat with one of their representatives to see if they had any solutions. They were not helpful at all. They made the attempt to avoid telling me what the real problem was, which at this time I had pretty much figured out . I asked about this A2DP and the answer was to send me a link to a page of links of compatible devices. I asked if all their TV's had this type of Bluetooth and again they sent me a link to all their TV specs, which on every one of their TV"s there was another link to view. Maybe they have other TV's that will connect differently with Bluetooth, I'm not going to find out . I needed this size TV. If you own Sony Bluetooth devices, maybe you'll have better luck. Amazon was great. They are taking this one back and yesterday I just received a Samsung that I ordered from them. The set up was easier and it connects to my Bluetooth devices. The other big disappointment with this is the TV"s speakers. Terrible !! no wonder you have to spend more money buying a sound bar

I’ll be candid— we are a one-TV family, we do NOT have (want or think prudent from a privacy standpoint) appliances, speakers or additional items that can connect to the internet. We most often record programs as we dislike commercials and love our NetFlix and Apple TV box (so I feel certain enough info is already being gathered about us), this is a fine TV, has spots for 4 HDMI attachments and in general is a solid replacement for the decade old Sony Bravia (which per my husband cost us $2,000+ when newly purchased for comparison) whose picture had finally failed. However, why in heaven’s name has Sony elected for an external power pack on a short tether? This precludes hiding the wires within the wall until an extension cord is purchased. Also, WHO WANTS TO USE YOU-STICK WIRED (Yes, more visible wires!) INFRARED SENSORS to help the remote work? And how come it’s apparently not possible to have everything go through the Comcast XFinity (yes, more data gathering) remote? The toggle to change input sources on the Sony remote is frankly awful -AND- the remote ‘chimes’ when a selection is made.

My dog was playing with a heavy rope toy and it grabbed another toy which was whipped into the screen of my TV. Screen broken, TV destroyed, bad doggie. So I replaced it with one of these X800Gs. When I hung it I noticed that the screen was pulling away from the frame at the top, leaving a small narrow space with bright light coming through. Whatever caused that damage also put an anomaly in the picture so when the picture was very white, you could see dark images in the picture. So I called Sony thinking that they would apologize and send a replacement, or at least send someone from a service center near me to investigate. Instead they told me they would do nothing and that I most likely did it when I hung it (I'm in AV - I know how to hang a TV...) I asked to speak to a supervisor and the guy said there was nobody who would give me a different response. When I asked if they were ready to lose a customer for life for under a grand, he said sorry nothing I can do... So I hung up, got on Amazon's site, looked up the order, and of course they made the replacement as easy as pie. Makes me want to buy everything through Amazon, and I guess that's the point. Anyway, as bad as Sony's customer service is, their TVs are pretty good and this one is no exception. Great picture, nice user interface.

We've been in the market to replace our old Samsung plasma for about a year. It started to have a solid pin line on the left side of the screen. My wife tried to convince me we didn't need a new once since it's used mostly by my 8 and 10 year old sons. When all they watch is that crazy gamer on YouTube. Anyway I decided it was time. I'm a big fan of buying last years models for a massive reduction in price. I read all the reviews on this Sony TV and decided this was the one. My Samsung was a 50 inch but I thought we should upgrade to this 55. I could hardly tell the difference in size but the picture quality was markedly improved. I'm not TV guru by any means but this TV looks awesome. My boys think it was the best gift ever. One small complaint is the built in speakers are not as good as our old TV. I guess that is the whole point of a sound bar or an external audio system. No stars removed for this minor detail. I paid $542 which included shipping. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.

Initially I bought the Sony X800G to upgrade from a Sony Bravia 32" 720P LCD from 2009. The 4K image quality is incredible and the sound options are vast, but the feature that stands out is Motionflow. If you are playing a console game which usually has a locked frame rate of 30fps the feature increases the motion fluidity to appear similar to 60fps. I tested a number of Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 games and the conclusion is the feature works very well. The next feature that stands out is Mastered in 4K feature which does a great job of making 1080P movies appear closer to native 4K. I absolutely recommend this TV for anyone looking for pure quality and performance. Personal Likes: ・Very natural, vivid, and pristine colors ・Motionflow has 30fps appear similar to 60fps ・Mastered in 4K does exactly what it says ・Reality Creation sharpens all resolutions ・Extremely easy to set up and light weight

If you are a Canadian Cord Cutter then this is an excellent choice. I have had this TV for a couple of months. The OTA features are excellent along with a much better TV Guide (aka Programming Guide). A great selection of Apps are available such as Crave, CBC, NBC, CNBC, CBSN, Aljazeera, RT, Spotify and of course, Netflix. Reuters is not available but they are no longer on the Roku box either which I am a bit sad about. It also has Disney+, ESPN, a 4K nature type channel, TED, Curiosity Stream and a few other pay channels that I don't subscribe but are there for those who want it. New ones keep popping up. OTA (Over-the-Air) features are fantastic! Thank you Sony for not giving up on OTA like some Vizio models have. Sony's features are best in class. It's a little hard to find but if you press the "Help" button on the lower left of the remote and go to "Signal Diagnostics" it displays the Signal Strength, Number of Errors and SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio in dB). Very very useful when pointing the antenna in the best direction. It has both Auto Scan AND Add Scan. Auto Scan resets and scans for all available channels while Add Scan does not reset the found channels but adds any new channels found. This is great when you have intermittent reception of channels or, like me, you have two or more antennas and use an A/B switch to switch between them to get all the channels you can. You can also get rid of channels you don't like and Add Scan will remember. In addition, the ATSC chip Sony uses is excellent. Some channels come in week from the US and even below the 15 dB SNR, I can still watch shows without too much pixilation. I do not know what the receiver noise figure is as I use a preamp on all my antennas but that is what you should be doing anyway if you want OTA. Again, thank you Sony for doing a best in class job. Regarding the TV Guide, It's powered by Grace Note which is a company that provides TV Guide services around the world so it's not some fly-by-night service and is supported by several TV manufacturers and provides programming info in Canada and the US. I am in Toronto and I can get CBC, CTV, CHCH, StarRay TV (Canada's only pirate channel), TVO, Radio Canada, Global TV, OMNI, OMNI II, CITY TV and occasionally CTV2 in Canada. I also receive PBS, Fox, MyTV, ION almost all the time and NBC and ABC (and maybe CBS) from Spring to Fall. Fortunately the Super Bowl was on Fox in 2020 so I got to see the American commercials rather than the lousy Canadian substitutions on cable (or cabal as I like to call it). I could get more channels if only I did not have a five story mid-rise condo in between my house and the US but at least I got PBS which is my favorite. In any case, all the channels I am able to receive show up in the TV Guide which pops up when you press the very nice "Guide" button on the remote. One weeks worth of programming with cover art and a decent description. Not only that, there is a "Genre" guide that groups shows into several categories such as Entertainment, News, Educational, etc.... It's actually quite a useful service. This is a whole lot better than the old way where broadcasting services provide a description of the show that is embedded in the TV signal over the air. I hated the old way because maybe you got a few hours worth of programming guide information. It's still available but the TV Guide tends to be more specific while the old type of programming info tends to be more general. I don't think broadcasters care that much about giving the 10-15% of the market that watches OTA. The old programming info is also know as PSIP for OTA geeks. Important note on TV Guide programming in the Greater Toronto Area, CTV and CHCH do not provide programming information for either the TV Guide or the old (PSIP) programming guide. They are not very cooperative with the whole cord cutter movement. CTV is owned by Bell which owns a cable company. CHCH almost went belly-up so they are not going to spend any money on programming. The Pirate channel, StarRay TV also does not provide programming info but they operate on a shoestring budget for a very limited audience. Regarding Apps, I have had a Roku Box and Roku Box Pro and have been a fan of Roku for years but I no longer need them for this TV. I hope Roku stays in business as competition to make sure TV makers don't have a monopoly though. There are also apps that some Pirate cable services use for those of you who are taking that route to lower your entertainment expenses. I don't "subscribe" to them as I am happy with what I get. There are some VPN services as well such as NordVPN and some others. I have an old, 2009 sound system that supports most Dolby Audio and the TV works very well with it. I use the optical audio connection along with the HDMI Monitor feature. They talk to each other no matter which remote I use. Thank you for excellent support for sound systems. Even old ones. Only Netflix seems to have trouble with my sound system. It's probably some newer version of Dolby. Mine is 5.1. If Sony is listening, my wish list is as follows. Please provide BlueTooth such that one or more people can listen to what is on the TV using BlueTooth headsets. Yes. I like that I can play my music on the TV which goes to my sound system but I think that if possible, you do the reverse so that I can listen while the kids are sleeping without having to buy another product to attach to the TV or sound system. Just a thought. An even more important item on the wish list is to incorporate PVR functionality so that we can connect a USB drive and record at least the OTA channels even with only one tuner. Two or more tuners would be even better. Yes, we can buy clunky PVR devices but for some reason, they all have lousy ATSC receiver chip sets based on the old 2007 Samsung chip. The Sony receiver is much much better. It would be nice to have an app that manages this and be able to set future recordings from the TV Guide just like the cable companies. Complete integration. Thanks in advance! As for other features, read other reviews as I think HDTV is enough resolution for me. What I saw in 4K is great but HDTV is still awesome. I am sure I am forgetting something important here but my review has already gone on and on long enough. Love this TV. Goodbye Vizio.

Excelente televisión, llegó muy bien empaquetada y funciona al cien.

Picture quality and ease of use are excellent. I have not yet had the opportunity to review and rate it's smart features however I'm sure they will live up to the Sony Bravia brand.

Only got the TV yesterday and set it up so can't really give a definitive overall review yet but what i can say is that the TV is easy to set up to everything i have connected to it including the ability to have my Apple Tv turn on the TV and soundbar at the same time. I could not do that with my last TV. I also do not get the dreaded sync issues that you get when connecting a soundbar to a smart TV. I had this issue with a TCL i bought so it went back. The picture quality seems good but i have not really tested it to its full potential. One thing i do not like is the fact that the TV is tilted backwards slightly. I do not like this one bit as my TV sits on a taller TV/Fireplace stand. I have never seen another TV quite like this. It may or may not be a deal breaker at this point!

Update. After many calls and chats with Sony and online searching the problems still exist and have not improved. I tried a wired connection for internet. It connects that way but cannot stream from the comme on streaming apps. Connectivity problem is still ongoing. Now I have had to unplug the TV to turn it on. After unplugging I can turn it on with the remote. HI, Seller delivered on time - so all good with the seller. The TV itself has a good picture and sound. It has all sorts of interesting smart TV features, but it fails tremendously with connectivity. WIFI needs to be reconnected almost everytime that I turn on the TV. I need to re-enter the password. In addition I installed a soundbar and used the best possible connection with the HDMI ARC. That connection is sporadic at best. The soundbar is fine since it works well with the optical output. My Amazon Firestick is connected to another HDMI port and it follows the same connectivity schedule as my soundbar - so intermittent. I did a chat with SONY customer support. Following a factory reset it worked for approximately two days. If returning the TV was not such a pain I would return and chose another brand. I am hoping that SONY does a firmware upgrade to resolve this issue.