HD PICTURE QUALITY HD picture quality was Very Good, overall. Reproduction of fine HD image detail was Excellent, though the image detail was very exaggerated and made images appear less natural, despite our attempts to minimize this with the sharpness control. Color accuracy was Very Good, with flesh tones in particular, looking natural. Excellent contrast—the difference between the darkest blacks and brightest whites—gave images great depth and dimension. Black levels were Very Good, and delivered fairly deep blacks that helped the contrast in darker scenes. Sony's full-array local-dimming feature helped—so black levels were fairly deep, just shy of the very best models, which gave dark scenes better depth. This was among the brightest models we've tested (with the backlight control turned up), so the picture was well suited for a very sunny room—a lower setting is recommended for a dimmer viewing environment. Its reproduction of smooth edges on image content for "up-converted" HD-to-UHD images was Very Good with minimal "jaggies" (jagged edges). Deinterlacing 1080i video, and film mode detection of 1080i film-based content, were both Excellent. However, the overall quality appeared worse as we viewed from the sides—see our Viewing Angle results, below.
4K UHD PICTURE QUALITY Overall 4K UHD picture quality was Very Good, overall. In our UHD testing, we played native-4K movies and test videos (non HDR) thru the TV's HDMI input, and found their image detail was all there. For color, contrast and black level, the TV performed similarly to its HD picture quality.
HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR) PERFORMANCE HDR performance was generally effective. Note, in HDR mode, this TV only allowed us to optimize the Brightness, Gamma, Peak Luminance picture settings—all other settings were as they were for the standard-dynamic range (SDR) HD picture. In our tests, the display showed Good peak brightness capability (by HDR standards) and did a fine job displaying the benefits of our HDR 4K content. It revealed somewhat-limited contrast between the moderately bright and very bright highlights, while the brightness levels in the mid-to-lower tones, like those in an indoor scene, were preserved. It did a good job reproducing a greater range of nuanced shadow detail, from black to white, with no obvious banding within the gradually shaded areas, but we noted some loss of detail within the highlights of the brightest areas. Brightly colored objects remained nicely saturated.
VIEWING ANGLE This Sony model has a moderate viewing angle overall, decent, but not quite as good as the better-performing TVs we've tested. The optimal seating position for best picture quality is directly in front of this model. We examined the picture at various viewing angles, and saw the image quality was not consistent. In our tests, the picture did show some slight dimming from the sides, but not to a distracting degree. When we viewed the TV from the sides, image quality got worse. The picture showed a moderate loss of color, so flesh tones looked a bit washed out. Black levels visibly brightened, and reduced the contrast especially on dark scenes. Halo effects around objects in darker scenes (a side effect of the local dimming feature) also become more prominent at off angles. Lastly, we viewed the image from above and below center screen, and noticed Good vertical viewing angle performance, with only slight changes in color, contrast, and black level.
