HD PICTURE QUALITY HD picture quality was Very Good, overall. Reproduction of fine HD image detail was Excellent, though image detail was very exaggerated and made images appear less natural, despite our attempts to minimize this with the sharpness control. Color accuracy was Excellent, so colors, especially flesh tones, look very natural and lifelike. Very Good contrast—the difference between the darkest blacks and brightest whites—gave images convincing depth and dimension. These fairly deep blacks aided the contrast especially in darker scenes—Sony's full-array local-dimming feature was effective—the black levels were fairly deep, just shy of the very best models. 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 of 1080i video, and film mode detection of 1080i film-based content were both Excellent. However, there was slight display non-uniformity in our test sample—it appeared as brighter cloudy areas which were most noticeable on very dark scenes (or in the black bars of a letterboxed movie)—the severity can vary from model to model.
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 very effective, despite the fact that 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's very high peak brightness capability was Excellent, and greatly helped reproduce the realism of our HDR 4K content. It Excellently revealed the contrast between 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 wide viewing angle overall, better than that of most TVs. It will provide fairly consistent picture quality, with fewer problems than most TVs, for typical viewing conditions—say, if your family is seated across a long sectional or in chairs off to the sides. Our examination at various viewing angles indicated reasonably good consistency. 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 the image had some loss of quality. The picture showed a slight loss of color. Black levels brightened slightly. 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 saw Very Good vertical viewing angle performance, with minimal changes in color, contrast, and black level.
