re: Sony Bravia tvs. Yea or nea?

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You’re the person to ask then. It’s been a few years since I was in the tv market myself, and my parents just asked me to start researching TV’s because they’d like to replace their buggy Samsung.

After doing some brief research yesterday I’ve come across a few models so far in the sort of range they’re looking at. The Sony x90l, the Hisense h7k/h8k and the tcl qm8. On paper, and some of the reviews, I’ve seen the Hisense and tcl models are comparable, if not slightly better in some aspects compared to the Sony. My biggest concern for the Sony are the black levels? Does the light from scenes bleed into the letterbox black bars noticeably while watching content? their current Samsung tv is horrible with basically washing out all colors with the backlight, terrible black levels. How noticeable is the blooming on the Sony?

I have a feeling they’ll be leaning more towards the Sony when I present them with the options given their familiarity with the brand compared to tcl or Hisense.

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There is give and take with all these TVs. None of them are perfect. There are some direct comparison reviews on HDTVtest and FOMO on youtube if you want to check them out.

If you want a short summary, the X90L is overall the better TV compared to TCL and Hisense. Both TCL and Hisense have terrible motion processing. The X90L ha better upscaling. The X90L maintains all details so you dont miss anything from black crush. The color out of the box is absolutely better than the other two. The other two will need professional calibration if you want to get the best color performance from the sets (but they do get really good color performance after calibration).

The TCL and Hisense will have a bit better blacks but you will lose detail, especially in dolby vision with those two sets. They have a bit better blooming control than the Sony but again, it is because they are willing to sacrifice details in the name of blacks.

Vincent at HDTVtest gave the X90L a full recommendation for buyers and says the processing is so great that blooming is controlled amazingly well for being FALD and not mini-led. The blooming is only there if you go out of your way to look for it. There is a lot of haloing that people see and will think that is blooming but it isn't. It is just so bright your eyes will produce a halo effect.

EDIT: and if you can get a sony from costco, do it. The costco version (X90CL) comes with a backlit remote and it is fantastic. If you are going to use a streaming device then it probably doesn't matter.