Sony X800H Review: An Ideal Sony Television for Gaming

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Sony X800H: At First Glance

Year after year, the 4K television market experiences major spikes in demand. Due to this demand, major manufacturers like LG, Sony, and Samsung are putting more focus on releasing 4K televisions.

Therefore, in 2020, Sony released the X800H, one of the brand’s mid-range entries in the 4K television Market. This television isn’t just a mid-range 4K television, but a 4K television that offers excellent picture quality and numerous features.

Furthermore, this Sony 4K television comes with lots of reasonable ports. However, as with most television in the market, the TV features some drawbacks.

Besides, does the Sony X800H have enough features to stand out in the competitive 4K television market? Read on to find out!

Sony X800H: Design, Dimension, and Weight

To begin with, the Sony X800H features a sleek design with relatively slim bezels. These bezels surround the television’s display and measure 0.59-inch.

Furthermore, the bezels are made of plastic and feature a matte-black finish. For brand recognition, the center of the bottom bezel houses a white “Sony” inscription.

In addition to its slim bezels, the Sony X800H comes with a pair of V-shaped legs. Like the bezels, these legs are made of plastic and they have a matte-black finish.

Moreover, despite being made with plastic, these legs are quite thick and sturdy. Therefore, they are capable of supporting the Sony X800H firmly with only a little wobble when nudged.

However, as with most televisions nowadays, these legs are set to the extreme edges of the television. Therefore, you will need a fairly large tabletop or desk to place the Sony X800H on if not wall-mounted.

Turning to the back, the Sony X800H comes with a plastic panel with a plain black finish. In addition to that, the top of this back panel features a horizontal array of dotted air holes.

Also, the back panel has four 400 x 400 mm VESA mount holes for wall-mounting the television. Thankfully, the back panel of this Sony television isn’t particularly thick.

As a result, the Sony X800H won’t bulge out or look awkward if mounted on the wall. Sadly, there is no cable management system anywhere on the television’s back panel.

Thus, cables attached to the television will look disorganized if not manually arranged.

Moving on to the dimension and weight, the Sony X800H measures 1899 x 71 x 1089 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 43998.5 g. In my opinion, for an 85-inch television, this Sony television doesn’t weigh too much.

In fact, the television weighs less than most 85-inch televisions out there such as the Samsung QN85QN90AAFXZA. To give more details, the Samsung QN85QN90AAFXZA weighs a massive 56200 g and measures 365.76 x 1892.3 x 1148.08 mm (W x D x H).

In conclusion, the Sony X800H features an amazing design with slim plastic bezels. Therefore, in this design review section, I will rate the television a nine out of ten.

Sony X800H: Display Features and Picture Quality

When it comes to the display, the Sony X800H features an 85-inch LCD display with a 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) resolution. Moreover, this display should be able to render vivid, colorful, and sharp pictures due to its 4K resolution.

Besides, a 4K resolution display is four times clearer, sharper, and better than the typical HD resolution display. However, despite its 4K resolution, the Sony X800H’s display has a poor contrast ratio.

To give more details, the television’s display comes with a terrible contrast ratio of 1,083:1. Consequently, the display will not be able to render deep blacks.

In other words, blacks on the display will look more like gray. As a result, watching content with lots of dark scenes (e.g horror movies) on the Sony X800H might not be a pleasant experience.

Also, the television isn’t ideal for dark room viewing due to its poor contrast ratio. In case you are curious, the contrast ratio is the ratio between a display’s brightest white and the darkest black.

To make things worse, the Sony X800H’s display doesn’t support local dimming. Local dimming is a technique used by LCD and LED displays to improve their contrast ratio and black level.

Basically, this technique involves the reduction of brightness behind the display’s layers, allowing the display to render deep blacks. Sadly, as mentioned earlier, this television’s display doesn’t support local dimming.

On a positive note, the Sony X800H’s display offers an impressive maximum brightness of 515 nits. Therefore, the Sony X800H is ideal for usage in moderately-lit or bright rooms.

Moreover, when using the television in a bright room, you shouldn’t have to worry about reflection spoiling your viewing experience. This is because the Sony X800H’s display features a semi-gloss coating on its surface.

This semi-gloss coating prevents sun glare and reduces the density of reflection and direct sunlight on the display. In addition to its outstanding reflection handling, the Sony X800H’s display offers wide viewing angles.

Thus, the colors and pictures won’t lose accuracy when viewing the television from the sides or off-center. As a result, the Sony X800H is ideal for large room viewing.

Moving forward, the Sony X800H’s display supports HDR formats such as Dolby Vision, HDR 10, HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma). For clarity, HDR (High Dynamic Range) is a picture technology that improves the brightness and color accuracy of a display.

In other words, HDR boosts the highlights of images on the display when viewing HDR-supported content, making them brighter and more realistic. For the record, HDR-supported content can be found on streaming apps such as Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV, Vudu, and so on.

That said, the Sony X800H’s display features a fast response time of 14.7 milliseconds. Thus, this television is ideal for watching fast-moving content like car races, sports, and action moves.

In case you are not aware, response time is the time that it takes a display to change from one color to another. In addition to its fast response time, the Sony X800H comes with a remarkably low input lag of 10.2 milliseconds.

Input lag is the amount of time it takes a display to respond to a signal input from external sources such as a wireless gaming pad. Furthermore, for a television to be classified as a “gaming television”, its display must have an input lag of 15 milliseconds or less.

Well, as you can see above, the Sony X800H’s display has an input lag lower than 15 milliseconds. Therefore, this Sony television is very much ideal for playing video games.

Conclusively, apart from its poor contrast ratio, the Sony X800H’s display doesn’t feature any major flaws. Besides, the display has a low input lag which makes the television suitable for gaming.

Therefore, I will offer the Sony X800H an eight out of ten rating in this display review section.

Sony X800H: Sound Features

When it comes to the sound department, the Sony X800H features a pair of 10-watts reflex bass speakers. Moreover, these speakers are Sony’s exclusive X-balanced speakers that produce a well-balanced sound output and rich quality.

Furthermore, the television’s speakers are very loud and capable of filling a large room with sound. Sadly, the Sony X800H lacks a subwoofer, which means it won’t be able to generate an adequate amount of bass.

Thus, watching bass-heavy movies on the television might not be the best thing to do. Nevertheless, if you really love bassy movies, you can purchase a soundbar alongside the TV to support its bass production.

On a positive note, the Sony X800H’s speakers can produce crisp and clear dialogue. Hence, when multiple people are discussing in a movie, you will be able to clearly hear and understand what they are saying.

Moving on, to enhance its speakers’ sound production, the Sony X800H features sound technologies like Dolby Audio and Dolby Atmos. Also, this television comes with DTS Digital Surround sound technology.

Each of these sound technologies performs different roles in improving the Sony X800H’s sound production. For instance, Dolby Audio allows the television’s speakers to produce a cinematic sound effect mostly found in movie theaters and cinemas.

The Dolby Atmos and DTS Digital Surround, however, enhance the surround sound production of the speakers. Therefore, when watching movies on the Sony X800H, there will be an illusion that sound is coming from different angles of your environment.

However, despite its impressive sound technologies, the Sony X800H offers terrible distortion performance. This is evident through the television’s result on a THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) test.

THD test is a sound test that measures the total amount of distortion that a sound device can generate. Furthermore, on this test, a score of 1% or less indicates that the sound device generates minimal to no distortion.

However, if the score surpasses 1%, that means the sound device can generate a noticeable amount of distortion. Disappointingly, the Sony X800H delivered a score of 11.214% on the THD test.

Thus, even at a moderate volume level, the distortion that this television will produce will be very significant, audible, and noticeable. For context, distortion is the deformation of sound signals, resulting in the production of a less appealing sound quality.

All things considered, I will rate the Sony X800H a seven out of ten in this sound review section for its poor distortion performance.

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Sony X800H: Ports and Connectivity Features

In terms of ports, the Sony X800H features a great number of ports. Moreover, all the ports are located on the right side of the television.

Thus, even when the TV is wall-mounted, users will be able to easily access the ports. Now that we have known the location of the ports, let us get to know the varieties of ports that the television feature.

To start with, the Sony X800H features four HDMI ports including one that supports ARC (Audio Return Channel). Thus, by using the single HDMI-ARC port, you will be able to connect a soundbar to the television.

In addition to the HDMI ports, this Sony television also features an Ethernet port, two USB ports, optical audio out, and composite video input. Likewise, the television comes with a 3.5 mm headphone jack and an RF connector.

For wireless connectivity, the Sony X800H has a built-in 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac WIFI and Bluetooth 4.2. Having said all that, let us now examine the television’s remote control.

The Sony X800H comes with a standard remote control that supports voice input. Therefore, the remote has a built-in microphone for voice input via Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.

Design-wise, the remote is made of plastic and features a matte grey finish. Also, this remote comes with two dedicated buttons for quick access to Google Play and Netflix.

In addition to the dedicated buttons, the Sony X800H’s remote features a circular navigation button in the middle. That’s not all, the remote also comes with a full number pad, a vertical volume rocker, and a channel rocker.

For easy brand recognition, you will find a white “Sony” logo at the bottom of the remote.

In conclusion, the Sony X800H features a great number of ports and remote control that support voice input. Hence, this television deserves a nine out of ten rating in this ports and connectivity review section.

Sony X800H: Smart Features

As with most modern Sony smart televisions, the Sony X800H comes with the Andriod OS version 9.0. Like every other Andriod OS version, this operating system features a very smooth and easy-to-use interface.

However, the interface of this OS contains pop-up ads, annoying right? To make things more complicated, these ads cannot be disabled.

On the bright side, the Andriod operating system offers a large selection of pre-installed applications and streaming services. Some of these streaming services include Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, and so on.

In fact, if you are not satisfied with the pre-installed streaming services, you can download more from the Google Play Store.

In conclusion, the Sony X800H comes with an operating system that offers a smooth interface and lots of streaming services. However, the interface of the operating system features ads that cannot be disabled.

Therefore, I will rate the Sony X800H an eight out of ten in this smart features review section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The Sony X800H is a 4K television that offers good picture quality and wide viewing angles. Furthermore, this television supports HDR, which enhances its picture quality.

In addition to that, the television is ideal for gaming thanks to its low input lag. Also, this Sony television comes with a good number of ports as well as a voice-supported remote control.

However, the TV offers a poor contrast ratio and its distortion performance is very disappointing. Nevertheless, if you are a gamer or need a massive Android OS smart television, the 85-inch Sony X800H is worth considering.

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