Sony XBR – 55A8G Review: The Best Sony OLED TV?

Sony XBR – 55A8G: At First Glance

For over a decade now, Sony has been consistently diligent at producing remarkable OLED TVs. In 2019, to be precise, Sony released the high-performing A9G OLED TV that combined the excellence of OLED panels with the convenience of Android TV OS.

However, at a price of $3,499, the A9G OLED TV was quite expensive which is why Sony released the Sony XBR – 55A8G to serve as an alternative. The Sony XBR – 55A8G also served as an alternative to some LED-LCD TVs like the Sony X950G and Master Series Z9G.

At lesser price tags of $1,799 and $2,499, you can get the 55-inch and 65-inch versions of the Sony XBR – 55A8G TV. The main concern here, however, is if this TV can fill the gap that its competing series would have filled in terms of performance.

Let’s get into the review to find out.

Sony XBR – 55A8G: Design, Dimension, and Weight

Sony premium TVs have come a long way from the previous type of design they used to offer. Though Sony’s premium TVs have always exhibited some sort of brilliance in their design, there has been a problem with the way Sony overemphasizes unnecessary details.

Fortunately, that seems to be a thing of the past. In recent years, Sony has opted for a sort of design that maintains elegance in simplicity.

The Sony XBR – 55A8G follows suit in this design pattern. However, it does so without losing a bit of its weirdness.

In fact, the simple design element that makes the Sony XBR – 55A8G appear a little weird is one of those things that gives it its identity. Rather than sitting up with the support of two widely set apart feet, the Sony XBR – 55A8G sits upon a widely curved C-shaped stand.

The round side of this C-shaped stand extends from underneath the TV without calling excessive attention to its distinctiveness. With the stand reversed to attain a ‘U’ shape in front, the gap between the TV and the stand becomes smaller.

This is to say that the TV has a taller height with the stand positioned in its original position. You can make the decision of how you want to position the stand depending on the size of the soundbar you want to place in front of the TV.

That aside, this TV stand is quite sturdy. It supports the Sony XBR – 55A8G extremely well.

With this in mind, it is essential to point out the fact that this TV itself is extremely well built. The design of the Sony XBR – 55A8G is sturdy and simple all-around.

From its front-view, the Sony XBR – 55A8G screams class. Its bezels are extremely thin and they will not in any way get in the way of on-screen content.

Moving to the back of the TV, you will also see the same simple and plain design as it is on the front. As for cable management, Sony didn’t provide any room for such on the back of the XBR – 55A8G.

However, you can use the hollow back of the TV’s stand for simple cable management.

What Sony did provide room for on this TV’s back is a VESA 300×300 mount. There are four neatly drilled holes on the back of this TV with which you can install a VESA mount.

With the VESA mount installed, you can choose to wall-mount the Sony XBR – 55A8G instead of using it on its stand. Frankly speaking, this TV won’t lose its elegance if it is wall-mounted.

Like all OLEDs, the Sony XBR – 55A8G is extremely thin so it will fit perfectly on a wall. To give more detail, the Sony XBR – 55A8G measures 1229 x 51 x 710 mm.

In addition to its thinness, this TV is also very light. Specifically, the Sony XBR – 55A8G weighs just 17600 g.

Overall, the design of the Sony XBR – 55A8G is excellent. It has a simple, stylish, and sturdy design.

As a result, it scores an eight in this design review section.

Sony XBR – 55A8G: Display Features

You’ll be wrong if you simply thought that the Sony XBR – 55A8G is a less performing smaller version of Sony’s OLED TVs. Aside from the “Master Series” kind of quality this TV offers, the OLED experience it offers is very close to the one you would get on higher-version OLED TVs.

Of course, the Sony XBR – 55A8G doesn’t offer flawless performance. It has some downsides of its own which I will speak about as I continue with this review.

For now, let’s dwell on the amazing features the Sony XBR – 55A8G offers. To start with, both high dynamic range and standard dynamic range contents look awesome on this TV, but the HDR contents look unbelievably remarkable.

Moreover, since OLED displays can produce the deepest black levels, reproducing dark HDR-specific contents is the Sony XBR – 55A8G’s strong suit.

Specifically, the Sony XBR – 55A8G can render shadow detail with remarkable clarity. It does this without the kind of light blemishes you would find on high-end LED TVs that rely on local dimming for rendering deep black levels.

As a matter of fact, the Sony XBR – 55A8G can attain as many deep black levels as needed to offer an infinite contrast ratio. If you’re wondering, a display’s contrast ratio means the ratio of the darkest black a TV display can produce to the brightest white it can produce.

You may already be suggesting that this TV’s black levels don’t depend entirely on the fact that it is an OLED TV. Well, that’s quite true.

Aside from its status as an OLED TV, the Sony XBR – 55A8G features some HDR-compatible features that help boost its performance.

The Sony XBR – 55A8G comes with an HDR10 which it uses for basic UHD playback. This feature helps to improve the brightness of HDR videos.

There’s also the HLG that the TV uses for broadcasting activities. It increases the dynamic range of videos.

Lastly, there’s the Dolby Vision that helps to bring extraordinary brightness, contrast, and color to the TV’s display.

Before I got to know about these features, I was a bit disappointed when I discovered that Sony equipped this TV with the X1 Extreme processor instead of the X1 Ultimate.

This is because the X1 Extreme is obviously less capable in terms of picture processing power. Also, it doesn’t come with some top technologies like Object-based super-resolution and Pixel Contrast Booster.

On the contrary, I was much more relieved to find out that the X1 Extreme processor also features some very impressive specs. For example, this processor works with the Object-based HDR remaster that helps it analyze colors.

It also has dual database processing that helps it to reduce on-screen noise and upscale content resolution.

Furthermore, the X1 processor features a Super bit mapping HDR feature that displays more color shades to improve color gradation. That isn’t all still.

There’s also the Dynamic Contrast Enhancer that helps to improve the contrast ratio. Couple the above-mentioned features with the 4K X-Reality Pro engine and you’ll realize that the X1 processor is a serious piece of technology.

As a result, the color production on the Sony XBR – 55A8G is as impressive as you would expect from an OLED TV display. With its 96.95% wide color gamut, you can expect the content you view on this TV to appear sharp and extremely colorful.

Also, the wide viewing angle that this TV offers is not to be taken for granted. The superb viewing angle on the Sony XBR – 55A8G didn’t come as a surprise to me anyway.

Aside from their black-level exploits, OLED displays are also wide-angle specialists. You get to enjoy extreme viewing angles on the TV if you have multiple viewing positions in the area you plan to install it.

Just like we are familiar with OLED displays’ specialty with wide viewing angles, unfortunately, they are plagued with the issue of low brightness. This is why I was surprised to discover that Sony XBR – 55A8G offers up to 800 nits of peak brightness.

This is nowhere near the Samsung Q90 QLED or the Vizio P-Series Quantum X, which both offer close to 2,000 nits of peak brightness. Nonetheless, the Sony XBR – 55A8G’s brightness indicates an improvement in OLED display brightness.

Besides, the impressive contrast ratio this TV offers makes the brightness issue less of a concern. You will barely even notice that the TV doesn’t offer a local dimming feature.

That said, these inadequacies may be a little bit noticeable when you view content with a high amount of bright elements, but it won’t be too bad. The Sony XBR – 55A8G still remains an excellent OLED TV display.

Moreover, the TV’s motion handling performance is another praise-worthy aspect that will leave you in awe. The Sony XBR – 55A8G’s fantastic motion handling makes it an excellent option for gamers and sports fans.

As the test results indicate, the Sony XBR – 55A8G delivers smooth and blur-free motion across numerous motion contents. To start with, its 120 Hz native refresh rate earns it a spot at the top ahead of most TVs in its class.

Its refresh rate isn’t the only pillar behind this TV’s motion content success. It works in combination with Sony’s famous Motion Flow XR technology to deliver smooth motion content.

In light of this, it is no surprise that the Sony XBR – 55A8G offers a nearly instantaneous response time. It takes approximately 2.4 ms for this TV’s display pixels to transition from one color to another.

This means that the Sony XBR – 55A8G will not display any sort of image blur regardless of how fast the content you are viewing may be. However, gamers might be a bit disappointed that this TV’s input lag isn’t as incredible as its response time.

To give more details, the Sony XBR – 55A8G has an input lag of 31.4 ms which isn’t as bad as it looks. With this input lag rate, you can still enjoy playing most of your video games on the Sony XBR – 55A8G.

Overall, the Sony XBR – 55A8G’s display has the capability to offer deep black levels, infinite contrast, and excellent viewing angles. It also handles motion contents impressively well which is why it scores a nine in this display review.

Sony XBR – 55A8G: Sound Features

The Sony XBR – 55A8G doesn’t make use of traditional down-firing speakers to produce sound. Like most other OLED TVs, Sony equipped this TV with its unique audio system called Acoustic Surface Audio.

This system works by creating vibrations with the help of a set of actuators that are fixed behind the TV’s screen. The result of this is a sound effect that seems to emerge from the middle of the screen and cast across a wide range.

Sounds feel more in sync with the image being displayed and therefore give a more realistic feeling. Sadly, this system’s sound production comes at the expense of sound clarity and deep bass levels.

In large, open spaces, dialogues tend to become a bit unclear and bass sounds lack a real punch to them. Fortunately, aside from the pair of actuators behind this TV’s sound, there’s also a 10 W+ 10W speaker system.

This speaker system is coupled with a pair of woofers to make an additional 10W+10W.

In essence, this built-in sound system makes the Sony XBR – 55A8G excellent for casual viewing. Moreover, the Sony XBR – 55A8G offers a fairly low-frequency extension of 6.72 dB.

What this means is that the Sony XBR – 55A8G will be able to accurately produce the sound level of each sound frequency you will need it to produce.

As for total harmonic distortion (THD), the Sony XBR – 55A8G’s distortion performance is also acceptable. If you are wondering, THD represents how well the TV will produce the sound signal it receives perfectly without suffering from too much sound deformation.

At low and moderate volumes, the Sony XBR – 55A8G suffers from very little distortion. However, the moment you increase the TV’s volume to higher levels, its total harmonic distortion increases excessively.

Overall, the Sony XBR – 55A8G delivers good sound with a wide soundstage. However, the sound quality may be drastically reduced if you use the TV in large rooms or open spaces.

Also, the sound quality isn’t the best when you set the TV’s volume at high levels. Due to all of these, the Sony XBR – 55A8G scores a seven in this sound features review.

Sony XBR – 55A8G: Ports and Connectivity Features

The port connection layout on the Sony XBR – 55A8G follows the same layout pattern as the one on the A9G series TVs. Hence, there is a group of port connections positioned sideways.

Aside from these ports, there are some positioned right under the TV, creating an acute angle-like structure. These ports face downwards instead of sideways.

If you are going to wall-mount the TV, you’ll find the ports positioned sideways to be more easily accessible than the ones facing downwards.

Let’s proceed to find out the port options on the Sony XBR – 55A8G. We will start with the one positioned sideways.

From the bottom to the top, you get an HDMI input, 2 USB 2.0 ports for connecting external storage, an IR port, and a headphone jack. There’s also a composite video input and a remote IR input to complete the collection.

For the second array, there are 3 HDMI ports that all support ARC for connecting subwoofers or external soundbars. There’s also an RS-232C port, a USB 3.0 port, and an optical digital output port.

Finally, you also get an Ethernet port for wired connection to the internet and a regular antenna/cable connector.

For wireless connectivity, you have version 4.1 Bluetooth as well as Wi-Fi. There’s also an IR remote for connecting to the TV.

This remote features the same annoying design as the A8F Series TV remote. Due to Sony’s desire to create an all-in-one remote, the XBR – 55A8G’s remote ended up being unnecessarily large.

However, the positives are that the remote has a numerical keypad, colored buttons for cable box selections, and playback controls. There are also smart TV buttons and media player buttons.

When you pair this remote with the TV through Bluetooth, you can use it to perform Google Assistant voice search operations. However, this remote requires a direct line-of-sight with the TV for every other function it offers.

Finally, for this section, the Sony XBR – 55A8G’s offers a wide array of port and connectivity features. Its remote also has some elements of premium features even though it is annoyingly bulky.

That being said, the Sony XBR – 55A8G scores a seven in this ports and connectivity features review.

Sony XBR – 55A8G: Smart Features

For a few years now, Android has always been trailing behind the Tizen OS used in Samsung TVs and LG’s WebOS. Despite several upgrades, the Android OS couldn’t quite match the standards of the competitors because it was very bulky and stressful to use.

Fortunately, the Android TV 8.0 has helped put an end to the era of annoying Android OS platforms. The Android TV 8.0 featured on Sony XBR – 55A8G is much better as it comes with lots of noticeable improvements.

Though there are still some aspects that could use a few improvements, it’s not as annoying as the previous versions. Google has redesigned this operating system to offer a good mix of excellent functionality and a user-friendly experience.

Besides, the Sony XBR – 55A8G’s powerful processor makes it capable of keeping up with the platform’s resource-intensive visuals. As a result, everything on the Sony XBR – 55A8G is fast and responsive.

As much as there are noticeable improvements in the Android OS, I was glad to see that it does well in one area where I never felt it needed any improvements. The amount of apps and streaming services on the platform is still massive.

You can literally find almost any app or service you need on the Google Play store. To name a few, you will find streaming services like Google Play TV & Movies, Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, YouTube, and Sling TV.

There are also music platforms like Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Play Music, and Tidal.

If you want to use your phone to control the Sony XBR – 55A8G, there are some third-party Sony remote apps that you can download to do that. You can also use the built-in Chromecast to cast any content you want to watch from your phone to the TV.

Since Chromecast supports both Android and iOS, you can use whichever device you prefer.

Also, like other Android devices, the Sony XBR – 55A8G offers support for both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. You can make use of the TV remote’s built-in microphone to access the Google Assistant feature.

However, you will need an external device for you to use Alexa.

With the voice assistant feature, you can control basic functions on the TV using the remote. You can also use the Sony XBR – 55A8G as a smart home hub for controlling other smart devices in your homes like alarms, lights, and anything that supports voice control.

However, you will have to always pick up the remote since the TV itself doesn’t have a microphone built-in. The Sony XBR – 55A8G also doesn’t feature Apple Airplay 2 or HomeKit, but asides from those two, it has plenty to offer in the smart department.

In summary, the Android TV 8.0 featured in Sony XBR – 55A8G is an amazing upgrade and it offers an excellent user experience. As a result, this Sony TV scores an eight in this smart features review.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The XBR – 55A8G is another statement of Sony’s excellence when it comes to upscaling, impressive picture quality, and perfect motion handling. Without a doubt, the Sony XBR – 55A8G, is one of the best OLED TVs available.

Add its remarkable image processing capability to the now impressive Android TV OS it features, you will realize you are getting a lot of value. You get an Android TV 8.0 with features like Chromecast, voice control support, and a huge selection of streaming services and apps.

Though I’m not okay with Sony’s Acoustic Audio Surface tech and the TV’s large remote, it is a good thing the TV offers good picture processing. Besides, the Sony XBR – 55A8G is an affordable OLED option.

Hence, I would recommend this TV if you want to have a taste of the OLED experience.

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