Sony XBR – 55X800E Review: Decent Image Quality for a LED TV

Sony XBR – 55X800E: At First Glance

In 2017, Sony didn’t release as many TV series as it used to. Unlike its competitors, such as LG and Samsung, which released many new TV series, Sony decided to polish a smaller section of its high-end products.

One of these sections Sony decided to focus on was its XBR X800E series. As a result, Sony released the XBR – 55X800E, equipped with tons of features to ensure efficient performance.

At a starting price of around $550 (December 2021), Sony offers an impressive 4K resolution display, HDR compatibility, and an Android TV platform. Despite offering these incredible features at such a relatively affordable sales price, this TV doesn’t come without some downsides – take, for example, its low contrast ratio.

Besides, when it comes to price to performance ratio, this TV doesn’t offer as much value compared to the $650 TCL P Series. With all of this in mind, does the Sony XBR – 55X800E have what it takes to compete squarely with other TVs in its category?

We will find out soon enough.

Sony XBR – 55X800E: Design, Dimension, and Weight

Though views about gadget designs are largely subjective, I strongly doubt that there would be many complaints about this TV’s design. The Sony XBR – 55X800E’s looks really good.

Its design is very similar to that of its previous version – the X800D, which was released in 2016. Like the X800D series TVs, the Sony XBR – 55X800E has been chiseled from extremely fine materials.

It also features a simple design pattern like the X800D series TVs.

Though the Sony XBR – 55X800E has the same design as its predecessor, it doesn’t feel as premium as its predecessor. This doesn’t mean the overall build quality of the Sony XBR – 55X800E is entirely poor; it just doesn’t feel as premium as the X800D series TV.

For the most part, the Sony XBR – 55X800E’s build quality is decent. Even though most of its main body parts are constructed with plastic, this TV feels quite sturdy.

Moreover, the Sony XBR – 55X800E doesn’t feature those premium-looking metals you’ll find in Sony’s more premium televisions, but it looks well-built. Its good body build makes it look sleek and stylish.

However, a few design components nearly or slightly betray the Sony XBR – 55X800E’s sleek design theme. One of these design components is the display’s lower bezel.

Even though the top and side bezels are extremely thin, this TV’s lower display bezel is a bit thick. In Sony’s defense, the lower bezel probably had to be slightly thicker to accommodate the “SONY” inscription.

Another thing some users may complain about is the TV’s thickness. The Sony XBR – 55X800E measures 1232 x 57 x 716 mm.

As a result, some may consider this TV to be too thick for wall mounting because its size won’t allow it to flush with the wall. If you still decide to mount the XBR – 55X800E on a wall, you can do so with a 300 x 200 mm VESA mount.

Meanwhile, you can also set up this TV the old-fashion way. The Sony XBR – 55X800E comes with a U-shaped stand that helps the TV sit firmly while taking a small amount of table space.

Since the Sony XBR – 55X800E’s two U-shaped legs are 508 mm apart, it will be easy to set the TV up on small to medium-sized tabletops.

Aside from the firm support and the ease of installation this TV’s stand offers, it also provides channels within its legs for cable management. Consequently, this cable channel helps the TV maintain its neat appearance since it helps to keep the cables hidden from plain sight.

To round off this section, Sony did a good job with the design of the XBR – 55X800E TV. It looks beautiful and sleek enough to serve as the center of attraction in any room.

As a result, Sony XBR – 55X800E scores an eight in this design review section.

Sony XBR – 55X800E: Display Features

Compared to its predecessor – the XBR-55X800D, there’s a small but noticeable change in the Sony XBR – 55X800E’s display. Unlike the X800D, which came equipped with a vertical alignment style LCD panel, the XBR – 55X800E features an IPS type.

While this may not seem like a big thing at first, it may as well go on to be a big game-changer. Well, the good news is that it actually is a game-changer, but it doesn’t come without its downsides as well.

As you would expect of an IPS display panel, the Sony XBR – 55X800E’s display offers wide viewing angles. It also offers a great degree of color accuracy.

If we are being completely honest with ourselves anyway, there’s barely any Sony TV that doesn’t offer accurate colors. The XBR – 55X800E is just one of those Sony TVs where color accuracy is highly defined.

For instance, take into consideration the result this TV achieved in the color gamut test. By major standards, the result the Sony XBR – 55X800E had in this test proves it offers a wide color gamut.

Before I share the XBR – 55X800E’s result in the color gamut test, I will briefly explain what color gamut means. If you are not familiar with what color gamut means, this explanation will be of help.

Generally, color gamut defines the number of colors, or the range of colors a TV will be able to display. Hence, if a TV has a wide color gamut, it has a high tendency to offer excellent color accuracy and reproduction.

On this color gamut test, the Sony XBR – 55X800E performed considerably well. Although it didn’t exactly hit the pass mark score, its 85% score is well within the minimum acceptable score range.

Normally, the minimum good score value on this test is a score above 90%. However, since there’s room for a minimum score difference of 5%, the Sony XBR – 55X800E’s performance is within the good range.

For the record, the good color accuracy on this TV is partly thanks to Sony’s Triluminos technology which helps it enhance the quality of the colors it produces.

With that being said, this TV also has another feature which further enhances the picture quality it offers. To give more detail, the Sony XBR – 55X800E comes with an HDR 10 feature.

Along with its wide color gamut, the HDR feature helps this TV to display more realistic images. It helps the Sony XBR – 55X800E produce images with more contrast, brightness, and color.

Unfortunately, this HDR feature is not enough to completely get the job done. On a native contrast ratio test, the Sony XBR – 55X800E had a disappointing contrast ratio of 961:1.

This value is miles below the 3000:1 average good value. Moreover, its value is nowhere near that of its predecessor – the XBR-55X850D – that had a contrast ratio of 3,877:1.

What the disappointing contrast ratio on the Sony XBR – 55X800E means for you as a user is that you won’t enjoy viewing dark-scene movies on the TV.

As we may have already known, the contrast ratio checks for the brightness difference between the darkest black and the brightest white a TV can produce. Since this TV’s black levels aren’t deep enough, dark scenes in movies often look washed out.

Although bright and vivid colors will appear just fine on this TV, darker colors won’t display perfectly. This is largely due to the IPS panel type of LCD display the Sony XBR – 55X800E comes with.

If it had come with the same vertical alignment style panel as the one on the Sony XBR-55X800D, its black levels could have been better.

Aside from that, Sony could have equipped this TV with an image processing feature like the local dimming feature. This would have helped darken the black levels on this TV.

Given its poor contrast ratio, the Sony XBR – 55X800E aims to make up for its picture quality with a decent peak brightness. It offers a commendable peak brightness of 436 nits.

With this level of brightness, the TV can remain consistently bright when you are watching any content. However, the display may not be able to make small details as bright as you would love them to be because of its lack of local dimming.

Nonetheless, the brightness on this TV is good. After all, this TV is brighter than the X800D, which has a peak brightness of 375 nits, but it is not as bright as the X700D, which offers a peak brightness of 496 nits.

Moving on, with a native refresh rate of 60 Hz and a 4K UHD resolution of 3840 x 2160, the XBR – 55X800E displays fast action content quite smoothly. On a test to check the amount of blur it suffers in fast motion, the Sony XBR – 55X800E had a good response time of 13.9 ms.

To give a brief explanation, this test is called the response time test and it checks how fast a display pixel can change from one color to another. On this test, values less than 20 ms are good values.

Hence, the XBR – 55X800E performed well.

The XBR – 55X800E also performed well in the input lag test I looked up. For clarity, input lag is the delay between the time a TV display receives a signal and the time it takes to display the signal received.

Therefore, this input lag test checks for the lowest input lag the TV can suffer from when displaying 4K content at a 60 Hz refresh rate. On this test, the Sony XBR – 55X800E recorded an input lag of 35.1 ms.

This value is a good one considering that the acceptable values for this test are those below 40 ms.

Overall, the display features and performance the Sony XBR – 55X800E offers are quite good. Apart from its bad contrast ratio, the TV offers a whole lot of good qualities.

The Sony XBR – 55X800E offers excellent color accuracy, good motion content, and decent viewing angles. As a result, it scores a seven in this display review.

Sony XBR – 55X800E: Sound Features

The Sony XBR – 55X800E has a pair of 10W speakers built into his cabinet. Though these speakers are a set of down-firing speakers, they are capable of producing sound at an acceptable volume.

However, due to the irregularities in the performance of this TV’s speaker, I would advise that you get a good soundbar. Consider this action more if you love watching movies on your TV or if you listen to music a lot with your TV.

I will give credible reasons for giving this advice as I proceed with this review. These reasons will be based on the Sony XBR – 55X800E’s performance as I evaluate its sound features.

For the most part, the sound quality on the Sony XBR – 55X800E is decent. However, the quality of the sound this TV produces is often affected by the volume at which it produces those sounds.

For instance, its bass sound quality. The Sony XBR – 55X800E produces sounds with strong bass at low and moderate volume levels.

However, the moment you turn its volume up to 50 percent or more, the bass sounds begin to flatten in tone. As a result of this, the TV’s slim cabinet will begin to rattle.

Not only does the TV’s bass sound get worse, but you will also discover a drop in the quality of the treble sound. To further analyze the Sony XBR – 55X800E’s sound performance, we will also take a look at some specific sound quality-related tests.

On the frequency response test, I discovered that the Sony XBR – 55X800E’s frequency response isn’t excellent, but it is acceptable. To give more detail, the Sony XBR – 55X800E frequency response exceeds the maximum 6 dB acceptable response value.

This TV has a frequency response of 7.84 dB. For those that are not familiar with what frequency response means, I will explain in the succeeding paragraph.

Frequency response is a measure of how accurately a TV reproduces the sound level of each frequency of the sound it produces. As far as frequency response is concerned, the lower the value, the better.

In the harmonic distortion aspect, I also found out that the Sony XBR – 55X800E has poor sound distortion. Like the frequency response, the lower the distortion value, the better.

To give a brief explanation, total harmonic distortion is the amount of deformation in a sound output compared to its original input signal. This TV’s distortion results are a bit higher than average at standard volumes.

However, they rapidly increase when the TV’s volume levels are closer to maximum, making volume settings above 85 almost unusable. To give a clear representation of these results, the Sony XBR – 55X800E suffers from a distortion of 15.581 at maximum volume.

This is much higher than the average maximum value of 0.1. Based on the results gathered, I will advise anyone getting this TV to also get a good soundbar along with it.

To round off, the Sony XBR – 55X800E scores a six in this sound features review section because of its average performance.

Sony XBR – 55X800E: Ports and Connectivity Features

The Sony XBR – 55X800E offers a reasonable port selection. On the left side of the TV, Sony offers two HDMI ports.

However, only one of these HDMI ports supports an audio return channel or ARC for connecting a soundbar.

On that same left side, you will find three USB ports. Two out of these USB ports are version 2.0 types, while the last one is a version 3.0 type.

The rest of the ports this TV has to offer are positioned on its back. Personally, I would have preferred if Sony had found a better way to position the ports so as to allow for easy access if the TV is wall-mounted.

That aside, the rear port panel features two more HDMI ports, a component video input, a digital audio connection, and an Ethernet port.

In addition, the Sony XBR – 55X800E offers Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for wireless connectivity. As expected, this TV also comes with a remote.

Like most Sony TV remotes, this TV’s remote has a chunky rectangular build.

The Sony XBR – 55X800E’s remote is filled with buttons all around its surface. What you will most likely notice first in this remote’s button arrangement is its directional pad that’s surrounded by six additional navigational buttons.

Then there’s also a full number pad and dedicated buttons for apps and media playback controls.

To be sincere, this remote isn’t the best TV remote there is. It is not as smart or efficient as the remotes that came with the TCL Roku 43S403 or the Insignia Roku TV, but it should get the job done.

After all, Sony has equipped this remote with a few features to ensure that it offers a satisfactory performance. The best feature this remote offers is the embedded microphone with which it offers voice interaction.

With this feature, you can use voice search to find and get access to content across numerous streaming applications.

However, you can not use voice search on broadcast or cable channels.

Overall, the ports and connectivity options that the Sony XBR – 55X800E offers are fair by major standards. For this reason, it scores a seven in this ports and connectivity features review section.

Sony XBR – 55X800E: Smart Features

The Sony XBR – 55X800E comes with a version 7.0 Android TV operating system. As usual, there’s a big advantage to having an Android TV operating system.

Since it offers one of the most robust app support available for streaming services and apps, you get to access a ton of streaming apps. Besides, having an Android TV platform means you get to interact with many apps and functions that you are most likely already familiar with.

Unless you’ve been a die-hard iOS user, you will be familiar with most of the apps on the Android TV platform.

Thanks to how influential Google is in the app market, you’ll have access to popular apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Video, HBO Go, and many more. You’ll also get access to even less popular apps like Sony’s Playstation Vue and some streaming apps like Kodi and Plex.

There’s still an added functionality to this Android TV platform. In cases you can’t find an app you want within the Android TV ecosystem, you can use the built-in Chromecast functionality to stream content from your phone or tablet to this TV.

As much as this TV’s Android operating system offers numerous interesting functionalities, it also comes with its downsides as usual. Like most Android TV interfaces, the Sony XBR – 55X800E’s Android TV interface isn’t easy to use.

Sometimes, this TV’s smart platform lags and becomes annoying to navigate around. Overall, I would say the ease of use of this TV’s smart platform is average and its user interface is not smooth.

However, the Sony XBR – 55X800E still scores a seven in this smart features review section thanks to the numerous beneficial features it offers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The Sony XBR – 55X800E is a good smart TV with excellent display performance. Aside from the deficiencies in its black levels and its mediocre sound quality, this TV barely has any other faults.

Its display performance is mostly decent, it offers a good selection of ports and connectivity options, and its Android TV smart platform is one of the best. Even though its Android TV platform has its faults, it still offers a robust number of apps and connectivity options.

Besides, this Android TV platform gives the Sony XBR – 55X800E some versatility that puts it ahead of some similar TVs in its range. For the price, the Sony XBR – 55X800E is an excellent TV that’s worth considering.

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