Sony XBR – 55X930E Review: Another Hit from Sony!

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Sony XBR – 55X930E: At First Glance

Sony has been in this television manufacturing game for a very long time. They are popular for making high-quality televisions with great display screens.

Most of the televisions Sony made in 2017 were extraordinary, and the Sony XBR – 55X930E wasn’t left out. The Sony XBR – 55X930E is a TV that has an impressive 4K LED display with top-of-the-line picture quality.

Additionally, this television supports HDR, which I am going to talk about more in another section in this article. Moreover, the Sony XBR – 55X930E is one of the brightest televisions I’ve reviewed, so it should perform well with HDR.

To top that up, the Sony XBR – 55X930E comes with an outstanding Android TV operating system. Now that you have an idea of what to expect from the Sony XBR – 55X930E, let get down to business.

Sony XBR – 55X930E: Design, Dimension & Weight

The design of the Sony XBR – 55X930E is great. From the front, the Sony XBR – 55X930E looks like most Sony television with a minimalist look.

Still on the front, there are some impressively thin bezels that border the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display screen. Moreover, these bezels are made of high-quality metal, and they give the television a premium look.

Turning the Sony XBR – 55X930E around to the back, you will find a distinctive plastic diamond pattern panel. Additionally, there are large sections of the television’s back made of removable panels.

Sony designed the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s back that way so that users will be able to hide cables away. To be more precise, cables attached to the television can be hidden in the removable panels on the television’s back.

This is a great way to make the Sony XBR – 55X930E look neat and well-organized at all times. Moreover, the removable back panels are where the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s ports are housed.

Furthermore, the Sony XBR – 55X930E features a central rectangular stand, which is made of metal. Additionally, this stand has a silver finish and is attached to the television from the back with a pair of legs.

Moreover, there are channels through the back legs of the television stand, which serves as cable management. However, if you decide to wall-mount the Sony XBR – 55X930E, it will fit perfectly on the wall.

This is because the Sony XBR – 55X930E is very thin. However, despite being so thin, the Sony XBR – 55X930E is pretty heavy.

Specifically, the Sony XBR – 55X930E measures 1232 x 40 x 715 mm and weighs 28600 g. Comparatively, weighing only 12110.9 g, the TCL 55S425 is lighter than the Sony XBR – 55X930E.

In summary, the Sony XBR – 55X930E is a well-organized television with a minimalist, good-looking design. However, the weight of the television is kind of a flaw.

As a result, I will be rating the Sony XBR – 55X930E an eight in this design review section.

Sony XBR – 55X930E: Display Features

As mentioned earlier, the Sony XBR – 55X930E features an LED display screen. The size of this display screen is 55-inch.

Furthermore, the screen resolution of this 55-inch LED display is 4K UHD (3840 x 2160). To start with, the picture quality on this 4K LED display is great.

This is partially due to the display’s impressive contrast ratio of 5,744:1. What does a display’s contrast ratio mean though?

A display’s contrast ratio is the ratio of the luminance between brightest white to the darkest black that the display can produce. Additionally, a display that has a high contrast ratio is highly desirable.

This is because a high contrast ratio greatly enhances the black level of a display. In other words, a high contrast ratio improves how deep a display would produce black.

Well, blacks on the Sony XBR – 55X930E will be very deep, thanks to its display’s impressive contrast ratio. As a result, movies with lots of shadowy and dark scenes will be a joy to watch on the Sony XBR – 55X930E.

Furthermore, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display not only has an impressive contrast ratio, but also supports local dimming. Local dimming is a technique that LED displays uses to enhance contrast ratio in dark scenarios by reducing backlight zones.

That is not all, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display also supports HDR (High Dynamic Range). HDR is a color technique that enables a display to exhibit a wider range of colors and contrasts.

Therefore, High Dynamic Range (HDR)-compatible displays like the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display deliver better contrast and color accuracy. In addition to that, they also deliver more vibrant colors.

Also, HDR-compatible displays are often bright. Therefore, one would expect the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display to deliver impressive brightness performance.

Well, that is exactly what the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display delivers – excellent brightness! The Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display can get as bright as 1,442 cd/m², which is very impressive.

As a result, you will be able to use the Sony XBR – 55X930E even in the brightest of rooms.

Unfortunately, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display has very poor viewing angles. Picture quality reduces drastically when the display is viewed from even the slightest angle.

Therefore, you are better off viewing the Sony XBR – 55X930E directly from the center. On a positive note, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display has a semi-gloss coating that prevents reflection.

Even though the reflection handling isn’t particularly great, the semi-gloss coating does a decent job of preventing reflection. However, the display’s semi-gloss coating might struggle to fight off reflection in a very bright room.

Moving on, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display has a response time of 12.7 milliseconds, which is a good thing. To be more precise, response time is the time it takes a display to transition from a particular color to another.

The lower the display response time, the better the viewing experience. Therefore, with a 12.7 milliseconds response time, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display will be able to handle fast motion contents with ease.

Fast motion content includes live sports or video games. Speaking of games, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display isn’t really ideal for gaming.

This is due to the fact that the display doesn’t have a low input lag. The Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display records a 42.3 milliseconds input lag, which is practically high for gaming.

What does input lag means, though? Input lag is the time it takes a display to register an input either from a gamepad or remote.

However, input lag is mostly important to gamers. Also, different gamers have a preferred choice of input lag, either high or low, but mostly low.

However, I personally think a 42.3 milliseconds input lag is very high and won’t be preferable for most gamers. Therefore, the Sony XBR – 55X930E isn’t a television that would interest a gamer.

In summary, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s display is brilliant in every aspect until it gets to the part of gaming. Likewise, to the part of viewing the television from the side.

Therefore, the Sony XBR – 55X930E deserves nothing more than an eight out of ten rating.

Sony XBR – 55X930E: Sound Features

Sony televisions before the production of the Sony XBR – 55X930E usually have mediocre sound quality/sound system. Thankfully, things have improved dramatically during and after the era of the Sony XBR – 55X930E.

Basically, the sound system on the Sony XBR – 55X930E is pretty decent and sounds more direct. Even though the television’s sound system isn’t particularly great, it is very much adequate for casual viewing.

Furthermore, dialogue is very clear on the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s sound system. Dialogue is the sound generated when two or more people are discussing in a film or movie.

Interestingly, soundstage is present on the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s sound system, and it is wide and impressive. Soundstage (also known as a speaker impression) is an illusory three-dimensional space formed by a sound system’s high-fidelity sound output.

In other words, soundstage gives the impression that the sound is originating from somewhere beyond the television’s physical space. Moreover, if you use the Cinema sound preset or ClearAudio+ mode, there will be a slight trace of sound coming from behind you.

Unfortunately, just like most television’s sound systems nowadays, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s sound system lacks bass. Not that bass is totally eliminated on the sound system, but the bass is just minimal.

The only real problem I have with the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s sound system is that it generates a lot of distortion. This was proven through the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s sound system’s mediocre THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) performance.

Specifically, THD is a test that calculates the quantity of distortion a sound system can make. Though, if a sound system’s THD score, which is usually recorded as a percentage, is less than 1%, distortion won’t be audible.

However, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s sound system’s THD score is x2 of 1%. Specifically, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s sound system record a THD score of 2.306%.

Essentially, this means you can’t use the Sony XBR – 55X930E at the maximum volume level without experiencing distortion. Therefore, the Sony XBR – 55X930E isn’t suitable for a large room setting.

In conclusion, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s sound system is actually impressive. However, just like most televisions I’ve reviewed, the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s sound system generates a lot of distortion.

Therefore, I will rate the Sony XBR – 55X930E a seven out of ten in this sound features review section.

Sony XBR – 55X930E: Ports & Connectivity Features

First and foremost, the Sony XBR – 55X930E comes with a really good port selection. In the design review section above, I stated that all of the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s ports are on the back.

Basically, the ports on the back of the television are all hidden in the removable plastic panels. Additionally, some of the ports are down-facing and some are left-facing.

However, the left-facing ports are much compared to the down-facing ports. This is because the left-facing ports are much easier to access if the television is mounted on the wall.

So, the left-facing ports include two USB ports, an HDMI port, a headphone jack, and an optical audio output. However, that’s not all as a set of Composite Video/audio input is also included among the left-facing ports.

Now for the down-facing ports. The down-facing ports are minimal but it features more HDMI ports.

Specifically, the down-facing ports include three HDMI ports. One of these HDMI ports supports ARC (audio return channel).

Therefore, you can use the HDMI port as a video input as well as an audio output. In other words, you can use the ARC compatible HDMI port to connect a soundbar or external speaker to the Sony XBR – 55X930E.

Furthermore, other ports among the down-facing ports include an Ethernet port, another USB port, and an RF port. Moreover, the Sony XBR – 55X930E features 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WIFI and Bluetooth 4.1 for wireless connectivity.

Moving on, this ports and connectivity section won’t be complete if I don’t mention the Sony XBR – 55X930E’s remote control. Specifically, the Sony XBR – 55X930E comes with a Voice remote control that is fairly large and has plenty of buttons.

Furthermore, as a voice remote, this remote control has an inbuilt microphone for sending voice commands. However, you can only use the voice command feature via Google Assistant.

Inputting a voice command is actually easier than you think. First, you have to pair the remote control and the Sony XBR – 55X930E together via Bluetooth.

Afterward, on the remote, press and hold the microphone button while speaking into the microphone. As stated earlier, this remote control features plenty of buttons.

Specifically, the remote has a full number pad, circular navigation button, channel and volume rockers, and media playback buttons, etc. Additionally, the remote features two dedicated buttons for streaming apps like Google Play and Netflix.

In summary, the Sony XBR – 55X930E has plenty of useful ports, and also comes with a handy voice remote control. Thus, the Sony XBR – 55X930E deserves nothing less than a nine out of ten rating in review section.

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Sony XBR – 55X930E: Smart Features

The Sony XBR – 55X930E is a smart television that runs on Google’s Android TV operating system. This practically means the Sony XBR – 55X930E will have access to all the streaming apps available on the Google Play store.

Major streaming apps on Google Play Store include Netflix, YouTube, Google Play Music, Spotify, Play TV, and so on, are available on this TV. However, as most of us know, most of these streaming apps aren’t free.

To be more precise, you are required to pay a particular amount every month to have access to them. This might be heartbreaking for users who live on a budget.

However, don’t be heartbroken because the Android TV operating system offers free streaming apps pre-installed. These free streaming apps include Cyberflix TV, Viva TV, Filelinked, Kodi, and so on.

Furthermore, as one would expect from a smart TV featuring Android TV OS, the Sony XBR – 55X930E comes with a built-in Chromecast. This feature allows you to “cast” media content from your mobile device or tablet to the Sony XBR – 55X930E.

Overall, the Android TV OS is an ideal option for handling the “smart TV” functionality of the Sony XBR – 55X930E. Therefore, I will rate the Sony XBR – 55X930E a nine out of ten in this smart features review section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Sony really did a lot of impressive work on the Sony XBR – 55X930E. From the television’s design to its display, everything is just perfect.

However, the Sony XBR – 55X930E features a few imperfections such as its display’s poor viewing angles. Also, the television isn’t suitable for gaming as its display has a high input lag.

However, Sony compensates the Sony XBR – 55X930E users by including an extraordinary operating system from Google, Android TV operating system. Overall, unless you are a serious gamer, I believe the Sony XBR – 55X930E should be suitable for everyone.

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