Tag Archives: 4K TV

Sony Bravia XR-55X90K Ultra-HD Android LED TV Review: Focused on Performance

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With OLED and Mini LED display technologies gaining prominence in the premium segment, quantum-dot LED tech has largely settled into a comfortable mid-range position. Buyers looking to spend a bit more for a promise of better performance often look to options from brands such as Sony and Samsung, both of which are well established when it comes to LED and quantum-dot LED TVs. Among the more popular options in the upper mid-range segment is the X90 series from Sony, which has now been updated for 2022 with the X90K range.

Priced at Rs. 1,23,490 for the 55-inch (XR-55X90K) variant on review here, the Sony Bravia X90K series is the company’s most expensive and advanced LED television range in India right now. With this, Sony hopes to strike a balance between performance and price, with Triluminos quantum-dot technology, full-array local dimming, and support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. There’s a lot of promise here, but is the Sony 55X90K the best big-screen television you can buy under Rs. 1,50,000? Find out in this review.

The Sony 55X90K TV runs on Android TV 10 software, with the Google TV user interface on top

 

Sony Bravia XR-55X90K Ultra-HD LED Android TV design and specifications

The X90 series sits at the top of the pecking order for Sony’s LED TVs, and is available in three sizes: 55 inches priced at Rs. 1,23,490, 65 inches priced at Rs. 1,70,990, and a 75-inch variant which will be launched in the coming weeks from the time of publishing this review. Apart from the size, there are no differences in any of the models, with all having Ultra-HD (3840×2160-pixel) Triluminos (quantum-dot) LED screens, and a refresh rate of 120Hz at up to 4K resolution.

Coming to the design of the TV, the Sony Bravia 55X90K is pretty much what you’d expect from a high-end Sony television. It’s entirely black, with slim bezels around the screen, a discreet Sony logo in the bottom left corner, and little else to take any attention away from the screen itself, which is how televisions should be. The power button and a slider switch for the always-on microphones are at the bottom of the TV, alongside the main speakers.

Unlike many modern high-end televisions, the Sony 55X90K isn’t very slim at any point. However, it isn’t too bulky or thick either as it doesn’t sit too far from the wall even when wall-mounted, and has a similar width as most TVs of its kind. The television weighs about 17.4kg without the stands attached, and supports VESA wall mounting.

The table mount stands are included in the sales package, and are easy to install. The stands attach to the bottom corners of the TV, so a wide table or television unit will be needed if you choose to stand-mount the Sony Bravia 55X90K TV. Interestingly, you can attach the stands to keep the TV at a lower position where the frame is almost resting on the stands. The higher position leaves some space between the bottom of the TV and the table, which should come in handy if you want to place a soundbar there.

Wall mounting can be availed through the free installation which comes with the TV. The installation technician will bring along the wall-mount kit and install it, if you choose. I used a third-party wall-mount kit, which attached easily onto the back of the TV thanks to the VESA standard.

The Sony 55X90K television has support for the Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG high dynamic range formats

 

All of the ports and sockets on the Sony XR-55X90K television face outwards to the left of the screen, while the power socket for the detachable power cable is on the right. Usefully, access to the ports and sockets is quite easy even when the TV is wall mounted. There are four HDMI ports (two are HDMI 2.1 with 4K 120Hz and Variable Refresh Rate support, one of which additionally has eARC support), two USB Type-A ports, one Optical Audio-out (Toslink) port, an Ethernet port, an antenna socket, and sockets for 3.5mm audio-out and Video In.

The Sony Bravia 55X90K television has support for the Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG formats for high dynamic range content, and Dolby Atmos and DTS Digital Surround audio formats. There is dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity, along with 16GB of internal storage for apps and app data. The TV is powered by Sony’s Cognitive Processor XR, and has a four-speaker system with 30W of total rated output. As with many of Sony’s high-end televisions, there is full-array local dimming on the 55X90K TV.

Sony Bravia XR-55X90K Ultra-HD LED Android TV remote and features

Sony has typically included large, full-function remotes with its televisions, including the recently launched X75K series. However, the 55X90K television marks a notable departure from this trend. It has a smaller, more minimalistic remote with fewer buttons. This kind of remote is admittedly much easier to handle and store safely and has buttons for most important functions, so I wasn’t too bothered by the change.

There is no number pad, but a ‘123′ button brings up a virtual number pad in case you need it. The remote has hotkeys for YouTube, YouTube Music, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video, along with a Google Assistant button and a microphone on the remote to listen to voice commands. Other buttons include volume and playback controls, a D-pad for navigation, home and back buttons, and buttons for settings and source selection. The remote is powered by two AAA batteries, which are included in the sales package.

Key features of the Sony Bravia 55X90K TV include auto low-latency mode and variable refresh rate (VRR) for gaming, hands-free Google Assistant support thanks to the always-listening microphones on the TV, Alexa support, and a light sensor to automatically adjust the brightness of the screen according to lighting conditions in the room. Other useful connectivity options include built-in Google Chromecast and Apple AirPlay with HomeKit support.

Sony has gone with a smaller and more minimalistic remote with the X90K series

 

All of this worked as expected, including being able to use AirPlay without the need for a separate app; I could just select AirPlay from the source selection menu and the TV would appear in a list of available displays on my iPhone or MacBook.

Sony Bravia XR-55X90K Ultra-HD LED Android TV software and interface

The Sony Bravia XR-55X90K television runs on Android TV, similar to others in Sony’s smart TV range over the past few years. However, recent models, including the Sony X75K series have had the newer Google TV user interface on top of the Android TV, unlike the older stock Android TV UI that many manufacturers still work with. That said, the X90K TV runs Android TV 10 with the Google TV UI, unlike the more affordable X75K series which has Android TV 11.

Although a bit old and naturally a bit short on updates and security patches, Android TV 10 delivers largely the same experience as Android TV 11, at least at the UI and feature level. Plus, the hardware in the TV ensures good performance for the user interface. The Google TV user interface on the X90K is the same as on the X75K series with key features including Google Play Movies embedded into the UI rather than as a separate app, and a content-centric approach that highlights and recommends movies and TV shows from various apps.

Interestingly, this TV also gets a ‘Netflix Calibrated Mode’, which is said to optimise picture settings for specific content on Netflix. Other key UI functions, including accessing the settings, can be done from any screen on the interface by pressing the settings button on the remote.

Google Assistant can be used to search and access specific content, or even general information, and the Google Play store for Android TV provides access to over 5,000 apps and games built for use on televisions. It’s a largely familiar experience for anyone used to Android TV, and remains my pick as the best television operating system right now.

Sony Bravia XR-55X90K Ultra-HD LED Android TV performance

The Sony Bravia XR-55X90K Ultra-HD LED TV uses its resolution, calibration, and Triluminos quantum-dot technology to deliver the kind of performance you would expect for the price. While not quite on par with good OLED TVs in this price range when it comes to black levels, the Sony 55X90K uses its full-array local dimming to good effect, to ensure decent blacks and rich contrast, while delivering impressive brightness and a level of colour accuracy that not too many televisions offer in this segment. Furthermore, I found performance to be consistently good across various types of content and resolutions.

Expectedly, the best experience was with high dynamic range Ultra-HD content, and the Sony 55X90K TV’s support for the Dolby Vision format helped it deliver quality picture performance.

The Sony XR-55X90K television provided a bright, sharp, and clean picture, especially with Ultra-HD HDR content

 

Umbrella Academy Season 3 showed that the Sony 55X90K TV was not only very bright with Dolby Vision content, but also had colours that felt very accurate and on point. The TV also captured the slightly vintage aesthetic very well, while properly portraying the vibrant colours of the lavish sets of the show. There was a sense of warmth and comfort in the colours that made it possible to comfortably binge-watch the show on the Sony TV.

While the Sony Bravia television was quite bright, it didn’t quite get as bright as the Mini LED-powered Samsung QN95B TV. However, it more than made up for this with its warm, soft tones, and its ability to handle motion well. That said, its brightness capabilities didn’t falter even under bright daylight or when switching on all the lights in the room. Usefully, the Sony 55X90K is able to use a sensor to adjust its display brightness based on the light in the room; this worked well, ensuring brightness levels were always gentle on the eyes.

Black levels and contrast quality wasn’t exceptional on the Sony X90K TV out of the box, but I was able to set it up to my liking quite easily. Once calibrated, the blacks were decent thanks to good local dimming, which also delivered excellent zone-based brightness as bright parts of the screen shone through, while darker zones maintained the quality of the black levels. There was some visible blooming from bright zones, but this wasn’t distracting or bothersome in any way.

High dynamic range content did show a visible difference in brightness levels and colour accuracy when compared to standard dynamic range content, but it wasn’t too far behind in quality. Watching select scenes of Spider-Man: No Way Home on Netflix in Ultra-HD resolution (but with standard dynamic range) was good, thanks to the TV’s capable native brightness levels, sharpness, and clean overall approach to picture quality.

Upscaling of lower-resolution content was decent on the Sony XR-55X90K TV

 

Full-HD and standard definition content is usually iffy on high-end TVs, which are usually optimised for high-resolution content. However, the Sony Bravia XR-55X90K TV offered a clean picture, with good upscaling that made most low-resolution content look decent despite the large screen size.

There was occasional judder visible with the motion processing disabled, but turning on some of the motion interpolation and processing features made a visible difference in reducing the judder while keeping artefacts to a minimum even with low-resolution content. The Sony Bravia 55X90K also seemed to be able to adapt well to different types of content, prioritising sharpness or smooth, clean motion as needed.

Sound quality on the Sony Bravia 55X90K television was acceptable across formats and content types, although Dolby Atmos did make a noticeable difference in improving the spaciousness and detail in the sound. While the TV did sound alright even at soft and moderate volumes, it didn’t get too loud, and was audibly held back a bit by its 30W speaker system which didn’t deliver a very impressive performance as I’d have expected from a TV at this price.

Verdict

Changes in technology and pricing in the premium television space means that it’s now possible to buy an OLED or Mini LED television for less than Rs. 1,50,000, which makes the older quantum-dot LED technology feel a bit dated in comparison. However, it also makes it possible to buy a well-equipped, well-calibrated, and feature-rich quantum-dot LED TV such as the Sony Bravia XR-55X90K at a price which, while definitely on the premium side of things, isn’t quite as high as other flagship options.

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Blaupunkt BU680 4K Smart LED TV (BLA43BU680) Review

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Although better known for its car audio equipment, Blaupunkt is also very popular for its home and audio products. The company now has a range of televisions in India, which are positioned as value offerings priced affordably for what’s on offer. One of the company’s latest series in India is the Palladium BU680 range, which features 4K resolution screens, HDR, smart connectivity, and more. With affordable pricing, the Palladium series is meant for buyers looking for a premium option at a fraction of what the more well-known television makers charge.

On review today is the smallest and most affordable model in the range, the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 4K HDR Smart LED TV. Priced at Rs. 21,999, it’s one of the most affordable 4K smart televisions available in India today, and promises more than what similarly priced televisions from many competing manufacturers do. We find out if the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 television is as impressive as it seems in our review.

The frame of the television has a metallic silver finish

 

Blaupunkt 4K Smart LED TV (BLA43BU680) design and specifications

Most affordable televisions go with a standard look involving glossy plastic borders around the screen, but Blaupunkt has adopted a different approach with the BLA43BU680. The television has bright silver borders; it’s plastic, but with a coating that gives it the appearance of being metal. The Blaupunkt logo is at the bottom, just above a module that holds the IR receiver and indicator light.

There isn’t much else to this television when it comes to the look and feel. The borders are about as thick as you can expect on a modern budget television, and the unit on the whole is neither too slim nor too thick. The silver borders might appeal to some, but we found them a bit distracting due to the contrasting colours, particularly in shows and movies with a lot of dark scenes. Perhaps a darker shade of silver would have helped in this case.

The sales package includes stands to table-mount the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 television, but no wall mount. Blaupunkt does offer standard installation for free with the television, so it is possible to have it wall-mounted when requesting installation (the technician will bring the wall-mount kit at no extra cost). The table stand legs are easy to install and don’t take up a large footprint, so you can safely place the television even on a smaller table.

The Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 has two clusters of ports. Facing downwards close to the bottom are two HDMI ports, one set of AV sockets, VGA, Ethernet, Antenna, and Audio In, and facing to the left you’ll find a second set of AV sockets, two USB ports, an Audio Out socket, and a microSD card slot. The positioning of the ports and sockets near the edges has its pros and cons – it makes for easy access even when the TV is wall-mounted, but cables and dongles attached are quite visible as they stick out the side or bottom of the television.

In terms of specifications, this television is on par with competing options at around the same price. The Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 has a 43-inch 4K screen with support for HDR; a 1.4GHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM for the Android-based Smart TV interface; Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity; 30W of sound output; and a standard 60Hz refresh rate.

The 4K screen supports HDR content

 

Blaupunkt 4K Smart LED TV (BLA43BU680) remote and features

While we have seen some good remotes with televisions priced below Rs. 25,000, we’re more used to seeing old-school remotes that just get the basics right. The Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 has a standard infrared remote with no smart functionality, and lots of buttons. While many of these buttons are useful, we found that we never used some of them.

The remote felt a bit tacky to us, and we weren’t happy with the button layout either. The navigation buttons are placed too close to the ones around them, and we often pressed the wrong button when trying to navigate around the smart interface. Other useful buttons such as volume control, source, and mute were too small and not in convenient spots.

The remote has a mouse mode, which is needed for some of the apps on the smart interface of the Blaupunkt television. This enables a cursor on screen, which has to be moved using the navigation buttons. It’s slow and clunky to move around, and we only used it when absolutely necessary. The remote and smart interface in general didn’t work too well with each other, which was quite bothersome during our review.

The Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 doesn’t have much else in terms of features. You do get the rather useful Miracast for screen mirroring with compatible smartphones and tablets, but the television has nothing beyond the basics, not even Chromecast or AirPlay which are offered on some other televisions in this price segment.

The Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 runs on a custom interface based on Android 6

 

Blaupunkt 4K Smart LED TV (BLA43BU680) software and interface

Blaupunkt’s smart televisions in India run on Android with custom interfaces, and we’d have preferred the use of the official Android TV software. The current implementation tries to come close, but doesn’t quite have the same level of quality. Our experience with the smart functionality of the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 was far from good.

This television runs on Android 6, which is rather dated when you consider that other options in this price segment run Android TV or custom interfaces based on Android 8 or 9. The interface itself is quite a mess – it seems to have been designed for phones and modified somewhat for a television. There are multiple app stores including the Google Play Store. Some apps are preinstalled, but they didn’t always work for us. On some occasions, we had different versions of the same streaming service; YouTube and Amazon Prime Video had multiple apps depending on which store the app was installed from.

The interface is slow and confusing to navigate around. There are odd video recommendations and unwanted pop-ups, and for some reason the location and weather displays insisted that we were in Brisbane, Australia no matter how hard we tried to convince the TV otherwise. Apps such as Netflix worked using the clunky mouse mode, but Amazon Prime Video would only work till we tried to play something, at which point it would crash or state that the TV had connectivity issues even when the connection was fine. Even the settings menus didn’t have too many options and were rather confusing to move through.

The YouTube app didn’t work initially, but we fixed this by updating it through the Google Play Store. All of these might sound like small problems, but we think that usage will be too confusing, buggy, and chaotic for the average consumer. No one should have to figure out and troubleshoot so many problems. As such, we’d recommend this TV only as a display for your other source devices, such as a streaming device, set-top box, or gaming console. As a smart TV the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 was frustrating and unusable for us.

The remote is basic with no smarts, and has awkward button placement

 

Blaupunkt 4K Smart LED TV (BLA43BU680) performance

While the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 has its issues when it comes to design, features and smart connectivity, it does to some extent make up for all that with performance. At Rs. 21,999, it’s one of the most affordable 4K HDR televisions you can buy today, priced at around what other full-HD options of the same size go for. Our experience with the television was largely positive in terms of picture quality, particularly with top-quality content.

We started with the best kind of content the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 can handle – 4K HDR. This naturally brought out the best the TV could offer, with decent colours and contrast levels. Watching season three of The Crown on Netflix, we were impressed with how well bright and dark parts of the same frame worked with each other. Bright parts of the frame were incredibly bright, while dark segments of the same scene were detailed and could show different shades of the same colours.

However, we weren’t entirely convinced with the black levels even with HDR content, but this is an LED-backlit TV after all and we haven’t typically seen good black levels on any affordable LED options. We also weren’t very impressed with motion handling; video appeared shaky and jarring in scenes with rapid motion, such as the fast-moving scenes in the first episode of The Grand Tour Series 4 on Amazon Prime Video. The built-in interpolation was poor, and there was nothing we could do to make rapid motion less jarring.

However, the sharpness and detail were impressive, particularly when watching the visually striking Our Planet on Netflix. These same qualities were visible even with regular 4K content without HDR, and we liked how detailed and crisp the viewing experience was with War (the movie starring Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff). While the issues with motion remained, another big differentiator was the contrast. Without HDR and the ability to get brighter when (and where) needed, the black levels were poorer and the general difference between bright and dark was a bit more pronounced on this TV.

Going down a notch to full-HD content, we watched multiple episodes of The Office and The Purge. Sharpness, detail, and colour were impressive, largely because the 43-inch screen of the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 isn’t big enough to reveal the lack of detail in lower-resolution content.

Black levels are a bit weak on the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 TV

 

While we’ve obviously seen better full-HD performance on full-HD televisions, the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 still handles 1080p content well given that it is a 4K TV at this price. Motion issues were less jarring with full-HD content, but watching sports on Hotstar wasn’t as clean a viewing experience as on full-HD TVs at this price.

However, lower-resolution content is not a strong point of this TV. Performance with 720p video was mediocre at best, and standard definition videos on YouTube and through the NDTV app on an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K was far worse than what we’d expect from an affordable television. Considering that this kind of video is what the majority of viewers in India still largely watch, we found this to be an issue.

Detail and motion issues tended to combine unfavourably on the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 with SD content. The image was completely lacking in sharpness and showed far too many artefacts and pixelation issues. The television is unsuitable for this, and it would perhaps make sense to spend on an equivalently priced 43-inch full-HD TV such as the Vu Ultra Android TV if you heavily depend on your set-top box, YouTube, and local streaming services for most of your viewing.

Blaupunkt is best known for its audio products, and some of that background seems to have gone into the BLA43BU680 television. The TV is loud (with a rated 30W of output), and the sound tuning is properly geared for most television viewing. We found speech and voices to be crisp and clear, with decent performance from the television’s speakers even for music-based content. Naturally, it doesn’t quite hold up as well as a good soundbar or speaker system for action-driven scenes in movies, but you do get above-average sound on the whole.

While affordable, the Blaupunkt is best used with a separate source device rather than as a smart TV

 

Verdict

Blaupunkt’s expansion into the affordable television and personal audio segments has been good for the company; the fact that it’s a German brand with a proven record in car audio has been enough to entice buyers. Although its car audio products are considered premium-grade, the company has approached other segments sensibly, taking on the budget space first. This TV is in line with what we’ve experienced from Blaupunkt so far – it’s very good for the price, offering what few others can for this kind of money.

4K televisions are typically priced at around or above Rs. 30,000, so the idea of a 43-inch 4K TV for closer to Rs. 20,000 is enticing. Blaupunkt largely delivers your money’s worth, offering good picture performance and sound. The design is polarising, the remote and features are a bit dull, and the software is plain terrible, so users will have to find ways to cope with these issues if they go for the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680.

If you have and rely on source equipment such as a streaming device, full-HD set-top box, or gaming console for your viewing or gaming, the Blaupunkt BLA43BU680 will suit you just fine. If you’re looking to…

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