After half a year, the flagship is still fragrant, Sony 65 X8500G TV is experienced again

When buying a TV, look at Sony. For the large screen TV, Sony is not only a symbol of faith, but also represents the top picture quality of the industry's products.

In addition to the cutting-edge image quality of high-end flagships, Sony has also made efforts in mid-range sub-flagships in recent years. In March this year, Sony launched the X8500G to take up the main responsibility of the 8 series product line, attracting the interest of a large number of picture lovers.

It has been half a year since the release, and many new TVs have been launched on the market. The price of X8500G has also dropped, heading straight for the 8K mark.

In the fiercely competitive TV market in the second half of the year, can Sony's sub-flagship product remain competitive? Now let's take a look at the actual performance of the X8500G.

Minimalist design, 65-inch screen for a stronger sense of immersion

Sony 65X8500G maintains a minimalist design style, with sharp and simple corners. The 65-inch giant screen is particularly eye-catching under the slender metal narrow frame. From the front view, the integration effect under the high screen-to-body ratio is extremely high. If you watch from a close distance, this 3840×2160 resolution giant screen will make you feel more immersive, which gamers should experience.

After the LCD panel surplus, many large-screen TVs have become very cheap. A while ago, the price of 3,399 yuan for a 70-inch Redmi TV really made me excited.

But buying a TV is not just about the screen size, there are also important factors such as picture quality, and more importantly, the viewing distance. If you buy a small-screen 4K TV, the effect is not obvious, and if you buy a large-screen 4K TV, the viewing distance will be farther away. The suitable viewing distance for a 65-inch 4K TV is 3-5m, and the length of the daily home living room scene is about 4.5m-6m, so 65 inches is a size that can achieve a better 4K viewing effect.

On the back, Sony 65X8500G still uses a frosted back panel, the bracket design is quite exquisite and beautiful, and the way of installing the socket is also very simple. Under the side-entry backlight, the thinness of the body is still well controlled. In terms of interfaces, it has 3 USB ports, 4 HDMI signal ports, network ports and other conventional interfaces on the back, which are no problem for daily use. In addition, the HDMI, USB and network ports are all facing outward, so it will be more convenient to plug and unplug.

X1 image quality chip: a "motorcycle" at the same price

In terms of performance, Sony has always been reluctant to reveal too much information about the main control chip. Compared with the main control chip, Sony is most proud of its independent picture quality chip and the supporting picture algorithm. Among 4K HDR LCD TVs, Sony X8500G is favored not only because of its affordable price, but also because of its excellent sound and picture performance, and the X1 picture quality chip plays a key role in this.

As a picture quality chip specially designed for the 4K field, H1 has a certain improvement in contrast and color for the picture effect, such as color faults. In addition, X8500G also supports Triluminos display technology, which can display more vivid color effects, making the overall picture look more eye-catching. From the overall performance point of view, you can't expect the X1 Ultimate Edition to have a more comprehensive improvement in picture quality, but at this price range, Sony X8500G is still quite competitive.

Let’s take a look at the image quality:

From a direct visual perspective, the overall color of the Sony X8500G presents a bright and colorful look, which is more eye-catching in visual effects. As a mid-range model in Sony's product line, the X8500G is equipped with Triluminos technology, so the purity of the three colors will be higher, and it performs well in color gamut expression and color purity.

While ensuring a colorful picture, Sony X8500G also maintains a sharp contrast between light and dark. For example, in the lotus picture in Chapter 2, in addition to the lotus stamens and petals in the foreground, the lotus leaves in the shadow part of the background can also highlight clear texture details.

This time, Sony X8500G uses side-entry backlight, which lacks the performance of backlight partitioning, which is also a point of concern for many people. But from the actual picture, driven by the X1 picture quality chip and picture quality compensation algorithm, Sony X8500G still maintains a good picture quality. Coupled with Sony's consistent picture quality adjustment level, we don't have to worry too much in this regard.

Next, we use Professor Qian Yuankai's 4K picture test chart to see how Sony X8500G performs:

In terms of resolution, we can see that Sony's small lettering still maintains a clear structure, and in terms of color lines, Sony maintains good resolution, and the lines at the end of the yellow block are clear against the white background.

In terms of color performance, the other colors of Sony X8500G are clearly separated, and there is no gradation. However, the 90-135° hue angle area on the upper right overlaps, which means that Sony X8500G is lacking in this aspect.

From the color sphere, the X8500G does not have any obvious ring-shaped bulges, and its viewing angle capability is excellent. After all, it uses an IPS panel, which is fully guaranteed.

In addition to the image quality, we then used PS4 to test the delay of Sony X8500G. In this regard, the BRAVIA series still has an absolute advantage. When the game mode is turned on, the Sony X8500G's entire game process and the handle screen are synchronized, and there is no obvious picture delay or stuttering.

After we used the stopwatch timer to take pictures and calculate the delay, the delay of Sony X8500G in normal mode was about 80ms, and after turning on the game mode, the delay was about 47ms. For friends who like to play games, the game mode is very necessary.

In addition, Sony X8500G also supports Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision. If you need to watch Dolby film sources, it can provide more vivid color display and high-contrast effect pictures. While taking into account the highlight areas, the dark details can also be truly restored.

"Audio and picture integration", three-dimensional and transparent sound effects

In order to achieve the effect of "sound and picture integration", Sony did not use the "screen sound field" technology previously used on OLED, but adopted "multi-channel screen sound field technology". To achieve this, Sony X8500G placed two high-frequency sound field positioning speakers on the back of the TV and two low-frequency reflex speakers on the bottom. Through the combination of high and low audio frequencies, users can feel a more three-dimensional and transparent sound quality effect. In scenes rich in different sound sources, you can clearly feel that the sound effects have different levels of feeling.

As far as the TV's built-in sound effects are concerned, I think the X8500G is adequate. Especially when watching war movies, you can clearly hear the sound sources of the various crossfires, which are intertwined and come to your face without appearing chaotic and mixed. Overall, the immersive and realistic feeling it brings is very "powerful", and the sound and picture integration effect is obvious.

No ads when starting up, simple operation interface

In terms of the system, Sony X8500G is equipped with Android 8.0. To be honest, in the current TV market, users are not only focused on this point when purchasing, but are more concerned about advertising and freedom. Sony's native system has always been quite "restrained" and simple in this regard. Unlike the numerous OTT advertising forms on the market, the user experience of Sony TV is not burdensome.

In the application market, Sony chose to cooperate with Dangbei Market. In terms of content, Sony introduced Wasu TV, and the film sources can only meet general needs. In terms of the number and immediacy of film sources, Sony still has a certain gap compared with other TVs. If you are stuck with these resources, you might as well download the APP to watch the film, which is more enjoyable.

As for 4K HDR sources, the content in the internal zone is also quite limited. However, this year's policy has introduced corresponding policies for the promotion of ultra-high-definition video content, so we can look forward to 4K content, but this is a problem for the entire industry, and we still need to question the specific promotion time.

In general, as a mid-range flagship, the biggest advantage of Sony X8500G is its excellent audio and video experience at the same price. From the current Sony 4K HDR TV segment, the 7 series features the 4K X-Resolution PRO image processing engine, which mainly runs the image quality algorithm through an integrated solution platform, and the price goes straight to 3K; the 8 series has improved the hardware on this basis, and began to add the X1 image quality chip to run the image quality optimization algorithm alone, so it is positioned as a mid-range flagship, starting from around 5K; and the 9 series is equipped with the X1 advanced image quality processing chip, the overall image quality is even better, and the price starts from 7K.

If you don't have much budget but pay attention to the sound and picture performance, Sony's 8 series will be a good entry-level choice. However, the shortcoming of X8500G is the lack of light control, so the contrast is slightly weak. If you have a higher pursuit of picture quality, the 9 series products will be more suitable.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.