Execs
- Blisteringly sensible HDR image high quality
- Nice SDR photos too
- Excellent upscaling of HD
Cons
- Android TV is not my favorite sensible platform
- Restricted viewing angles earlier than haloing kicks in
- Sound is a bit of skinny
Key Specs
- Evaluation Value: £4000.00
- 65-inch LCD TV
- Full array direct LED
- Discrete LED management
- Native 4K UHD decision
- HDR 10 help
- Android 6.0 working system
What’s the Sony KD-65ZD9BU?
The 65-inch KD-65ZD9BU is Sony’s most concerted effort but to make a TV that’s optimised for prime dynamic vary playback. In addition to introducing new HDR-focused processing, the £3,999 set excitingly boasts an progressive backlight system that Sony claims can handle LCD TVs points with HDR playback. And for as soon as it seems that these claims are rather more than simply PR puff.
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Sony KD-65ZD9BU – Design and Construct
For a TV that breaks new floor in image high quality, the KD-65ZD9BU seems to be a bit of bland. Sony has tried to liven issues up with some gold colouring on the outer edges of each the display and the black aluminium desktop stand. Plus the TV goes nearly overboard with its cable administration, utilizing at least 4 removable covers to forestall pesky cabling from spoiling the rear’s uncommon grid-pattern end.
However most of us will hardly ever see the rear of the TV, and from the entrance the KD-65ZD9BU presents only a barely wider than regular darkish body round a sizeable 65-inch display.
The overall commonplace of end and construct high quality are each fairly spectacular, nevertheless. Additionally, whereas the display body could also be a contact wider than the 2016 norm, it’s positively puny versus the massive dimensions of earlier Sony flagship TVs – 2015’s 65X9305C, for instance.
Though this does imply that the KD-65ZD9BU doesn’t profit from one of many gorgeous magnetic fluid speaker methods that made its predecessors a few of the best-sounding TVs I’ve ever heard.
The premium distant management provided with the TV is a properly weighted, well-finished affair, including panache by way of buttons that sit nearly flush with the distant’s entrance.
There’s a downside with this strategy, nevertheless. Particularly that it’s nearly unattainable to really feel your means across the distant. Add to this the truth that key buttons are grouped fairly carefully collectively in a reasonably random configuration and it’s just about unattainable to make use of the distant with out trying straight at it.
All of which is hardly conducive to a user-friendly expertise – particularly should you’re making an attempt to observe a movie in a darkened room.
Sony KD-65ZD9BU – Options
The headline options of the KD-65ZD9BU are its 65-inch display, native 4K decision and help for prime dynamic vary playback. However that’s actually simply the beginning of its premium charms.
The one most fun inclusion is its new backlight design. This does numerous issues that can hopefully counter the issues with HDR playback that I’ve seen on LCD TVs this yr.
First, it mounts its LED lights straight behind the display slightly than round its edges. Second, it makes use of a copious quantity of LEDs – greater than 600. That’s far more than most direct-lit LCD TVs. Third, impressively, it has the processing energy to drive each one in every of these LEDs individually, in order that they’ll every produce their very own gentle degree impartial of their neighbours.
Subsequent, because the KD-65ZD9BU helps Sony’s X-tended Dynamic Vary expertise, the TV can intelligently distribute its energy, in order that juice could be redirected from darkish elements of the image to supply extra punch to vivid areas.
Final however not least, the KD-65ZD9BU employs what Sony calls “centered beam expertise” to allow a number of LEDs to affix forces to spice up the depth of the very brightest HDR image parts. In reality, the KD-65ZD9BU can hit brightness peaks in extra of 1,600 nits – the best quantity I’ve seen from a home TV; it even comfortably surpasses the 1,400 nits of Samsung’s flagship UE65KS9500.
All these backlight methods together ought to, on paper anyway, result in a TV that delivers each extra excessive distinction and fewer backlight clouding/leakage issues than another LCD TV.
Becoming a member of the KD-65ZD9BU’s backlight improvements is Sony’s huge color gamut Triluminos expertise. On this TV it achieves a color vary that surpasses the 90% of DCI-P3 spectrum outlined by the AV business’s Extremely HD Alliance as being essential to a high-quality HDR efficiency.
Head-to-head comparisons present that Samsung’s KS9500 fashions can ship barely extra color vary than the KD-65ZD9BU, though that is compensated for handsomely by the additional vibrancy delivered by Sony’s further brightness.
The brains behind the KD-65ZD9BU’s photos are discovered on Sony’s new X1 Excessive chipset, which delivers a number of advantages past the earlier iteration. As an example, it gives extra clever upscaling of HD sources, introducing relative depth into its calculation of how a lot sharpness so as to add to completely different elements of the picture. It additionally now references incoming content material towards not one, however two picture databases to enhance the outcomes of its upscaling processes.
Maybe my favorite new processing characteristic is a circuit that up-converts incoming alerts into 14-bit color. This implies there’s no want to fret in regards to the striping/banding color issues skilled with Extremely HD Blu-rays on a disappointing variety of this yr’s HDR TVs.
The KD-65ZD9BU’s sensible options are a mixture of the Android TV platform and YouView, which gives entry to all the UK’s important terrestrial TV channel catch-up companies. Different key supported apps are 4K/HDR variations of each Netflix and Amazon.
One final eye-catching characteristic of the KD-65ZD9BU – if solely as a result of it’s quickly disappearing from different TVs – is 3D help. This is available in full-resolution “lively” kind, and also you even get two pairs of glasses at no cost with the TV.
Sony KD-65ZD9BU – Setup
Getting the KD-65ZD9BU up and working isn’t enjoyable. The 2-part stand design is sophisticated to connect to such a big and heavy TV, and it takes a good period of time to run by all of the preliminary set up menus.
It appears the latter is basically right down to the KD-65ZD9BU’s use of the Android TV platform. This continues to make the operation of Sony’s TVs really feel sluggish, in addition to forcing you into unusually prolonged firmware updates that really feel out of kilter with the person expertise you need from a TV.
Thankfully, as soon as preliminary setup is full, it’s truly fairly straightforward to get the KD-65ZD9BU trying its finest. It carries a few of the best image presets I’ve seen on a TV. In reality, I’d count on most customers to really feel solely proud of the KD-65ZD9BU’s presets for each commonplace and excessive dynamic vary content material proper out of the field.
Fanatics may benefit from experimenting with the suite of motion-processing instruments, and maybe calming the native dimming system from excessive to medium with HDR content material. It’s additionally at all times price double-checking that every one noise discount is turned off for native 4K sources, and an expert calibrator might introduce a contact extra heat (purple) to the color settings.
In reality, that is all fairly minor stuff. The important thing level is that you just don’t want to leap by as many hoops as you do with many rival TVs to get a beautiful image.
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