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Sony’s TV business is being taken over by TCL (www.theverge.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 5 points 8 months ago (24 children)

Makes sense, bc idk anybody with a Sony TV anymore. Even loyalist fans friends of mine from the CRT days switched.

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  • [–] 47 points 8 months ago (9 children)

    I own a sony TV. The hdtvtest guy is my goto for staying updated on TV tech and sony regularly comes out as his best of the year. Yes, they're pricey but you're getting something for that premium.

    This is a sad day in my books now that TCL will be able to enshittify the Sony brand.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (5 children)

    When 4k/120 TVs came out, their Bravia was the best midrange you could get. Price doubled to get anything better.

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  • [–] 0 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    Their early “4k/120s” weren’t even actually 4k/120. Enabling 120hz refresh rates on early Bravias would cut horizontal resolution in half, and then crudely attempt to upscale it.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (3 children)

    I mean the true 120hz, not the upscaled crap.

    They came out the same time hdmi got the bandwidth capacity, so before that, it wasn’t even possible.

    I partly use Rtings.com for my info, and they test everything.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (2 children)

    No I know what you mean. I’m not talking about the “Trumotion” 120hz motion smoothing technology.

    The first generation of Sony Bravia TVs that advertised native 4k/120hz, specifically to coincide with the release of the PS5, couldn’t actually do native 4k/120hz. It wasn’t until their following generations that were finally able to, in a post-launch firmware update.

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  • [–] -2 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Then you’re misremembering a lot of stuff

    https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sony/x900h

    This tv came out around the same time as the ps5 (Nov of 2020). A few features came in a later update, but it is 4k/120 out of the box. You couldn’t get a better tv at the time.

    The 800 was never advertised as 120, this is the first model.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    I’m not misremembering anything. I have the x900h in my living room right now. It cannot do native 4k/120hz, to this day. It can do Native 4k OR it can do 120hz but not both. If you enable 120hz, the horizontal resolution is cut in half to only 1080 pixels. This couldn’t be fixed with a driver update because it’s a consequence of Sony cheaping out on the processor. It is physically not capable of it.

    VRR was added in a firmware update, but again due to Sony’s poor choice in hardware components if you enable VRR it disables local dimming entirely. Being an LED panel, without local dimming the picture is significantly degraded. It’s a truly terrible TV for anything but casual Netflix watching, given its price point. If it was half the price they sold it for that’d be a different story.

    At the time, you could have bought a Samsung Q70T instead for the same price which actually had native 4k/120hz.

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  • [–] -3 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Sony TVs are absolute garbage devices designed by actual morons, with the worst customer support in the industry.

    Back when the PS5 came out, they advertised their Bravia TVs specifically for its support for the PS5 and its feature set. I spent something like $1,200 for a Bravia x900H which at the time was very highly reviewed. When the PS5 released shortly after, we had to wait months for Sony to actually release drivers to support the PS5 features promised like VRR and 4k/120hz, and when they finally did the monkeys paw finger curled. If you turn VRR on, it disables local dimming. This is important because those panels look like dogshit without local dimming. So right off the bat you have to choose between a smooth picture, and a good looking picture.

    As for 4k/120, they cheaped out on the MediaTek processor so it can’t actually do native 4k/120. Turning it on halves the horizontal resolution to 1080, and then it crudely upscales it back up causing a now infamous blurry mess to the picture.

    Those are just the problems that affect everyone due to design flaws and false advertising. But on a more luck-of-the-draw level, when I bought mine brand new, it had significant backlight bleed. I was upgrading from a $150 Costco LCD and I swear to you the picture on the Sony was actually worse. 25% of the screen was permanently tinted blue the bleed was so bad. No problem I thought, I just bought the thing brand new, these things happen with LED panels from time to time, I’ll call Sony and RMA the thing. But after a week of arguing with Sony’s outsourced support, they refused to honor the warranty. According to them backlight bleed is expected and no matter how bad it is, they don’t cover it under warranty. So whether or not your Sony TV is even functional as a TV is simply luck of the draw.

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  • [–] 19 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Ive got a Bravia. They're good like upper midrange TVs, like the top end before you really start spending crazy cash

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    I'm not meaning nobody owns them, just a lot of the people I knew back in the day who were die-hard Sony fans, have moved on due to price or quality or both. My dad was one of them with a full high end Sony TV (36" CRT Trinitron series) and receiver, dual cassette deck, CD player, etc lol. Yes, this was the 90s, but still.

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  • [–] 16 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    I do, and it's great. It isn't OLED, but the 4K panel is still decent. It has thin bezels, lots of inputs, and most importantly, it's just old enough to not run android. I'll take this thing to my grave.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (6 children)

    Every friend or acquaintance that has asked me "What TV should I get if I want a really nice LCD TV?" was always told Sony, so I know lots of people with them. I guess I have no good answer for these people now, every brand other than Sony had become enshittified.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    I honestly don't mind TCL, they've really come a long way, especially for the price! I have the 2022 TCL 85R655 that was rated extremely well, and supported all the Series X features (ALLM, VRR, 4K/120, HDR10 +DV gaming, etc for $1800) and that only replaced my 2016 LG 65UH8500 because, well, way better specs (minus no 3D anymore lol).

    I had an issue with the PCB 12 months into warranty (literal days left) and I got a full refund because they had already replaced that model with the next Gen and didn't have the proper parts available or something to fix.

    The picture quality, when calibrated, is pretty damn good despite not being OLED.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (4 children)

    The higher end TCL have very good specs, but my issue is only with the software. At this point I've been leaning towards "dumb" TVs. My most recent TV is not a smart TV and can't be retroactively ruined with ads or additional spyware. I just wish there were high end models available for when my larger living TV bites the dust.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Ah, see, ok, that makes sense. I forget most everyone else in the real world isn't obsessed with ad-blocking like me. So, this one is Roku but I have others that are Fire TV and Android (all TCL). None are connected online, and honestly it's creepy as FUCK that the fire TV has never been connected to the Internet, yet still somehow has its own ads for shows update every so often. IDK if they're cross-communication like a mesh network of TVs so if one is offline it can still get some sort of content refresh, or what, but I don't like that it knows to update/refresh with no network.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    Amazon does have a patent specifically for that sort of mesh-like communication, so it is possible. The TCLs I have/had were Roku based, but kept getting worse and worse until I gave one away and reset and disconnected the other. I also refuse to see ads, but that wasn't really an issue because I didn't use any services that showed ads. Then the TVs themselves started to and I was done. I think many of the manufacturers are getting wise to the "never connecting" trend and making it more and more obnoxious. It wouldn't surprise me at all if most TVs started becoming unbearably naggy until you connect it to an internet connection. A friend of mine also recently got another TCL TV, this one being Amazon Fire based. Apparently, it was so bad he just gave it away within the first couple of months (it was a really cheap TV).

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