Sony KD 65X9005A review

The 65in Sony 65X9005a Ultra HD TV is colossal, even for a 65in TV, but that’s because Sony has added front-facing speaker drivers and separate tweeters to either side of the panel, which effectively takes up as much horizontal space as a 70in or larger TV would do. Sadly, there’s no way to remove the speakers should you want to use home cinema speakers and have a smaller TV.

They do at least sound superb; Sony’s magnetic fluid speaker drivers are able to pump out loud and clear audio that does justice to music, sports and TV shows.

Speakers aside, the TV itself is slim and stylish, with a minimal silver stand that gives the impression that the panel is floating above it. A single sheet of glass covers the entire front of the TV, so there are no breaks or joins when the screen is off, but it does highlight fingerprints so you’ll want to keep the 65X9005A out of reach of younger viewers.

Until Sony releases a firmware update to enable the X9’s HDMI 2.0 chip, the 65X9005A isn’t capable of playing Ultra HD footage at 50 or 60 frames per second, although all four HDMI inputs on the back of the set will happily play 24p or 30p video from a PC or compatible Ultra HD media streamer. In the meantime, the X9 also has component, composite and SCART video inputs for 1080p content, along with digital optical and analogue phono audio connection ports, an Ethernet port, a Common Interface slot and three USB ports, which can play just about any multimedia file from a flash drive or record live TV to an external hard disk.

You can also pair a smartphone or tablet to the TV for screen mirroring or content sharing via Wi-Fi Direct. You can easily pair devices using the NFC chip built into the X9’s front panel. Devices pair instantly when tapped against it. iOS users will need to pair their devices with the TV manually because no Apple product includes NFC. Connecting your mobile device is a great way of viewing your high-resolution photos that would be compressed when viewed on a Full HD TV.

If you run out of your own content you can start streaming on-demand video through Sony’s SEN Smart TV interface. It’s sensibly laid out with large icons and bold text, and there are more services here than on competing TVs with Netflix, LoveFilm, BBC iPlayer and Demand 5 being the highlights. Samsung still has the edge on Sony because it has a full selection of UK catch up TV, but Sony’s Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited services go a little way to make up for it with exclusive content you won’t get on any other service.