Sony X830F  TV Review

The design of the Sony X830F is very good. It has many similarities to the X850F. It has a sturdy and wide stand that allows space for placing a soundbar in front of it.  The rear part of the stand also provides some basic cable management as it allows you to pass the cables through the legs. The TV runs fairly cool and looks slightly thick when viewed from the side. The built quality is good and you should have no issues with this TV.

The stand of the Sony XBR60X830F is plastic with a metallic tone and looks very much like the stands of the X850F and the X900F. It supports the TV well and is very wide and you will need a wide table to place it on.

Footprint of the 60" model TV stand: 44.0" x 12.0"

The back of the TV is plastic and there is not much provision for cable management.

The borders are thin and look elegant. They are almost identical to the borders of other Sony TVs.

The TV looks relatively thick when viewed from the side. It is thicker than the X850F and the X900F, but when wall mounted this should not be an issue.

The built quality is good. There are no visible gaps or loose ends and you should not have a problem with it.

The native contrast ratio is very good. When placed in a dark room, blacks will appear deep which improves picture quality.

This Sony XBR60X830F does not support local dimming, unlike the more premium model X900F. The video is for reference only.

The SDR peak brightness is great. It is not as bright as the X900F but is very close to the brightness level of the X850F. The brightness level stays constant as the window size increases and this is great.

The HDR peak brightness is decent. Again not as a bright as the X900F, but not far from the X850F. The level remains constant as the window size increases and this is great.

If you find HDR content too dim, see our recommended settings.

The gray uniformity of the Sony X830F is decent. Some clouding will be visible especially in panning shots and this might annoy sports fans.

In darker scenes (5% gray) things are better but the most meticulous ones might still be able to spot minor clouding.

The Sony X830F, like all VA panels, has disappointing viewing angles. Blacks wash out and colors shift with small movements from the center axis. Brightness is performing slightly better as fading is bad after the 45 degrees angle.

For those who often watch at an angle, a TV with an IPS panel like the X850F is a better choice

The Sony X830F has excellent black uniformity. There is almost no clouding even in the area around the test cross.

Reflection handling is ok. The semi-gloss finish manages to diffuse most of the ambient reflections but doesn't do a great job if the source is facing the screen. This result is a little worse than the reflection handling we saw at the X900F or the X850F.

Very good out-of-the-box color accuracy for this X830F, better than the X850F but not as good as the X900F. The best results are obtained when the Picture Mode is set to Custom. The white balance dE and the color dE are both below our threshold of 3 and the Gamma is almost at our target of 2.2. The colors are a little warm and thus you might notice some reddish or yellowish tone.

The color accuracy after calibration is excellent. The results are close to what we managed to achieve with the X900F and even slightly better than the X850F. In fact, calibration only has options for 2-point or 10-point white balance calibration. There is no color space management, so the correction from 2.4 to 1.89 in color dE is due only to the white balance correction.

The color temperature was almost on our target of 6500K and Gamma remained at 2.21.

You can see our recommended settings here.

Upscaling of low-quality 480p content such as DVDs is good.

No obvious issues upscaling 720p content.

Upscaling of 1080p content like Blu-rays looks good. The image is sharp and there are no obvious issues.

Native 4k input is displayed as intended.

The 60" X830F we tested has an interesting sub-pixel structure which looks almost identical to the 60" X690E we tested.

The Sony XBR60X830F has a wide color gamut. It covers almost all of the DCI P3 space and about 3/4 of the Rec 2020. This is better than competitive TVs like the Samsung NU7100 and slightly better than the TCL R617.

The EOTF in the Cinema Pro HDR picture mode follows the target PQ curve nearly perfectly up until it rolls off at the TV's peak brightness. If you find HDR content too dim, setting the Gamma setting to Max and Contrast to 100 raises the EOTF and brightens most HDR scenes. The EOTFs in the Game and Graphics picture modes are nearly identical to that of Cinema Pro, which is great.

The color volume of this Sony XBR-60X830F is decent. The TV has a wide color gamut and can show vivid bright colors, but unlike the X900F, it cannot show well very dark colors as it lacks local dimming. It performs slightly worse than the Vizio P Series 2018 but better than the Sony X850F.

The banding of the Sony X830F is great. As with most Sonys the grey is excellent, but the other colors have moderate banding.

The "smooth gradation" feature works really well, it's almost perfect afterwards.

There is no measurable temporary image retention on the X830F, even immediately after the burn-in scene, as expected for a TV with a VA panel. This is great, especially for gamers or those who want to use the TV as a PC monitor.

We don't expect VA panels to experience permanent image retention, as the VA panel in our long-term test appears immune.

Excellent response time for this Sony XBR60X830F and this is good news for sports, gaming and fast-moving content in general. There is a little overshooting on the 0-20% transition, and some might notice a little bright ghosting in dark scenes during fast motion, but nothing too serious.

The TV has no visible flicker in its backlight as it dims, which is great.

We did measure some flicker with our photodiode tool, but this will not be visible in person. This lack of visible flicker makes motion look smoother, and is an improvement over most competing TVs like the Samsung NU7100 (240 Hz flicker) and TCL R617 (480 Hz flicker).

The Sony XBR-60X830F has a mediocre black frame insertion implementation. To activate BFI: Set Motionflow to Custom and increase the Clearness slider. The minimum flicker is 120Hz.

Just like the X850F, when BFI is enabled brightness decreases, as the X830F doesn't have the new X-Motion Clarity feature of the X900F.

The Sony X830F has excellent motion interpolation and can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120 fps. The interpolation is nearly perfect during slow-moving shots, and it stops when there is too much motion.

To enable motion interpolation, set MotionFlow to Custom, increase the Smoothness slider and set Cinemotion to High.

If you find the artifacts caused by interpolation bothersome, you can lower the smoothness setting. This makes motion less smooth, but it reduces the amount of visible artifacts as the interpolation algorithm becomes more conservative.

The Sony X830F has some stutter, especially in low fps content. This is a result of the fast response time. If you are bothered by stutter you can use motion interpolation to clear it.

The Sony XBR-60X830F can remove judder from any source. You do not need to change any settings to remove 24p judder. However to remove 24p judder that is in 60p, 60i or when present in native apps you must set MotionFlow to True Cinema and set Cinemotion to High.

This TV does not support any variable refresh rate features.

The X830F has a very good low input lag in most resolutions. This makes it very responsive and a good choice for gamers or those who want the TV for use as a PC monitor

4:4:4 chroma subsampling is only properly shown in the Game and Graphics picture modes; both these picture modes also have the same low input lag.

All common resolutions are supported.

To properly display chroma 4:4:4, the Picture mode must be set to Graphics or Game. When the TV is sent a 1080p signal in Graphics mode, the upscaling changes to the jagged nearest-neighbor upscaling type, seen here on the X900E, that some people prefer for PC use.

This TV can receive 120 Hz video from the Xbox One X and Xbox One S, but only when some settings are tweaked on the Xbox; for more information see the Additional Review Notes of the X900F.

Only HDMI ports 2 and 3 support HDMI full bandwidth, so 4k @ 60Hz @ 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 is only possible on these two ports and only when Enhanced format is enabled on the TV.

Sharpness 50 (default) means no added sharpness in Graphics mode.

Only HDMI ports 2 and 3 support full bandwidth i.e HDMI2.0, just like all other Sony TVs we have reviewed. However, HDMI 3 is also the audio return channel(ARC). Therefore, if you have a receiver that supports ARC and more than 1 device which requires the full bandwidth of HDMI then you might have some issues connecting all of your devices. In this case, it may be best to connect your receiver using an optical (Toslink) cable.

The frequency response is mediocre. LFE (low-frequency extension) is at 113Hz, which is below average. This means the bass of this TV won't have any thump or punch to it. The response above the LFE point is above-average so dialogue will be clear and intelligible. This TV also gets pretty loud but shows some compression and pumping artifacts under loud volumes. Additionally, this TV doesn't have a digital room correction system and wasn't able to remove the modes of our test room around 200Hz.

The distortion performance of the Sony X830F is sub-par. The amount of THD produced at 80dB SPL is decent but there are spikes around 1KHz and 6KHz, which could make the sound of those frequencies a bit harsh and impure. However, at maximum volume, there is a big jump in their THD. This is typical of most Sony TVs and won't be noticeable to most people in real life situations.

The Sony XBR-60X830F comes equipped with the Android TV interface which is not as easy to use as some other smart platforms. It has a long home screen, and sometimes you must scroll a lot to reach your desired menu item. It also has a very inconsistent behavior that sometimes is fast, but other times lags and animations are choppy. The responsiveness of the home menu is unusually slow, and this is unfortunate considering how often you need to use it. Fortunately, the remote has plenty of buttons to get quickly where you want and a voice control feature that can also help.

Like the other 2018 Sony TVs we tested, the X830F does not have ads. The first row of the Home menu is suggested content by default, but this can be disabled in the TV's Home settings.

This Sony X830F runs the Android TV OS which gives it access to all the Google Play Store that has thousands of apps.

This TV includes the same remote as the X850F. It has a multitude of buttons and is pretty large, but with good usability. Buttons are easy to find and you can access most basic functions of the TV with ease.

The included voice button works well to access Google Assistant, but the remote must be connected to the TV via Bluetooth for this to work. Google Assistant can perform most basic actions on the TV, such as changing inputs or opening apps or even searching Netflix. However, although you can navigate to certain menus, you cannot change picture settings with your voice.

Like most Sony TVs, there are only three small buttons on the back edge. These buttons provide basic access to turn the TV on and off or to change channels, inputs, and volume.

• Manual
• IR Blaster
• Remote
• Batteries
• 61" Power Cable