Sony X900F  TV Review

The Sony X900F's design is great. It's quite different from traditional Sony aesthetics. The wide-set legs are the most noticeable difference, and they do require a larger table, but are designed so that the Sony soundbar can fit between them. There's basic cable management similar to the X900E down the back of the stand, but it isn't as good as the X930E which includes routing through the back panel. The build quality is very good and the TV feels solid.

The stand supports the TV well and feels secure. It's wide enough to place a soundbar between the two feet. There's also space at the back of the legs for cable management, which most people will enjoy.

Footprint of the 55" TV stand: 39.2" x 10.6"

The back of the XBR55X900F has a simple design with two sets of inputs. One is directly on the back, pointing downwards, so it can be difficult to reach if the TV is wall-mounted. The other set of inputs is on the side and should be easy to access no matter where you place the TV.

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

This TV is reasonably thick. It will stick out from the wall a bit more than the Sony X850F, which has more of a uniform thickness. However, this shouldn't be too much of a problem.

The build quality of the X900F is good, and although the TV is almost entirely plastic, it does feel well-constructed and solid.

As is the case with most VA panels, the Sony Bravia X900F has an excellent contrast ratio. It can display deep blacks when viewed in a dark room, so this TV is a good choice for watching movies with dark scenes. If you're looking for an OLED with a perfect contrast ratio, check out the LG B8 OLED.

With the local dimming feature enabled, the contrast ratio slightly increases, but the dimming zones aren't big enough to have an impact on this pattern.

The full array local dimming of the 2018 Sony X900F is decent and better than most LED TVs. It's a small upgrade when compared to the 2017 X900E. The X900F performance is more similar to the 2017 Sony X930E when set side by side, although the X930E has slightly less abrupt transitions of the zones on movements.

Very similar performance to the Samsung Q8FN. The X900F has deeper black levels, but there is more visible blooming.

When set to 'High', the feature is very good at limiting blooming and keeping a good overall black level, but on some occasions, it may be a bit too aggressive as small highlights can get dimmed on fast movements. Therefore, if you notice this behavior, you can set it the 'Medium', and it should behave more conservatively.

Great SDR peak brightness, good enough for even a bright room. The TV's local dimming does a good job of boosting bright sections of the screen when other sections are dimmer, shown by how the smaller window tests are brighter than the larger ones. Overall, this brightness is a marked improvement over the 2017 X900E, and is far better than the brightness of many competing TVs like the Samsung MU8000 and LG SJ8500, though still not as bright as the X930E.

Update 04/18/2019: There are some brightness issues playing Dolby Vision content from an external source on the X950G and X900F. Find out more here.

Great HDR peak brightness; bright highlights in HDR content will be shown fairly bright, though not quite as bright as the 1000-4000 cd/m² they're intended to be. The TV's local dimming can boost highlights to be very bright because the rest of the scene in HDR content is usually fairly dim when compared to SDR content, so the TV has more power budget for the highlights.

Good gray uniformity on this TV. There are some uniformity issues at the corners, but none at the center, so the dirty screen effect (DSE) should be minimal. This is important for people who watch sports, where the DSE is most noticeable.

Like with most VA panels, the Sony Bravia X900F has poor viewing angles. People will notice a drop in picture quality when viewing from the side, so this isn't a good choice for rooms with wide seating arrangements.

Good black uniformity. There's some blooming around the center cross and very little backlight bleed around the edges in the native black uniformity picture. However, with the local dimming feature enabled, the screen looks more uniform, and there's no backlight bleeding anymore. Dark scenes will look good in dark rooms.

Great reflection handling on the XBR55X900F. It has a semi-gloss finish which slightly diffuses light. Like 2017's Sony X900E, this TV has an anti-reflecting coating to help reduce the total number of reflections, which should work well in most rooms. However, it might be distracting if it's placed in a room with direct sunlight on it.

Out of the box, the accuracy of the X900F is excellent, and for most people, this TV could be used right away without the need for any calibration.

The most accurate picture mode out of the box is the 'Custom' picture mode, and it's also one of the picture modes that gives you the most control over all the picture setting available.

The 'Cinema Pro' is also very accurate, but this picture mode targets a gamma closer to 2.4, rather than our desired 2.2 target.

The accuracy is outstanding after calibrating the white balance. Unfortunately, the lack of color management system on Sony's TVs can't be corrected further.

Overall, the calibration here did only bring some small corrections, as the TV was already very accurate out of the box, and the process was very fast and without issues.

You can see our recommended settings here.

Upscaling of low-quality 480p content such as DVDs is good. Some halo artifacting is visible along edges, but there is a good range of options to customize the upscaling depending on preferences.

720p content such as cable is upscaled well. Edges are smoothed to reduce blockiness, and some haloing artifacts are visible.

1080p sources such as Blu-rays look great once upscaled.

Native 4k content such as UHD Blu-rays or high-quality streaming content is displayed without any issues.

The pixels on the X900F look almost identical to the X900E as seen here, however, there is a small notch at the bottom of each sub-pixel.

Great wide color gamut; saturated colors in HDR content will be shown fairly well, but not quite as well as some other TVs like the LG B7 OLED. The TV's color accuracy for less saturated colors is also fairly good, so the overall HDR image will be accurate.

The TV's HDR EOTF follows the target PQ curve very closely up until it rolls off and clips at its peak brightness. The EOTFs in the 'Game' and 'Graphics' picture modes also follow the target closely. Users who want a brighter HDR image can increase the TV's 'Gamma' and 'Adv. contrast enhancer' settings, which will raise the EOTF to be brighter than the target curve.

Update 05/02/2018: The color gamut was erroneously measured at a 50% stimulus. It has been remeasured at 75% stimulus to be in line with our other TVs. The results remain almost identical.

Decent color volume in HDR. The Sony X900F's local dimming does a good job of extending its wide color gamut down to a range of different brightness, so darker colors will look as saturated as brighter colors.

Great gradient performance on the X900F. There's no visible banding when playing 10-bit content, such as HDR. There's some visible banding in 8-bit SDR, but this can be reduced with the 'Smooth Gradation' setting enabled.

No temporary image retention on this TV. This is great if you're planning on using it 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.

Amazing response time on the X900F, so fast-moving content will have little blur trail behind them. It has a better response time than the Sony X850F.

There's a backlight flicker on this TV, but at 720Hz, it's almost unnoticeable for most people. If you're looking for a flicker-free Sony TV, check out the Sony X850F.

The 2018 Sony X900F can flicker its backlight at 120Hz, which makes motion look clearer by reducing persistence blur. Unfortunately, it can't flicker at 60Hz, so 60Hz content will have visible duplications in its motion, but some may find it preferable to no flicker. On Sony TVs, BFI is activated by setting "Motionflow" to "Custom" and increasing the "Clearness" slider.

Sony has implemented a new BFI mode on "Clearness = 1", which they call "X-Motion Clarity". When in this mode the real scene brightness decreases by about 60 nits compared to with no flicker("Clearness = 0"), but as the brightness of the screen decreases its flicker becomes more severe, similar to how a TV with PWM dimming behaves. When this is combined with local dimming, dimmer zones of the screen will have clearer motion than brighter zones. This is different from the flicker behavior in "Clearness = 2" and Max, where zones of different brightness will have similar flicker and motion clarity. We recommend "Clearness = 1" when users want clearer motion but don't want to sacrifice too much screen brightness. Note that none of these 'Clearness' settings affect the input lag in the 'Game' picture mode.

The TV has a 120Hz panel, and its processing can interpolate lower frame rate content to 120fps to match the panel. This optional feature is also called the "soap opera effect". It produces smoother-looking motion but can look unnatural to some people, and also adds small artifacts in its processing that can be a problem to some.

The TV is decent at showing low frame rate content smoothly (like movies and 30fps video games), but the TV's fast pixel response time can make motion look a little stuttery, especially in wide panning scenes, because the frame stays static for 31ms. 60fps content looks smoother because the frames are on screen for a shorter amount of time.

The Sony X900F can display 24p movies without judder no matter which sources they're playing from. To achieve this for every source including the native Netflix app, you need to set (from the Motion tab in the picture setting) the 'Motionflow' to 'True Cinema' and set 'CineMotion' to 'High'. This isn't needed for direct 24p sources.

The TV doesn't support a variable refresh rate. If you need a TV that supports variable refresh rate technology, check out the Samsung Q70T.

Update 05/08/2019: We retested the 1080p input lag in and out of game mode with the latest firmware PKG6.5830.0205NAA and it remains the same.

Great low input lag, especially when playing 4k video. The 1080p input lag is higher than for 4k but is still good enough for most gaming. Overall, the input lag is very similar to the X930E, which is understandable because both use Sony's 'X1 Extreme' processing engine. However, many TVs from other brands have lower input lag, such as the Samsung MU8000, LG SJ8500, and TCL P607.

If you need lower input lag for gaming or for PC use, check out the Sony X900H, which is the successor of this TV.

All common resolutions are supported. 4k @ 60Hz @ 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 is only possible on HDMI inputs 2 and 3, and only when 'HDMI Enhanced Format' is enabled. 4:4:4 chroma subsampling is only shown properly in the 'Game' and 'Graphics' picture modes.

Update 06/11/2018: A note for Xbox One X and Xbox One S owners: 120Hz from the Xbox won't work with this TV (and all 2017-2018 Sony's we've tested), because the TV requires a forced resolution for 120 Hz to be displayed.

Update 06/12/2018: It turns out 1080p @ 120Hz is possible, when the Xbox's connection type is changed from Auto-detect (Recommended) to HDMI: (Xbox > Settings > Display & sound > Video fidelity & overscan > Display > Connection > HDMI). Unfortunately in this mode 4k, HDR, 50 Hz and 24 Hz aren't possible, so this mode is only recommended when the higher refresh rate of 120 Hz is more important to you than these other features. Find out more here.

Update 06/18/2018: Correction, 24Hz and 50Hz are in fact possible with the Xbox's connection type set to HDMI.

There is one composite input (labeled 'Video In'); however, it's a 3.5mm jack, and requires an adapter for most devices. An example of the correct adapter can be found here.

Update 06/11/2018: Dolby Vision support has been added as of firmware (PKG6.5603.0175NAA); the scores have been updated.

Average frequency response. It has relatively deep bass, but not deep enough to produce deep rumbles (i.e. explosion sound effects). The frequency response is quite flat and well-balanced, however, the TV wasn't able to remove the resonances of the test room (high-bass and low-mid) due to a lack of self-calibrating system. Additionally, the TV does get pretty loud, but they could produce some pumping and compression artifacts near their maximum volume.

Sub-par harmonic distortion performance. Similar to other Sony TVs we have measured, this TV has little distortion at low volumes. However, at maximum volume, the X900F produces a lot of distortion, but this kind of distortion won't be very audible with real-life content (movies, music).

The Android TV interface isn't as easy to use as some other smart platforms. The home screen is very long, requiring a lot of scrolling to see everything. The performance is also quite inconsistent; sometimes the TV will open menus quickly and have smooth animations, but other times menus will lag for a second or two before opening, and their animations will be choppy. The home menu is especially slow to open, which is unfortunate because of how often it needs to be used. This is alleviated somewhat by the many buttons on the Sony remote and the voice control feature.

Update 04/09/2019: Google has pushed an update to some Sony TVs that run the Android Oreo update. This update adds a row of Google Sponsored Content in the second row of the home page. Unlike the existing sponsored content, this row cannot be remove normally from the Customize Channels menu menu. There is a workaround though, which is available here.

The ads look similar to the ones seen on the Sony X950G.

One of Android TV's strengths is access to the Google Play Store, which has more apps than almost all other smart platforms. The apps run fairly smoothly and with minimal lag, unlike the frequent mini-hangs of the main Android interface.

Update 01/09/2019: YouTube app version 2.04.05 has added HDR support, separate from the Android Oreo update.

Correction 02/22/2019: The YouTube app does support HDR, but it is currently bugged. The brightness and color gamut do not switch automatically, and there are issues playing files with a resolution higher than 1080p.

The X900F comes with Sony's lower-cost remote with rubber chunk buttons, unlike the better remote that came with the X900E. The remote is still very usable, and has more buttons than most remotes, at the cost of being larger than most remotes.

The remote can connect to the TV by Bluetooth so that its microphone can be used with the TV's Google Assistant voice control feature. Google Assistant can perform a lot of actions on the TV, as well as interface with the rest of the Google ecosystem; commands like 'open YouTube', 'switch to HDMI 3', 'pause video', 'how's the weather', and 'turn off the TV' all work well, though commands to change picture settings like 'set the brightness to 20' and 'switch to Game mode' don't work.

Like most Sony TVs, the only buttons on the TV are three small buttons on the back edge. This simple three-button system can be used to change inputs, speaker volume, and tuner channel, as well as act as the TV's power button.

• Manual
• IR Blaster
• Remote
• Batteries

Update 11/15/2018: The maximum power consumption was incorrectly listed as 108 watts; this was a mistake that has been corrected.