Sony X950G TV Review

The Sony X950G is an upper mid-range TV, and a small upgrade to last year's very popular X900F. In Sony's lineup, it sits between the still-current X900F and the high-end Sony Z9F and Sony A8G. We expect the X950G's chief competitors this year to be the Samsung Q70R, the LG SM9000, and the Vizio P Series Quantum 2019.

The Sony X950G has a very good design that resembles that of the Sony X900F. The stand is fairly large and supports the TV very well, allowing very little wobble. Unfortunately, you cannot reverse the legs so that they take less space. The back of the legs are hollow, allowing you to hide the cables when the TV is placed on its stand. Some of the inputs are on the side, but some are facing downwards and might be hard to reach when the TV is wall-mounted. The build quality is great, and the TV feels very sturdy.

Update 06/21/2019: A reader has informed us that the legs on the 85" model are reversible.

The stand is made of metal and plastic. It provides great support to the TV and prevents most wobbling. The legs are similar to the Sony X900F, but they cannot be reversed. Just like many 2018 Sony TVs, the backs of the legs are hollow and can be used to guide cables.

Footprint of the 55" TV stand: 40.0’’ x 10.6’’

The back is similar to the X900F. Some of the inputs are facing downwards and some are facing towards the side. The groove at the back of the feet serves as cable management.

The X950G has thin borders, almost identical to the X900F. They are very plain and look good.

The Sony XBR55X950G has average uniform thickness, very similar to the Sony X900F. It will not protrude much if wall-mounted.

The operating temperature of the TV is quite cool and uniformly spread across the screen. There should be no issues.

The build quality is very good. The TV is solid without any gaps or loose ends. It feels very robust and sturdy, and we do not expect you to have any issues with it.

The X950G has excellent native contrast ratio, but a slightly lower than the one on the X900F. The TV is able to produce deep blacks in a dark room. With Local Dimming enabled, the contrast ratio improves slightly.

The 75’’ and 85’’ models have the new 'X-Wide Angle' technology that enhances viewing angles at the expense of contrast ratio, like we saw on the Z9F. We expect those models to have a lower native contrast ratio.

The Sony X950G has decent local dimming, very similar to the X900F. When viewed in a dark room, you might notice the different local dimming zones when a bright object crosses from one dimming zone to another. It is noticeable, but not as distracting as on the Vizio P Series Quantum.

If you watch movies with subtitles, you might notice some blooming around them, especially in HDR. You should adjust (or even turn off) Local dimming if you find this distracting.

For our side-by-side comparison, Auto Local Dimming was set to 'High,' and X-tended Dynamic Range was set to 'High.'

The Sony X950G has excellent SDR peak brightness, better than the X900F, but not as good as the Z9F. The brightness varies depending on the scene, and this might become bothersome for some people. Nonetheless, the fluctuation is not as evident as it is on Vizio P Series Quantum, and it can be removed entirely by disabling X-tended Dynamic Range.

We performed our measurements after calibration with Picture mode set to ‘Custom,’ Local dimming set to ‘High,’ and X-tended Dynamic Range set to 'High.'

The menu option that controls the brightness is Brightness.

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.

This TV has remarkable HDR peak brightness, very close to the Sony Z9F and the Vizio P Series Quantum, and slightly better than the Samsung Q9FN. Just as in the case of SDR, the HDR peak brightness varies significantly depending on the scene, and this could bother some people.

If you find HDR content too dim, you can raise the Contrast and Gamma to your liking. If it is still too dim, increase the Contrast Enhancer setting to your liking.

We performed our measurements without calibration with Picture mode set to ‘Custom,’ Color Temp set to ‘Expert 2,’ Local dimming set to ‘High,’ and X-tended Dynamic Range set to 'High.'

The Sony XBR55X950G has decent overall gray uniformity, very similar to the X900F. The corners and the edges of the screen are a little darker than the rest, and this might be noticeable in panning shots of a mostly uniform color, like a soccer field or a hockey arena.

In darker scenes, the uniformity is significantly better and you will have no issues with it. In either case, it is unlikely that you will notice any dark spots (DSE) on the screen.

There are disappointing viewing angles on the X950G, which are almost identical to X900F. Black rise and gamma shifts quickly when moving off-axis, making the image inaccurate. At slightly larger angles, colors shift and start to wash out, contributing further to the deterioration in picture quality.

In the larger 75’’ and 85’’ models Sony has added the 'X-Wide Angle' technology that we initially saw on the Z9F to help improve viewing angles. We expect these models to behave like the Z9F, where the viewing angles are better than most VA TVs, but not as good as most IPS TVs, at the expense of lower contrast ratio. This is explained here.

The X950G has very good black uniformity, slightly better than the X900F. With local dimming disabled, there is very little clouding across the screen. With local dimming enabled, there is slightly noticeable clouding around the test cross.

This TV has excellent reflection handling, very similar to the X900F. You should have no issues using this TV in a very bright room.

On the 75’’ and 85’’ models, we expect reflections to be similar to the reflections seen here on the Z9F, due to the 'X-Wide Angle' technology.

The X950G has remarkable out-of-the-box color accuracy. The White Balance dE is so low that errors are only noticeable with the aid of a colorimeter. The color dE is also very low and the color temperature is almost spot on the 6500K target. Finally, the gamma follows our curve very well, so scenes will have just the right brightness. The Picture Mode that gave us those great results is ‘Custom.’

This TV has outstanding accuracy after calibration. White balance and color dE are nearly perfect, and any remaining imperfections are almost impossible to notice. Gamma continues to track our curve and remains flat at 2.19, and the color temperature continues to be close to 6500 K. Calibration was performed in the 'Custom' Picture Mode.

You can see our recommended settings here.

480p digital content looks good, with no obvious upscaling artifacts or oversharpening.

720p content looks good and is displayed without any issues.

1080p content from Blu-rays or older game consoles looks great. Sony, just like most other brands, has abandoned the nearest neighbor upscaling on this TV.

Native 4k content is displayed perfectly.

The X950G has a very good, wide color gamut. The EOTF follows the input stimulus almost perfectly, but flattens abruptly at the TV's peak brightness. This might cause some clipping in very bright scenes. The Game EOTF also follows the curve perfectly, which is great.

If you find HDR content too dim, set the Contrast and Gamma to their maximum values. If this does not fix things, then you can try setting Contrast Enhancer to 'High' to boost the brightness across all scenes.

You can see our recommended settings for HDR here.

This TV has decent color volume. P3 coverage is good, but unfortunately, the X950G cannot produce saturated colors well and cannot fill out the entire gamut well. Coverage of the Rec 2020 color space is only mediocre.

The X950G has excellent gradient performance, among the best we have measured on 4k TVs. There is an almost imperceivable amount of banding in dark green and in medium gray, but the TV gives you the option to correct this if you set Smooth Gradation to ‘Low’ at the expense of some loss of some fine details.

There is no temporary image retention on this TV.

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

The Sony X950G has a very fast response time that only leaves a small blur trail behind fast moving objects. There is not much variation in the various pixel transition times, and this results in a clear image. There is, however, some slight overshoot in the 0%-20% transition, but significantly less than the overshoot on the X900F or the Z9F.

The Sony X950G uses PWM to dim the backlight at a frequency of 720Hz, which isn’t noticeable to most people. This is similar to the Z9F and the X900F.

Just like the Sony Z9F and the X900F, the X950G can reduce the flicker frequency of the backlight to 120 Hz, so as to reduce motion blur. To do this set Motionflow to 'custom,' and adjust the Clearness slider to your liking.

Sony's 'X-Motion Clarity ' feature is also implemented on this model. The feature aims at producing a clearer picture without significant loss in brightness. You can read about it here. Also, here you can see the effect of the various Clearness settings on the backlight.

The Sony X950G can interpolate lower fps content up to 120Hz. This will introduce some Soap Opera Effect, which might bother some people. At 120Hz, you might notice some artifacts, but in general, Sony has one of the best interpolation implementations. Also, if there is too much motion, the TV will stop interpolating, thus avoiding the creation of artifacts.

To enable interpolation, set Motionflow to 'Custom,' adjust Smoothness to your liking, and Clearness to 'Min' if you do not want BFI. Cinemotion had to be set to 'Auto' for 30p to interpolate.

Just like most TVs with a fast response time, the X950G will have stutter. This will mostly be noticeable in slow panning shots in 24p movies and might bother some people. You can use motion interpolation to mitigate this.

The Sony X950G can remove judder from all 24p sources just like the Z9F or the X900F. The TV can remove judder from a 24p source, like a Blu-ray player, automatically and there is no need for any additional settings. To remove judder from sources like a cable box or native apps, you must set Motionflow to 'Custom,' Smoothness to 'Min,' and CineMotion to 'Auto.'

The Sony X950G has an excellent 120Hz refresh rate but does not support any variable refresh rate technologies like FreeSync.

The Sony X950G has some of the lowest input lag we have measured on Sony TVs so far, lower than even higher-end models like the Z9F. The input lag is low across all supported resolutions. Input lag outside of game mode is significantly higher. Both Game mode and Graphics mode have the same low input lag and both support proper chroma 4:4:4.

The X950G, just like the Z9F, supports HDMI 2.0 full bandwidth on all 4 HDMI ports. Most common resolutions and refresh rates are supported, except 1440p @ 120Hz, which might disappoint Xbox One owners.