Sony X950H TV Review

The Sony X950H is Sony's 2020 flagship 4k LED TV and the replacement of 2019's Sony X950G. It sits right below Sony's Masters series, which includes their OLEDs and the 8k Sony Z8H, and its main competitors are the Samsung Q80/Q80T QLED and the Vizio P Series Quantum X 2020.

The Sony X950H has a simple, yet outstanding design, with thin bezels and minimal branding. Although the feet look thin, they're fully metal and they support the TV well. We have them set as wide as possible, but they can be moved inwards to accommodate smaller tables.

The stand is fully metal and supports the TV well, allowing for very little wobble. There are two possible positions for the feet. We set up ours at the wide position, but you can set them up at the narrow position if you have a smaller table. The feet are also interchangeable, so you don't have to worry about putting them on the wrong side.

The stand on the 49" variant is different; it's similar to the one on the Sony X950G.

Footprint of the 55" stand at the wide position: 47.8" x 12.3"

Footprint of the 55" stand at the narrow position: 32.1" x 12.3"

The back of the TV is fairly plain and made of plastic. It has a horizontal brushed texture, and the inputs are facing sideways, making them easier to access when wall-mounted. There are two clips included in the box to tie the cables to the feet, which serve as cable management.

The 49" variant has some downward-facing HDMI ports.

The bezels are very thin and aren't distracting.

The TV is of moderate thickness and doesn't protrude much when wall-mounted. Our unit leans backwards a tiny bit; however, this varies between units.

The Sony X950H has a great build quality. Although it's mostly plastic, it feels well-built, and there's no flex on the back panel, except the area where the inputs are located. The metal stand supports the TV well, and there's very little wobble.

The Sony X950H has a great native contrast ratio, and it gets slightly better when local dimming is enabled. However, it's lower than what we would expect of a VA panel due to Sony's 'X-Wide Angle' layer, which improves viewing angles at the expense of lower contrast. That said, blacks still look deep, making it a good choice for dark room viewing. Note that the contrast ratio can vary between units.

The 49" variant of this TV doesn't have the 'X-Wide Angle' layer and is expected to have a higher contrast ratio.

If you want a TV with a higher contrast ratio, check out the Vizio P Series Quantum X 2020.

The local dimming is good. In normal content, there's more dimming than blooming around bright objects, but not to the point of crushing small highlights or losing detail. Highlights don't stand out as much and are instead handled a bit more evenly. While there's still some blooming, it's much better handled than on the Sony Z9F.

Excellent SDR peak brightness. Like the Sony X950G, the brightness varies depending on the scene, but overall, it's more than enough to overcome glare even in the brightest lighting conditions. If you want an even brighter TV for outdoor use, check out the Samsung The Terrace.

We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration, using the 'Custom' Picture Mode, with Local Dimming set to 'High', and X-tended Dynamic Range set to 'High'.

If you don't mind losing image accuracy, you can get a brighter image by setting the Picture Mode to 'Vivid', Local Dimming to 'High', X-tended Dynamic Range to 'High', and Contrast to max. We achieved a peak brightness of 1145 cd/m² in the 10% window with these settings.

Excellent HDR peak brightness. While it varies a lot across different content, the overall brightness is more than enough to deliver a fantastic HDR experience.

We measured the HDR peak brightness before calibration, using the 'Custom' Picture Mode, 'Expert 2' Color Temperature, and with X-tended Dynamic Range set to 'High'.

If you want a brighter image and don't mind losing accuracy, set the Picture Mode to 'Vivid', Local Dimming to 'High', X-Tended Dynamic Range to 'High', and Contrast to max. We achieved a peak brightness of 1185 cd/m² in the 10% window with these settings.

Gray uniformity is good on our unit of the Sony X950H; however, this can vary between units. There's very little dirty screen effect, which is great for sports fans, but the vignetting at the corners is very visible and can be distracting for some. Uniformity is much better in dark scenes.

Mediocre viewing angles. Despite having Sony's 'X-Wide Angle' layer to improve viewing angles, gamma shift still happens fairly quickly when moving off-center. It should be okay for most rooms, but not for large rooms with wide seating arrangements.

The 49" variant of this TV doesn't have the 'X-Wide Angle' layer and is expected to have worse viewing angles.

Our unit of the Sony X950H has outstanding black uniformity; however, this can vary between individual units. Without local dimming, the entire image looks more grayish, and there's a little bit of blooming around the test cross. With local dimming enabled, uniformity is significantly better, but the blooming is much more noticeable.

Outstanding reflection handling. Visibility shouldn't be a problem even in very bright rooms with sunlight. However, the TV's 'X-Wide Angle' layer causes a rainbow effect that some may find distracting.

The Sony X950H has excellent out-of-the-box color accuracy. White balance is good, and the color temperature is very close to our 6500K target. Gamma doesn't follow the target all that well, with most scenes appearing brighter than they should. Note that color accuracy can vary between individual units.

After calibration, the Sony X950H's color accuracy is exceptional. White balance and gamma are nearly perfect, with only a slight dip in the gamma causing bright scenes to be over-brightened. There's still some inaccuracy with the color blue, which is typical for LED TVs.

You can see our recommended settings here.

480p content like DVDs looks good and we didn't notice any visible artifacts.

720p content such as cable TV is upscaled without any issues.

1080p content looks good and there are no noticeable upscaling artifacts.

The Sony X950H displays native 4k content perfectly.

The Sony X950H can't display an 8k signal.

The pixels are blurry due to the TV's 'X-Wide Angle' layer. It's very likely that the layer also affects red and green sub-pixels more, as they appear doubled while the blue sub-pixel remains clear.

The Sony X950H has a great HDR color gamut. It has outstanding coverage of the DCI P3 color space used in most HDR content; however, coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 is just okay. Using the 'Custom' picture mode, the EOTF follows the input stimulus perfectly, but instead of a slow roll-off towards the TV's peak brightness, it's completely flat, resulting in some clipping in very bright scenes. The 'Game' mode EOTF performs identically, which you can see here.

If you find HDR content too dim, you can make it brighter by using the 'Custom' Picture Mode, with Local Dimming set to 'High', and X-tended Dynamic Range set to 'High' as well. These settings result in a much brighter image, which you can see in this EOTF.

Great color volume. The TV can display dark and saturated colors well due to its high contrast ratio, but like most LED TVs, it has difficulty producing bright blues.

Outstanding gradient performance. There's a bit of banding in all colors, although it's most noticeable in greens and grays. Enabling Smooth Gradation can remove most of it, but it can cause the loss of some fine details.

The Sony X950H shows no sign of temporary image retention, but this can vary between individual units.

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

The Sony X950H has an impressive response time that results in clear images with very little motion blur. However, just like the Sony X950G, there's overshoot in the 0-20% transition, causing some artifacts in dark scenes.

Update 06/11/2020: There was a mistake in the way we checked for flicker. The "Standard", "Vivid", and "Cinema" modes flicker at 120Hz by default, but this is because Motionflow is enabled by default in those modes. Disabling it resets the flicker to 720Hz.

The Sony X950H uses Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to dim the backlight, and there's 720Hz flicker in all picture modes unless Motionflow is enabled. This is a very high flicker frequency, and we don't expect it to bother most people.

Update 07/06/2020: We previously mentioned that to activate the BFI feature, the 'Clearness' slider can be set to either '1' or '2', according to your preference. However, 'Clearness' and 'Smoothness' sliders must be set at '2' for it to work. The text and the settings page have been updated.

The Sony X950H has an optional Black Frame Insertion feature to reduce motion blur. To enable it, set Motionflow to 'Custom' and set the Clearness and Smoothness sliders to '2'. Note that the Clearness slider needs to be higher than minimum, and when set higher, it decreases the backlight's brightness and changes its amplitude.

Update 07/15/2020: We've retested the motion interpolation with different content, and noticed a good amount of artifacts in scenes that have a lot of movement. This is likely due to the TV continuing to interpolate during intense scenes, whereas other TVs tend to stop.

The Sony X950H has a motion interpolation feature that can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120fps. It performs well and we didn't notice any artifacts in our tests. To interpolate 60fps content, Motionflow must be set to 'Custom', with the Smoothness slider set to'Max' and the Clearness slider set to 'Min'. To interpolate 30fps content, Cinemotion must be set to 'Auto'.

Due to the TV's fast response time, low frame rate content can appear to stutter. If it bothers you, enabling Cinemotion can help.

The Sony X950H can remove judder from all sources. For 24p content, there's no need to change any settings. For 60p content and native apps, set Cinemotion to 'Auto', and Motionflow to 'Custom', but leave the Smoothness and Clearness sliders at minimum.

Unfortunately, the Sony X950H doesn't support any variable refresh rate technologies. If you want a similar TV that has VRR support, check out the Samsung Q80/Q80T QLED.

The Sony X950H has great low input lag when in 'Game' or 'Graphics' mode. It's responsive enough for most casual gamers, but it's a bit too high for competitive gaming. While you can use motion interpolation for gaming, it increases the input lag significantly and it isn't recommended.

If you want lower input lag for gaming, check out the Sony X900H.