Sony X950H TV Review

The X950H is Sony's 2020 flagship 4k LED TV and the replacement of 2019's X950G. It sits right below Sony's Masters series, which includes their OLEDs and the 8k Z8H, and its main competitors are expected to be the Samsung Q80T QLED and the Vizio P Series Quantum 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. The feet on our unit are set to their maximum width, but they can be moved inwards 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.

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

Footprint of the 55" stand: 47.8" 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 now 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.

Note that the 49" variant has some HDMI ports that are downward-facing.

The bezels are very thin and aren't distracting.

The TV is of moderate thickness and won't protrude much when wall-mounted.

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

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 X950G, the brightness varies depending on the scene, but overall, it's more than enough to overcome glare even in the brightest lighting conditions.

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'.

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'.

Good gray uniformity. 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.

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

Outstanding black uniformity. 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, there's a rainbow effect that some may find distracting, which is caused by the TV's 'X-Wide Angle' layer.

The 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.

After calibration, the 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 X950H displays native 4k content perfectly.

The 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.

Great HDR color gamut. It has outstanding coverage of the DCI P3 color space, which is 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 X950H shows no sign of temporary image retention.

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

The X950H has an impressive response time that results in clear images with very little motion blur. However, just like the 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 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 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.

This TV 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 X950H can remove judder from all sources. For 24p content, there's no need to change any settings. For 60p content and native apps, Cinemotion must be set to 'Auto', and Motionflow must be set to 'Custom', with the Smoothness and Clearness sliders set to 'Minimum'.

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