Is the Sony 65″ X950G worth $1000 more than the X800G?
This month Sony is releasing a new series of LED television. It’s called the G series and it’s fantastic. But did you know there are three different flavors of G-Series 4K LED? (Four if you include 8K.) Size usually differentiates the models from different generations but when certain sizes overlap you need to look at the numbers. For example, Sony has 6 different 65″ televisions in their line-up. Now of those 6, two are OLED (A8G & A9G) and one is considered a Master Series (Z9F) so they will be covered in a different discussion. Be sure to follow Haas Entertainment’s blog so you don’t miss it. Of the 3 models that are left in the line-up, one is a F-Series (X900F) so although it’s considered current and is the only one you can buy today, it’s nearing the end of its sale life. Now there are two and both of them will be released in a few days. They are the X800G and the X950G. (There is an X850G that’s in-between the two aforementioned models but it’s only available in 85″.) Now we’re getting to the core of the blog post: Is the Sony 65″ X950G worth $1000 (MSRP) more than the X800G? The answer always depends on your budget, right? If you can swing the extra 1K, do it! There are 7 features that the X950G has over the X800G. The most important, in my humble opinion, is the Netflix Calibrated Mode. This is a type of video processing that dramatically lessens the appearance of digital artifacts and color crunching that accompanies streaming video compression. Think of it this way: You start with a clean sheet of paper and fill it with information. That is how your favorite show starts out. Then you have to fold that paper in half a certain number of times before fitting it in an envelope and sending it to someone. The greater the compression, the more times the paper gets folded in half. The person who gets the paper has to unfold the paper to read the contents. It’s the job of the Sony developed “Netflix Calibrated Mode” to explain to the television’s video processor the best way in which to “unfold” the video signal and “iron out the wrinkles”. In this analogy, standard definition, high definition and 4K on up all relate to the size of the piece of paper that is being folded & unfolded. Bigger paper obviously holds more information. Compression types such as MPEG-2 that DVDs and Cable TV use and MPEG-4 that Satellite and Streaming (Netflix) use are akin to the way the paper is folded. MPEG-2 is like crumpling the paper into a ball and MPEG-4 is like folding it symmetrically. The actual process involves re-writing the source signal both spatially and temporally. If you get your source content from either satellite or a streaming box such as an AppleTV or Roku then you will benefit from Netflix Calibrated Mode. The six other features the 950 has that the 800 doesn’t are: X-Wide Angle, IMAX Enhanced, X-tended Dynamic Range HDR, Full-Array Local Dimming, Dolby Vision, X1 Ultimate Processing and finally X-Motion Clarity. To learn more about these great features check out the link below:
https://www.sony.com/electronics/picture-quality#SonyProcessors
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