Best non-4K, non-Sony 50" TV right now?

TheVoice

TheVoice

TheVoice

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Long story short, I have a Sony Bravia KDL-50W805C and it's going back. What's the next best thing? Annoyingly it seems a lot of manufacturers are favouring 48" over 50" now so it's making finding an alternative a bit difficult as I'd rather not end up with a smaller TV than I started with.

Thanks for any recommendations.
 
harry5522 said:
Just out of interest. Why is it going back?
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Terrible backlight bleed/clouding coupled with a pile of software issues that make Windows Vista look like a successful product. Android TV is massively underwhelming and Sony's approach of "Advertise features now, add said features later" is reprehensible really and it's clear they're rushing to get stuff out the door because the stuff doesn't work properly. The latest YouView update disabled USB HDD recording and the YouView guide performance is what I'd expect a TV from five years ago to deliver, not a modern one running a full OS.

Unfortunately, having had a look around it seems anything equivalent or better is going to end up costing me another £200 (e.g. the Panasonic above) so I've agreed to a replacement from Amazon for now. If it sucks I'll return it too and see what my options are from there.

Kind of wish I'd just kept my old 40" Bravia now, it was great.
 
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:) I felt that mine was bad but after some tweaking it I am miles happier with it for the money the tv is amazing when your new one arrives if you feel the same about if you want feel free to drop me a trust and il send you my display settings you can see if you think it's not so bad from there (the settings out of the box I found pretty poor) and had a LOT of bleed
 
Thanks, as of last night I'm using the settings from AV Forum's review so I'll see what that does, but I think a lot of the issues are with the panel; there's a lot of white clouding in dark scenes towards the middle-bottom of the screen. Hopefully the replacement is better.
 
TheVoice said:
Thanks, as of last night I'm using the settings from AV Forum's review so I'll see what that does, but I think a lot of the issues are with the panel; there's a lot of white clouding in dark scenes towards the middle-bottom of the screen. Hopefully the replacement is better.
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Is there any specific content you can name you noticed this on prominently? I would love to see if i can replicate it. Would also help to know if it was just a bad panel!
 
Any dark/black scenes in general really, I'll see if I can get a decent photo of it later. If you haven't noticed it you've probably got a good one because it's quite obvious on mine. :(
 
I know the Samsung 50H6400 was the equivalent to the Sony 50W829 (which in turn was the previous version of the W805C). Both the H6400 and W829 got good reviews, but so did the W805C - maybe you just got a dud set?
 
Got the replacement on Tuesday night, seems better than the previous one. Much less backlight bleed/clouding (though still more than I'd expect of a TV of this price/quality) and the OS actually seems a reasonable bit quicker and more responsive.

Will spend some time this weekend to get the settings right and give it a proper test but I think I'm fairly happy with this one.
 
Sounds like the usual panel lottery, did you order through John Lewis? They're fantastic to be honest, give you 3 months hassle free return period on TV's.
 
No it was from Amazon, the guy wanted me to deal with Sony at first but I said it was up to them to replace it after only two months, not the manufacturer.

Still, it's tarnished the Sony brand for me which is a shame as I usually like their stuff. Doubt I'd buy another Sony TV now, even with the better panel there are clearly corners that were cut to save money here and there. Not entirely surprising when TVs are now more complicated than ever before, but it's still not quite what I'd expect for the money.
 
One problem i had with the screen was with spending £600 on a screen i kind of was expecting £6000 oled quality. You won't find a screen better than this for the same price. And for that matter quite a bit more expensive. If you want me to send over my settings to try out that was properly calibrated you welcome to have them to test :).
 
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