Decision time: LG OLED55B6V vs Sony Bravia 55XD9305

[Robbo]

Priced at £1799 (LG) and £1299 (Sony) respectively, a notable price difference.

I'll likely be keeping it for at least 4 years or so. Main uses are gaming, movies, TV, sport, the usual.

I've read the reviews and will go and demo the TV's, but what would you go for, and why?

 

[Robbo]

I'm not worried about OLED brightness, I can totally dim my room to near complete darkness even during the daytime.

The one issue could be the input lag, but in honesty I'm not sensitive to it, and I'm not generally playing fast paced shooters where every millisecond counts (assuming you're that good to start with).

I've always valued image quality over things like refresh rate, I was never a big fan of the 120hz monitors especially when it meant you got lumbered with an inferior quality screen.

Having said all that, I'm sure the Sony image quality is very, very good. I'll need to have a good look at them. The KS8000 looks interesting but in honesty I'd probably lean toward the Sony at the same sort of price.

I remember thinking when I saw OLED on the first Samsung Galaxy phones that it would be amazing for a TV, and I'd get one as soon as the prices were more reasonable...

 

[Robbo]

I'd say now is a good time to buy a 2016 set.

Or hold off for 6 months and buy an even more refined 2017 model.

I thought my 2014 AX802B LED was pretty decent until I got an OLED.

I suspect said 2017 model would be even more expensive though, at least initially.

 

[Robbo]

why are you biased towards sony? in the past 15 years they have had maybe 2 years where they were better than the competition and that was a few years back.

they went more than a decade without making anything worth talking about.

they no longer make their own panels and haven't done so for a while. all their tv's use panels from samsung, lg, panasonic, etc. so they are usually overpriced at the top end where they are half decent.

if i had to pick a brand to be loyal too atm within the tv market it would be either LG or Samsung. like i said before in the past 15 years there has only been 2 occasions they had something worth talking about

2 reasons really - Samsung sounds like a panel lottery, and I use the headphone jack quite often, and Samsung don't seem to include one any longer, which is a bit of a pain.

The XD9305 seems to be very well reviewed, easily comparable to the Samsung offerings...?

 

[Robbo]

To be fair, anything edge lit is. I went through 3 Sony W905 panels (their flagship at the time) before getting a decent one.

Any brand loyalty with tech confuses me tbh - especially the nvidia and amd ranting that goes on in the gfx card forum! Things change each generation - just stay with the times and get the best you can budget.

It's not a case of brand loyalty, I do like Sony as a brand but I like most of the brands. The main advantage of the KS8000 over the XD9305 seems to be the lower input lag, which as I mentioned isn't a huge issue, but a consideration all the same. It also costs a bit more, but they are both still well under OLED prices. There's also the fact my soundbar is Sony, as are the PS3 and PS4 (but it all seems to work ok with my current Samsung TV, with the exception of a few very minor CEC related soundbar niggles).

I'll have a look this weekend and see how they compare (properly if I can, I know the store demo content is pretty useless).

 

[Robbo]

I had a good look at them all today and it's not really made my decision easier (or well, it has). I couldn't see the settings so had to go off how the shop had them setup - and I did look at 2 different stores to get a better idea.

The Sony 9305 didn't seem that great, it was good but I had a feeling the settings were poor and so was the supposed 4k content that was playing.

The Samsung KS8000 and 9500 and even the 7500 looked really, really good, but as above, it could be the settings.

The LG OLED E6 and B6 both looked awesome and I love the look of the TV itself, not just the screen. The KS8000 seemed closest for black levels but obviously it's inferior. OLED is another few hundred quid but I plan on having it a few years.

Hmm!

 

[Robbo]

Just ordered the B6V, hard to resist at the current price.