Just got my Sony 49X8000C 4K TV today, to replace my defective 51" Samsung Plasma. I already have an LG 55UF680T, so I know what I'm looking for in a 4K TV. These are some of my thoughts on the Sony, sometimes, in comparison to the LG. The prices of these 2 units are also very comparable.
Right off the bat, the 49" Sony looks much smaller than the Samsung 51" Plasma, which is surprising considering it's only 2" smaller diagonally. Well it's actually more like 2.5" as it's more like 48.5" rather than a full 49". The bezel is much smaller though. It's now just about 1 cm, so it looks better. There are more HDMI inputs on the Sony. 4 vs only 2 for LG. Same goes for USB. 3 on the Sony and only 1 for LG. Both only have 1 hybrid analog input, but the Sony has other dongle options.
The PQ of the Sony is gorgeous. The blacks are deep. Much better compared to the LG, which I always thought as a bit muddy. It also has a much better 4K upscaler compared to the LG. The way it upscales normal 720/1080p content is incredible. Almost no difference from a native Full HD panel. So purely in terms of displaying content, there's no contest. Sony wins over LG hands down, except if you really want the additional 6" that LG provides.
Now comes the "meh" and the "ugh" and the "WTF?" parts of the review.
In the Sony, when you connect a USB thumbdrive, nothing happens. It just says USB storage connected, but there's no way for you to access it. I'm not kidding. It doesn't appear anywhere. I searched every menu I can but there's no direct way of accessing it. WTF right? The only way I was able to access it was after I downloaded a file manager from the Play Store. So if you don't have Internet access and you want to watch your stuff on USB immediately, you're SOL.
So I downloaded ES File Explorer, and I was able to see my thumbdrive, but (ugh) navigating around ES File Explorer using just the remote was painful. I mean really painful. I ended up attaching a mouse just to get to the folders I want more quickly. Afterwards, I tried connecting a 3TB WD My Book. Didn't recognize it. I then connected a 2TB Buffalo drive, now it did. On the LG, it was able to detect whatever USB storage device I attached.
Media Playback -- again, another ugh. 1080p playback was just "meh". Nothing special. It wasn't super smooth using the default player. Had to download VLC and Kodi just to make it play videos a bit better. Don't download the MX Player free. Really useless as it didn't have any of the proper codecs.
By the way, the Sony played 4K content really smoothly, even without VLC/Kodi. But the weird thing is, it stutters on 720p/1080p if they're using H.265. Again, VLC/Kodi was able to play the H.265 files a little better.
Other ughs and odds and ends: Android is supposed to be a very good platform for TV's because of its UI and ecosystem. But Android TV was really painful to use on the Sony. I much prefer the WebOS of LG. By the way, the Sony only has a dual-core processor (according to Kodi), and maybe that's why it's struggling so much. And it only has 8GB available storage for downloaded apps. The YouTube and Goggle Play Store apps were dumbed down so much!
In conclusion, as a purely display device, where I have full control of the HDMI inputs, the Sony is great! Really incredible PQ. Couldn't ask for more. But as an all-in-one Media Center? Ugh. But hey, this is just a replacement TV for me since my old one was still under warranty, so I couldn't really complain much, right? ;-)
Cheers.
