When comparing Sony X900E 49" (XBR49X900E) vs Sony X720E 43" (KD43X720E), the Slant community recommends Sony X900E 49" (XBR49X900E) for most people. In the question“What are the best TVs?” Sony X900E 49" (XBR49X900E) is ranked 6th while Sony X720E 43" (KD43X720E) is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Sony X900E 49" (XBR49X900E) is:
The X900E looks true-to-life with really deep blacks, clear details, and captivating colors. Pictures look realistic with lots of details. There’s great depth to them and you’ll be able to see everything in the picture stand out. Dark scenes are excellent with nice shadow details that are not overly dark to the point where some details get drowned out. This is thanks to really deep black levels, enabled by the panel’s contrast ratio of about 5500:1 which means it can produce blacks that are 5500 times darker than the brightest white. This can be pushed even further to over 6500 with local dimming. The colors are lifelike and accurate even without any calibration by the user. They will look really vibrant even in bright scenes because of the panel’s high peak brightness levels of ~500 nits for SDR & ~550 nits for HDR. Even in a decently lit environment, the X900E’s picture quality can still hold up as the panel is great at handling reflections and it can get bright enough to fight off glare.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Excellent picture quality
The X900E looks true-to-life with really deep blacks, clear details, and captivating colors.
Pictures look realistic with lots of details. There’s great depth to them and you’ll be able to see everything in the picture stand out.
Dark scenes are excellent with nice shadow details that are not overly dark to the point where some details get drowned out. This is thanks to really deep black levels, enabled by the panel’s contrast ratio of about 5500:1 which means it can produce blacks that are 5500 times darker than the brightest white. This can be pushed even further to over 6500 with local dimming.
The colors are lifelike and accurate even without any calibration by the user. They will look really vibrant even in bright scenes because of the panel’s high peak brightness levels of ~500 nits for SDR & ~550 nits for HDR.
Even in a decently lit environment, the X900E’s picture quality can still hold up as the panel is great at handling reflections and it can get bright enough to fight off glare.
Pro Google Assistant is available
The X900E runs on Android TV that has Google Assistant. It has voice commands that are pretty useful as you can open apps with it, ask for the weather, and even turn the TV off.
Pro Excellent at upscaling low-res content
The X900E can upscale 480p, 720p, 1080p content to 4K with no issues. All the details are preserved and most won't notice any imperfections.
Pro Virtually no reflections
The X900E's panel has a semi-gloss finish that significantly reduces the intensity of glare.
Pro Great ecosystem of third-party apps
The X900E runs on Android TV that has access to the Google Play Store. The Play Store has a nice selection of apps, but normal Android apps won't work unless they support Android TV.
Pro Interface is ads-free
There are no ads on the X900E's interface.
Pro Excellent at handling highly dynamic content
The X900E can display fast-paced or rapidly-moving objects very well without any trails behind it. The panel only requires ~11ms to fully change the pixels color, which eliminates virtually all motion blur. It also has a native refresh rate of 120Hz that makes images look smoother.
Pro Great versatility
Apart from being an excellent TV for movies, the X900E is a decent choice for gaming and sports thanks to its decent input lag, low motion blur, great screen uniformity, and a 120 Hz native refresh rate that makes images look smoother.
The input lag of ~35ms is sufficient for most gamers, apart from competitive ones, to stay in sync with what's on the screen. The low motion blur of ~11ms and a refresh rate of 120 Hz ensures that everything will look smooth - fast-moving objects won't leave any trails on the screen.
It’s also viable for watching sports because the panel also has no issues with displaying large, same-color objects on screen, like football fields.
Pro Great at handling glare
Even in a decently lit room, the X900E's picture quality will remain more or less the same as in a dark room.
The colors will still look vibrant because the panel is bright enough to fight off glare. It has peak brightness levels of ~500 nits for SDR & ~550 nits for HDR, and reflections are also significantly reduced by the panel's semi-gloss finish.
Pro Excellent for HDR content
On top of the excellent picture quality, the X900E has everything essential to an immersive HDR experience: decent local dimming, great coverage of HDR colors, and high HDR peak brightness level.
Its excellent black levels are further improved with local dimming, which can make parts of the screen darker when the image calls for it. This results in an increase in overall picture quality with black levels becoming much deeper, so highlights will stand out further.
The panel can reproduce the wide range of colors required for true HDR playback because of its wide color gamut, which covers ~65% of the standard colors required for HDR according to the Rec. 2020 color space. This is considered great for reproducing HDR details, and it can display these colors accurately at different brightness levels.
Along with the the high peak brightness level of ~550 nits, HDR scenes will look stunning and you'll be able to see HDR details really pop.
Pro Makes an excellent computer monitor
The Sony X720E makes an excellent computer monitor because of the TV’s short input lag, full 4:4:4 color support, and well-handled motion blur.
The TV has enough processing power to keep its input lag and response time to a bare minimum. Its input lag is 19.7 ms, which ensures that it takes less than 1/50th of a second for the X720E to process an input signal generated by, let's say, a click of a button and display a corresponding image change. Furthermore, the X720E is a very responsive TV. It takes only 7.5 ms for its pixels to switch 80% to the next color; As a result, fast-moving objects don’t leave long trails on a screen which almost cancels out all the motion blur effects.
The full 4:4:4 color support allows the X720E to process native computer-generated video input. As a result, the TV can display sharp and crisp image, without any detail loss. This is especially noticeable while viewing vector graphics such as text.
Pro Excellent viewing angles
The X720E has excellent viewing angles because of its IPS panel, which gives you greater freedom than VA panels when it comes to finding a good viewing spot. In fact, you will only notice a minor color shift if your viewing angle is greater than 41 degrees.
Pro The stand does not take up too much space
The 43-inch model of Sony X720E does not take up too much space on a work desk as the TV comes with a compact, 9.4-inch by 21.9-inch stand. In comparison, the TCL S405 takes up almost 30% more table space.
Pro Suitable for viewing up-front
The reasonably small panel size of 43-inch means you can still be comfortable looking at the screen up close. You can conveniently use this TV as a computer monitor and sit as close as 2.2 feet away from it.
Pro No problems with image retention
Unlike the majority of OLED panels, this LED TV does not suffer from image retention problems. You can leave the TV on for long periods without having to worry about pixel damage.
Pro Well-rounded inputs
Regarding connectivity, this TV is has everything you'd currently want. It has three HDCP 2.2 compliant HDMI 2.0 ports, digital and analog audio output ports, and an Ethernet port. Additionally, as the TV has a composite input interface, you can enjoy playing your retro consoles, such as the Nintendo and Sega without having to go through the hassle of signal conversion. HDMI, USB, and analog coaxial ports are situated on the side of the TV so you won’t have any problem accessing them even if it’s mounted on a wall.
Pro Ads-free main interface
The main interface of the smart OS does not feature advertisements or sponsored content.
Pro Excellent for upscaling content
This TV does a fantastic job when it comes to upscaling low-resolution content. In a nutshell, it can upscale 480p, 720p, and 1080p content to 4K resolution while preserving details and sharp edges. Great for those with a collection of old DVDs or Blu-ray disks.
Pro Excellent for console gaming
The Sony X720E is a great companion to latest gen consoles, like the Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, and Wii U because of its 4K60 support, low input lag, and motion blur candling capabilities.
Furthermore, the TV’s full HDR support allows you to fully experience HDR-enhanced games such as World of Tanks, FIFA 18, etc.
Pro Great for bright rooms
The combination of reasonably high peak brightness and semi-gloss screen finish allows this TV to deal with reflections and glare efficiently. Its 340 nits of brightness are almost double than what its direct competitor, the TCL S405, offers. Furthermore, the X720E diffuses up to 97.6% of ambient light; thus the TV does not suffer from reflections.
Cons
Con Bad sound quality
The sound quality of X900E's built-in speakers is bad. It can't produce much bass and sounds rather flat. There is also noticeable distortion at high volumes.
Con Lacks support for Dolby Vision
The X900E currently only supports the HDR10 format for HDR content.
Con Not suitable for group watching
The X900E has a narrow viewing angle that makes it unsuitable for group watching.
Its picture quality gets worse when viewed from off-center angles. At ≥20° away from the center, the blacks start degrading into greys and colors will start looking dull. Brightness levels start decreasing at ≥50° away from the center.
Con Built-in speakers don’t sound right
The X720E comes with an integrated 20W 2.0 stereo speaker system. While it can get pretty loud (around 100 dB), the quality of sound is very weak, especially when it comes to bass. The speakers sound unclear and muddy.
Con Non-intuitive smart OS
Unlike other Sony TVs, the X720E has a custom, Linux based operating system which runs the Opera TV application store. OS is unintuitive and confusing to use.
Con Requires an external power brick
Both the 43-inch and 49-inch models of the Sony X720E have large and bulky external power bricks. Bulky PSUs can be a hassle to deal with especially if you’re mounting your TV on a wall.
Con Not suitable for competitive gaming
While the TV's input lag of 19.7 ms is noticeably smaller than the overwhelming majority of TVs on the market, it still can not compete with rapid TN gaming monitors when it comes to fast and competitive gaming. The input lag of such panels can go all the way down to 3 ms.
Con Dark scenes look shallow
Because of the really low native contrast ratio of 907:1, dark scenes look washed out if the TV is placed in a dark environment.
Con Not compatible with Dolby Vision
When it comes to HDR content, the X720E cannot display Dolby Vision-compliant content as it is only limited to HDR10 content. Even though HDR10 has more available content, multiple services require Dolby Vision for HDR playback.
Con Can’t unleash full potential of HDR content
Even though this TV does support HDR10 media, the low HDR peak brightness, poor native contrast, lack of local dimming, and lack of wide color gamut severely limit the quality of HDR playback. Even some lower tier TVs will produce higher quality HDR images.
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