When comparing Sony X930E 65” (XBR65X930E) vs Sony X720E 49" (KD49X720E), the Slant community recommends Sony X930E 65” (XBR65X930E) for most people. In the question“What are the best TVs?” Sony X930E 65” (XBR65X930E) is ranked 12th while Sony X720E 49" (KD49X720E) is ranked 13th. The most important reason people chose Sony X930E 65” (XBR65X930E) is:
This TV offers much better HDR experience than the overwhelming majority of competitors in its price range because of its ability to display shots that combine bright and crisp highlights with some truly inky dark regions.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great for HDR
This TV offers much better HDR experience than the overwhelming majority of competitors in its price range because of its ability to display shots that combine bright and crisp highlights with some truly inky dark regions.
Pro Screen has virtually no reflections
The X930E's panel is excellent at handling reflections, thanks to its semi-gloss finish that significantly decreases the intensity of glare.
Pro Excellent for HDR content
The X930E shines when it comes to HDR content. HDR pictures look true-to-life with stunning highlights and great black details. This is thanks to the high contrast ratio, local dimming, wide color gamut, and really high peak brightness level.
The local dimming can make parts of the screen darker when neccessary, giving it a boost in contrast ratio from 5744:1 to 6564:1. This gives the image deeper blacks and greater detail, resulting in brighter HDR highlights and better overall picture quality.
Its wide color gamut enables it to reproduce all the colors neccessary for HDR, and the high peak brightness level of ~1.4k nits makes the color really vibrant.
Pro Excellent at handling glare
When set in a bright environment, the X930E's picture quality doesn't suffer from much deterioration.
It has no issues fighting glare thanks to its really high peak brightness levels of ~900 nits for SDR & ~1.4k nits for HDR. The intensity of glare is also further reduced by the panel's semi-gloss finish.
Pro Decent sound quality
The sound quality of X930E’s built-in speakers is decent enough for users that aren't picky about sound details.
Dialogue sounds clear, and details aren't drowned out by too much bass or treble. It can get pretty loud at ~95dB, but there's some distortion at higher volumes.
Pro Interface is ads-free
The X930E's interface has no ads, and it even has a feature for limiting ads in third-party applications.
Pro Great alternative to OLED TVs
The X930E doesn't suffer from image retention issues like OLED TVs do, and the picture quality can be considered on par with OLEDs in the same price bracket, making it a great alternative when image retention is a concern.
Pro Excellent at handling highly dynamic content
The X930E can handle fast-paced or rapidly-moving objects very well.
Objects don't leave any trail behind it, thanks to the panel's quick response time. It only requires ~13ms fully change the pixel's color, which eliminates virtually all motion blur.
The panel also has a native refresh rate of 120Hz that makes images look smoother.
Pro Excellent picture quality
The X930E’s picture quality is top-notch. Images are wonderfully reproduced with captivating colors and great detail.
The blacks are really deep - it’s about 6000 times darker than the brightest white pixel the screen can produce. This creates a sense of depth as the focus of the picture pops, without any loss in background details.
It gets even better when watching in a dark room. You’ll be able to notice subtle details in the picture, and dark scenes will look stunning as the lack of glare allows you to perceive blacks better.
On top of that, the colors are really vibrant, even in broad daylight, thanks to its really high peak brightness levels of ~900 nits for SDR & ~1.4k nits for HDR. It can get brighter than most smartphone’s screen under the sun without significant loss in picture quality.
Pro Works well straight out of a box
You will most likely not need to spend time calibrating this TV because it's out-of-the-box color accuracy is reasonably high.
Pro Makes an excellent computer monitor
The Sony X720E makes an excellent computer monitor because it can smoothly display sharp and crisp images since the TV has full 4:4:4 color support, short input lag, and well-handled motion blur.
The full 4:4:4 color support allows the X720E to process non-compressed, computer-generated video inputs. Therefore, the TV can display sharp and crisp images, without any detail loss. This is especially noticeable while working with text and other vector graphics.
Additionally, the TV’s input lag of 19.7 ms ensures that it takes less than 20 ms for a TV to display an image change after you press a button. Such delay is almost unnoticeable to a human's eye.
Pro Excellent for console gaming
The combination of handled motion blur and low input lag makes this 4K60 TV a great companion to the latest generation consoles, like the Xbox One X, PS4 Pro, and Wii U. Additionally, the TV’s full HDR support allows you to fully experience HDR-enhanced games such as World of Tanks, FIFA 18, etc.
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.
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 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. Therefore, you can conveniently use this TV as a computer monitor and sit as close as 2.2 feet away from it.
Pro Ads-free main interface
The main interface of the smart OS does not feature advertisements or sponsored content.
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 Nintendo or 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 Excellent for upscaling
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 viewing angles
The IPS panel of the Sony X720E gives you an extra bit of flexibility when it comes to finding a good viewing spot as its maximum viewing angle is 41 degrees; a double of what the competitors with VA panels can offer.
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 more than what its direct competitors, including The VIZIO M-series and Samsung MU6300 offer. Furthermore, as the X720E diffuses up to 97.6% of ambient light, it does not suffer from reflections.
Pro Excellent for watching sports
The Sony X720E has all the bits and pieces needed to deliver the excellent experience of watching sports and other fast-paced content. The TV has good control over its motion blur, excellent color uniformity, and wide viewing angle.
The X720E needs only 7.5 ms for its pixels to change their color; as a result, fast-moving objects don’t leave long trails on the screen, meaning that the motion blur effect is almost negligible.
Good color uniformity is another parameter that really makes a difference when watching sports. It allows the TV to display beautiful and uniform sports fields and pitches, without any unwanted artifacts. The maximum color deviation of this TV is below 2.5%, which means that the TV can sustain stable and uniform colors throughout its screen. The X720E has the best color uniformity in its range.
Cons
Con Lacks support for Dolby Vision
The X930E currently only supports the HDR10 format. Dolby Vision is not supported.
Con Speakers produce distortion at higher volumes
The X930E's speakers produces some distortion at higher volumes, and it becomes significantly noticeable when nearing maximum volume.
Con Poor viewing angles
The X930E is not suitable for group-watching because of its poor viewing angles.
Audience viewing from other angles might not experience the same picture quality as those directly in front of the screen. The picture quality starts deteoriating at just ~10° off the center of the screen with the blacks turning into gray and colors looking dull.
Con Doesn't sound good
The TV's overall sound quality is not a match to its picture quality.
Con Dark scenes look shallow
Due to the really low native contrast ratio of 907:1, dark scenes look washed out if the TV is placed in a dark environment.
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. The OS is unintuitive and confusing to use.
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, peaking at the sound pressure level of 100 dB, the quality of sound is very weak, especially when it comes to bass. The speakers sound unclear and muddy.
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.
Con Not suitable for competitive gaming
While this TV has noticeably smaller input lag than the overwhelming majority of TVs on the market, it still can not compete with rapid TN monitors when it comes to fast and competitive computer gaming.
Con Can’t fight judder in 60 Hz signal
The Sony X720E can't handle judder in 24p content sourced from the 60p/60i devices, like a cable or satellite box, or Apple TV. Such content contains so-called '2:3 judder' which means that the frame distribution among the timeline is inconsistent.
Con Lacks Dolby Vision support
When it comes to HDR content, the X720E cannot display Dolby Vision-compliant media as it is only limited to HDR10 content.
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.