When comparing Sony X720E 49" (KD49X720E) vs TCL S517 55" (55S517), the Slant community recommends Sony X720E 49" (KD49X720E) for most people. In the question“What are the best TVs?” Sony X720E 49" (KD49X720E) is ranked 13th while TCL S517 55" (55S517) is ranked 33rd. The most important reason people chose Sony X720E 49" (KD49X720E) is:
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.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Great picture quality
In terms of picture quality the S517 is comparable to high-end TVs. It displays remarkably deep blacks due to its great contrast and reproduces details in color very well due to its good color gradient.
The 6000:1 native contrast ratio allows the TV to reproduce dark scenes particularly well. It is easily one of the best in this price range – it’s often compared to high-end counterparts.
The S517 has superb black uniformity and contrast that create pleasant, deep blacks. They are much better than those of the similarly-priced competitors. The maximum deviation sits at around 1.02% .
The TV is good at capturing small differences in color such as skin tones, green colors in nature, details in shadows, etc. This is because of the color gradient, which is on par with other options of the same price. There is almost no banding and the standard deviation of color doesn't go past 0,11%.
Pro Good for gaming
The S517 is fit for all gamers because it offers a clear, lag-free experience. The TV is very responsive - it has struck a good balance between decent refresh rate, solid input lag, and good response time.
The TV is an ideal choice for console gaming in terms of its native refresh rate. It caps at 60Hz, which is perfect since most games won't benefit from anything higher than this.
The S517 is fast. An action shows on the screen in around 18 miliseconds, which can make the difference between managing to get a frag or waiting for a respawn. The time doesn't substantially increase when gaming in HDR or 4K either - it goes up to roughly 20.5 ms. The only thing to remember is to keep "_Game_" mode enabled for the lowest possible input lag.
The TCL S517 also handles motion and fast-paced content quite well, it has a good response time. This makes sure you can keep up with fast-moving objects and a lot of action without it all appearing blurry. A full pixel color transition takes only 15.8 ms.
Pro Functional mobile app
The mobile remote app for both iOS or Android can fully and comfortably substitute the real remote – launch apps, input text in apps, control most TV settings, etc.
Also, colors can easily be adjusted close to perfection thanks to the app’s calibration menu.
Pro Great smart features
The S517 comes with the Roku TV smart platform, which provides a comfortable interface and a big app selection.
The interface is quite basic and easy to overlook. It’s smooth and simple to swap to your favorite apps.
Roku TV offers a huge app store with all the most popular apps – Netflix, YouTube, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant, HBO Go, Vudu and much more. Some apps are even absent from other TV manufacturers Smart TV platforms and unique to Roku.
Pro Well calibrated out-of-the-box
The picture quality when you first open the TV up is quite decent. The only settings that could potentially require tweaking are grey inaccuracy and color inaccuracy. Either way, these are things that most people won't even notice.
Pro Decent for use as a PC monitor
The S517 offers a pleasant PC monitor experience not only due to the good responsiveness, but also because of the video signal's compression.
The TV won't make text appear blurry while connected to a PC because the signal has no compression and transports color data and luminance fully. This is also known as chroma 4:4:4, and the “_Computer_” and “_Game_” modes display it properly at 60Hz.
Pro Accessible inputs
All of the inputs are conveniently placed on the side of the S517, so you won't have to worry about leaving space between a wall and the TV.
Pro Optional video smoothing feature
The S517 offers the possibility to make movement in videos smoother, also known as the "soap opera effect". This is done by making the TV take two frames and try to guess what would a frame in between of those look like, also known as motion interpolation. The frame rate can interpolate up to 60 frames per second.
Pro Handles 4K scaling well
The S517 does a reasonably good job with upscaling most content to 4K quality, be it 480p DVDs, HDTV or full HD Blu-rays.
Pro A well-rounded option
The TCL S517 is a decent option for pretty much everything, be it gaming, movies, sports, or HDR content. It has noteworthy picture quality, good all-around responsiveness, decent smart features, nice motion handling, and, most importantly, a great price.
Pro HDR playback
The S517 is a much better fit for HDR content and HDR gaming than its competitors due to the wide color gamut, decent color depth, and high contrast.
The TV can display a lot more colors than its similarly-priced counterparts. The coverage of the Digital Cinema P3 color space is very good - 90%.
The color depth is on par with competing options. The S517 has 10-bit color depth, which means that it can display approximately 1.07 billion colors in total. This is important for HDR content because HDR media takes advantage of 10-bit.
The S517 can display deep blacks in the HDR mode because of it's high native contrast ratio of 6000:1, which is easily one of the best in the given price range.
The TV can also play all HDR content, because it supports both standard formats of HDR - HDR10 and Dolby Vision. They enhance the viewing experience by editing the metadata, that is, the extra information that tells the TV how to display HDR. The formats differ in the way they deal with it however - Dolby Vision edits the picture on a per scene basis, whereas HDR10 edits everything at the start of the video.
Cons
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.
Con Can't overcome glare
The S517 is better fit for dim environments or dark room viewing, since the brightness can’t peak very high, only at 277 nits. This is common for TVs in this price range.
Con Runs ads
The main interface page contains big advertisements that can’t be disabled.
There’s also a “Featured” tab that promotes all kinds of apps and channels.
Con Some dirty screen effect is present
This might cause some discomfort to sports fans because the playing surface might look darker at points. The S517's gray uniformity is decent at best, which, unfortunately, is often the case for lower-end TVs. The image is a little darker around the edges and the middle of the TV. The standard deviation of sits at around 3.1%.
Con Inconvenient calibration access
The only way to access the calibration menu is via the mobile app. This might be uncomfortable for people without smartphones or for people who prefer all control on the real remote.
Con HDR content lacks brightness
Small bright details in dark scenes won’t stand out. Unfortunately, this is usually the case with TVs in this price range. The TV's brightness for HDR media peaks at only 273 nits. Moreover, the TV doesn't support local dimming, which is also a big drawback for HDR content.
Con Struggles with reflections
While the S517 is okay for dimmer environments, the weakness shows in bright rooms and especially rooms with the light source facing the TV. The reflection handling of the TV is a bit worse than that of its competitors. It reflects approximately 6% of light off the screen.
Con Bad viewing angle
The S517 is a bad choice for a wide room because colors and blacks shift when viewed even slightly off center.
Basically, leaning sideward just a little bit will drastically alter what you see. Colors shift at 18 degrees, brightness shifts at 28 degrees, but the blacks shift at the extremely tiny angle of 9 degrees.