When comparing Sony X720E 49" (KD49X720E) vs LG E7P OLED 55" (OLED55E7P), 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 LG E7P OLED 55" (OLED55E7P) is ranked 171st. 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
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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 Exceptional picture quality
The LG E7P has exceptional picture quality thanks to its OLED panel, which are unrivaled in picture quality — OLED panels are capable of reproducing absolute blacks and whites on a per-pixel basis, giving it infinite contrast ratio (which may sound hyperbolic but is absolutely true).
Pro Great color reproduction
The color gamut of a TV refers to the range of colors the display can reproduce — the wider the color gamut, the more colors it can display, and the better the overall picture quality will be. This is extremely important for HDR content because it requires a much wider color gamut than SDR content. The LG E7P has a wide color gamut and have no issues with accurately reproducing the colors necessary for true HDR.
Pro Comes with an integrated soundbar
The LG E7 has an built-in soundbar that performs surprisingly well. The frequency response is noticeably better than all other TVs out there, with good extension into the lower-ends of the frequency range, which means it can produce deep bass. The distortion levels are also low and not noticeable unless the volume is set to near-maximum. While an external audio set-up will definitely be better, this soundbar will suffice for most users that doesn't wish to spend additional money on an audio set-up.
Pro Great performance for sports & gaming
The LG E7P's versatility is top-notch. The motion blur (sub-1ms) makes it an excellent choice for sports & gaming, and the low input lag (~21ms) contributes to this especially for gaming where input lag matters.
Pro Interface is intuitive and user-friendly
The LG E7P runs on the webOS smart platform, renown for its intuitive and fully customizable UI built around a Launch Bar that provides quick and easy access to the TV's apps, settings, and inputs. This can be customized and re-organized to the user's liking.
Pro Wide viewing angle
The picture quality of the LG E7P does not suffer from much deterioration when viewed from other angles. While the colors might look off as brightness decreases with the viewing angle, the black levels and uniformity remain the same throughout, thus the panel retains most of its usual picture quality. This TV is a great choice if you require wider than usual viewing angles that LED panels can't provide.
Pro Remote is well-designed
The LG E7P's remote works similar to LG's Magic Remote (included in other LG TVs, e.g. the B7A). It is noticeably bigger than most remotes, but also comes with better controls and the on-screen cursor can follow the remote's movement similar to a Nintendo Wii remote, making it easy to navigate the UI and select menu items. It also has a built-in microphone for the voice command feature, which also supports content searching with voice input.
Pro Smart platform has great ecosystem of apps
The LG E7P runs on the webOS smart platform. It has a great ecosystem of apps, ranging from media streaming services (Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, etc.) to third-party apps. Support for these apps are also first-class with up-to-date features and good performance; for instance, the YouTube app supports 360-degree video playback.
Pro Supports both HDR10 and Dolby Vision
There are two different formats for HDR — HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Some TVs support only HDR10 and can't play Dolby Vision content. The LG E7P supports both HDR10 and Dolby Vision, giving it the ability to play any HDR content in 2017.
Pro Dark scenes are perfectly reproduced
The LG E7P can handle dark scenes very well thanks to its OLED panel, which gives it infinite contrast ratios. This gives it the ability to reproduce dark scenes perfectly.
Pro Great at handling reflections
The LG E7P's panel has a glossy finish with anti-reflective coating, giving it the ability to fight light in bright environments very well. As a result of this, the picture quality remains the same even in bright rooms.
Pro Great at handling low-res content
The LG E7P is great at upscaling lower-res content such as DVDs — all details are preserved, but there are some visible haloing especially around edges.
Pro Excellent for dark rooms
The LG E7P performs exceptionally well in dark environments. Its ability to produce absolute and perfect blacks means the reproduction of dark highlights and scenes in movies will look great — this is further improved when there's no light around the TV as it allows the blacks to stand out more. This makes it great for watching all sorts of movies in a cinema-like setting, particularly movies with many black highlights/scenes where this is immediately noticeable even to undiscerning viewers (e.g. Interstellar).
Pro Extremely low motion blur
Because the LG E7P has an OLED panel, it has near-perfect pixel response time; the motion blur is virtually non-existent at sub-1ms, which means this TV will have no issues with displaying extremely fast-moving objects — they will look smooth without any blur or lag.
Pro Perfect TV for movies and HDR content
The LG E7P is a 4K OLED TV with perfectly uniform blacks and infinite contrast ratio, achieved by its ability to manipulate pixels individually. This, along with its color uniformity and wide color gamut, gives it exceptional picture quality and makes it the perfect choice for movies. It also has no issues with brightness levels as the panel can reach up to ~700 nits of brightness when playing HDR content, and it handles reflections very well.
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 Suffers from image retention issues
The main drawback of OLED panels are image retention issues with static images — pixels on the panel gets burned in when the picture doesn't change for extended periods of time. Noteworthily, the static image doesn't have to be whole like a full wallpaper on the TV; it can happen with content that has a static image anywhere on the screen (e.g. the logo of some TV channels).
As the LG E7P has an OLED panel, it, unfortunately, suffers from this problem. There might be some retainment of artifacts for ~10 minutes when this happens, and it usually goes away after watching other content without static images. It's worth noting that the E7P handles this better than most OLED panels where artifacts can take longer to go away. There are some cases where normal content won't cut it, which usually happens when the static image has been there for more than some hours.
This can be remedied with the LG E7P's “Pixel Refresher” feature — it recalibrates the screen, which should get rid of any remaining artifacts. Note that this procedure takes around an hour, and the TV has to be turned off the entire time for it to work properly.
Con Interface has ads
The user interface of modern smart TVs can include some advertisements similar to those on the internet or in a mobile app. The LG E7P's interface includes ads that can’t be removed — there is no option to disable or opt-out from it. Compared to other smart TVs (e.g. Samsung's), ads on this TV can be really annoying because they're almost everywhere: video ads in LG's Content Store, apps menu, and even voice search results.