Sony X900F 49" (XB49X900F) vs TCL S405 43" (43S405)

The overall picture quality of the Sony X900F is on par with what the best, high-end TVs in its price range offer. The X900F offers excellent performance when it comes to both bright and dark scenes thanks to its ability to recreate bright and vivid colors as well as some deep blacks.

The Sony X900F does an excellent job of reproducing smooth and fluid motion thanks to its advanced flickering capabilities. The panel can flicker at the rate of 720 Hz which can eliminate motion blur. Only a few panels in this price range can flash that fast, which is good, as the majority of viewers will not notice such fast flickering.

Additionally, unlike the overwhelming majority of TVs present in this price range, the X900F can perform local flickering which ensures that the flickering doesn't take its toll on the overall brightness. Worth noting that the regular flickering of an LED panel reduces its brightness by about a half which can de-saturate some highlights and degrade the image.

The S405 strikes a nice balance between picture quality, screen size, and input lag, all for an affordable price of below $500. It's a great choice for watching and gaming casually without breaking the bank.

Compared to its direct competitors, it offers decent picture quality that is a tad below them, bigger screen size, and lower input lag.

Content looks decent enough for most casual viewers - the black levels are sufficiently deep, colors are vivid, and it gets bright enough for most types of content in a dark room.

The size difference is pretty huge as options with similar size of 49", or even smaller, cost fairly more than the S405.

Its low input lag of ~15ms contributes to a more responsive gaming experience. It's barely noticeable, and it’s also one of the lowest among 4K TVs, which is an impressive feat in this price bracket.

The S405 works well as a computer monitor thanks to its low input lag, barely noticeable motion blur, and full 4:4:4 color support. The 43" model can even be used up close due to its small minimal viewing distance.

The low input lag and low motion blur of ~15ms makes it highly responsive to input and gives it the ability to handle dynamic content well.

It also has full 4:4:4 color support, so text or shapes with hard edges on the screen won't be blurry.

The S405 is a good pick for watching sports thanks to its low motion blur and reasonably consistent color uniformity.

Fast-moving objects, like footballs, won't leave any visible trails on the screen due to the low motion blur of ~15ms. While there are slight uniformity inconsistencies in the edges of the panel when displaying large, uniform objects on the screen, like football fields, the issues generally go unnoticed by most.

The S405 runs on the Roku TV smart platform, touted for its simple, straightforward, and lag-free UI.

It’s easy for anyone to grasp how navigation works, thanks to its two-column design with the menu on the left and options on the right.

There’s also no noticeable lag during navigation or menu selection.

The S405 is excellent for gaming - the overall experience will be very responsive and fluid, thanks to the really low input lag and barely noticeable motion blur.

It has an input lag of ~15ms that makes the TV highly responsive to user input - gamers will have no issues keeping their actions in sync with what's on the display. The panel can fully change its pixels color in under 15ms, resulting in fast-moving objects not leaving any trails on the screen, eliminating virtually all motion blur.

It's also suitable for HDR gaming because there is no increased input lag for HDR, and it has full 4K support @ 60 FPS, which makes it suitable for all new 4K games.

The S405 has no ads on its main interface, although there can be ads in third-party applications. Third-party ads can't be blocked, but the tracking and personalization can be limited through the TV's settings.

The S405 is excellent at reproducing colors accurately out of the box.

Even without calibration, the colors are spot-on - they're very close to what the source signal demands and any inaccuracies are generally considered imperceptible to most end users.

The overall average difference between the source signal and the panel's reproduction of the color is measured in Delta-E, where lower means better accuracy. The S405 has a Delta-E of below 2.0, and anything below 3.0 is generally considered accurate for most end users.

The S405 looks decent with adequately deep black levels, above-average color accuracy, and sufficient peak brightness levels for most content.

It’s especially great at reproducing dark scenes thanks to the panel’s contrast ratio of about 4000:1, which means blacks can get really dark at about 4000 times darker than the brightest white it can produce.

Colors are spot-on even without calibration, and the panel can get bright enough with a peak brightness level of ~200 nits to make them pop in dark environments.

The best viewing experience will be in a dark environment where the panel won’t have to compete with light. The S405’s screen can’t really get bright enough to perform as well in bright environments.

Even when the S405 is mounted on a wall, you'll still have access to all essential inputs and outputs which are situated on the side of the unit.

The S405 is versatile enough to be used as a general-purpose display.

The picture quality is decent for movies and TV shows, and it checks all the boxes that make a TV suitable for gaming, sports, and as a computer monitor: low input lag, low motion blur, good screen uniformity, and full 4:4:4 color support.