Sony Bravia HX850 55-Inch LED TV Review

The holiday shopping season will soon descend upon us, and if you're in the market for a new LED TV, Matt Mira and John Barrowman are here to help with the Sony Bravia HX850 55" LED TV.

What You Need To Know

• The HX850 is aesthetically very pleasing with a base that's not flashy and features clean, simple lines.
• This is my favorite designed television of the year.
• The TV is heavier than it looks because the front features Gorilla Glass, so you are left with a very scratch resistant flat panel.
• There are plenty of ports on the 850, like four HDMI, component and optical audio out.
• The image compares surprisingly well to a plasma TV: normally on an LCD, we are left wanting deeper and richer black levels but this really delivers.
• The color reproduction is very good and while the contrast was a bit lacking at first, this TV offers so many picture modes and adjustable levels that we were able to get an excellent picture.
• The X-Reality Pro picture processing engine does a great job of breaking down the picture into four elements (texture, outline, contrast and color) and sharpens each one individually.
• The 3D picture quality was good: there was some slight artifacting but the image overall was fine.
• The viewing angles for the 3D are also very good, but you will have to fork over some money for glasses.
• There are a lot of apps crammed into this TV, including access to the Sony store and Crackle.
• The remote also features a Netflix button, which is a nice touch.
• The only real omission is HBO Go
• This is one of the best LCD televisions on the market with its excellent picture quality and plenty of apps to use.

Price

• $1,600 for the 46-inch model.
• $2,000 for the 55-inch model.