Ive got a Bravia. They’re good like upper midrange TVs, like the top end before you really start spending crazy cash
Comment on Sony’s TV business is being taken over by TCL
mrnobody@reddthat.com 2 days ago
Makes sense, bc idk anybody with a Sony TV anymore. Even loyalist fans friends of mine from the CRT days switched.
bdonvr@thelemmy.club 2 days ago
mrnobody@reddthat.com 2 days ago
I’m not meaning nobody owns them, just a lot of the people I knew back in the day who were die-hard Sony fans, have moved on due to price or quality or both. My dad was one of them with a full high end Sony TV (36" CRT Trinitron series) and receiver, dual cassette deck, CD player, etc lol. Yes, this was the 90s, but still.
markz@suppo.fi 2 days ago
I do, and it’s great. It isn’t OLED, but the image is still decent. It has thin bezels, lots of inputs, it’s 4K, and most importantly, it’s just old enough to not run android. I’ll take this thing to my grave.
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 2 days ago
My 4k/120 one just started getting a few dead pixels. It’s on almost everyday for a hours between me and the kids.
nao@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
What did they switch to?
mrnobody@reddthat.com 2 days ago
Initially, in the late 00s, Samsung was up-and-coming for LED/LCD so they started to quickly catch on. Then in 2010s, LG started to leap ahead before the price caught up. Now, TCL is that for me, great prices with great quality. Hisense is probably next
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
They started making shit TV’s (for their price) is why. They kept charging premium prices, but their quality of buying a TV that wouldn’t break like all the others dropped off a cliff.
zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Every friend or acquaintance that has asked me “What TV should I get if I want a really nice LCD TV?” was always told Sony, so I know lots of people with them. I guess I have no good answer for these people now, every brand other than Sony had become enshittified.
mrnobody@reddthat.com 2 days ago
I honestly don’t mind TCL, they’ve really come a long way, especially for the price! I have the 2022 TCL 85R655 that was rated extremely well, and supported all the Series X features (ALLM, VRR, 4K/120, HDR10 +DV gaming, etc for $1800) and that only replaced my 2016 LG 65UH8500 because, well, way better specs (minus no 3D anymore lol).
I had an issue with the PCB 12 months into warranty (literal days left) and I got a full refund because they had already replaced that model with the next Gen and didn’t have the proper parts available or something to fix.
The picture quality, when calibrated, is pretty damn good despite not being OLED.
zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
The higher end TCL have very good specs, but my issue is only with the software. At this point I’ve been leaning towards “dumb” TVs. My most recent TV is not a smart TV and can’t be retroactively ruined with ads or additional spyware. I just wish there were high end models available for when my larger living TV bites the dust.
mrnobody@reddthat.com 2 days ago
Ah, see, ok, that makes sense. I forget most everyone else in the real world isn’t obsessed with ad-blocking like me. So, this one is Roku but I have others that are Fire TV and Android (all TCL). None are connected online, and honestly it’s creepy as FUCK that the fire TV has never been connected to the Internet, yet still somehow has its own ads for shows update every so often. IDK if they’re cross-communication like a mesh network of TVs so if one is offline it can still get some sort of content refresh, or what, but I don’t like that it knows to update/refresh with no network.
darcmage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I own a sony TV. The hdtvtest guy is my goto for staying updated on TV tech and sony regularly comes out as his best of the year. Yes, they’re pricey but you’re getting something for that premium.
This is a sad day in my books now that TCL will be able to enshittify the Sony brand.
plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
When 4k/120 TVs came out, their Bravia was the best midrange you could get. Price doubled to get anything better.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Their early “4k/120s” weren’t even actually 4k/120. Enabling 120hz refresh rates on early Bravias would cut horizontal resolution in half, and then crudely attempt to upscale it.
plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
I mean the true 120hz, not the upscaled crap.
Teal@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
I also have a Sony TV and watch Vincent on HDTVtest.
The TCL news is shocking. Time will tell but it doesn’t seem good to me.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Sony TVs are absolute garbage devices designed by actual morons, with the worst customer support in the industry.
Back when the PS5 came out, they advertised their Bravia TVs specifically for its support for the PS5 and its feature set. I spent something like $1,200 for a Bravia x900H which at the time was very highly reviewed. When the PS5 released shortly after, we had to wait months for Sony to actually release drivers to support the PS5 features promised like VRR and 4k/120hz, and when they finally did the monkeys paw finger curled. If you turn VRR on, it disables local dimming. This is important because those panels look like dogshit without local dimming. So right off the bat you have to choose between a smooth picture, and a good looking picture.
As for 4k/120, they cheaped out on the MediaTek processor so it can’t actually do native 4k/120. Turning it on halves the horizontal resolution to 1080, and then it crudely upscales it back up causing a now infamous blurry mess to the picture.
Those are just the problems that affect everyone due to design flaws and false advertising. But on a more luck-of-the-draw level, when I bought mine brand new, it had significant backlight bleed. I was upgrading from a $150 Costco LCD and I swear to you the picture on the Sony was actually worse. 25% of the screen was permanently tinted blue the bleed was so bad. No problem I thought, I just bought the thing brand new, these things happen with LED panels from time to time, I’ll call Sony and RMA the thing. But after a week of arguing with Sony’s outsourced support, they refused to honor the warranty. According to them backlight bleed is expected and no matter how bad it is, they don’t cover it under warranty. So whether or not your Sony TV is even functional as a TV is simply luck of the draw.
darcmage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I have no doubts about your experience. I can only rely on personal experience, which has been the exact opposite, and that of expert reviewers.