The Sony X900F is a great 4k TV with impressive picture quality, especially in a dark room due to the high native contrast ratio and full array local dimming support. The TV excels at HDR as it can produce bright, vivid highlights. Motion handling is also excellent due to the fast response time and ability to flicker the back-light to clear up motion.
The Sony X900F is quite different to the ‘traditional’ Sony aesthetics from the last few years, such as the X900E it comes featuring a great design. The wide-set legs are the most noticeable difference, and do require a larger table but are designed so that the Sony soundbar can fit between them. There is basic cable management similar to the X900E down the back of the stand, but it isn’t as good as the X930E which includes routing through the back panel. The build quality is very good and the TV feels solid.
Sony X900F Design
This 65″ TV with stand measuring 39.2″ x 10.6″ shows its much wider than most other Sony TVs, as it leaves space for a soundbar between the two legs. It supports the TV well and feels secure. It also provides a channel at the rear of the legs to route cables through, which is good. The TV comes with a thin boarder of 0.35″ (0.9 cm) which looks good. They look almost identical to other Sony TVs.
From behind the TV is quite basic, and is very similar to last year’s model. There are two groups of inputs on the rear of the TV. One is inset and directed down, and can be difficult to access if the TV is placed close to the wall. The second group is directed out the side of the TV and provides easier access.
When viewed from the side the TV has an average thickness measuring 2.76″ (7.0 cm) which will stick out from the wall a bit more than some other TVs, but this isn’t too much of an issue.
Although the TV is almost entirely plastic but what does not make it fragile as it does feel well constructed and solid with good quality.
Sony X900F Display
The Sony X900F has a very good picture quality. When set in a dark room, the deep black it can produce help greatly with dark scene reproduction. This is mostly due to the impressive contrast ratio, good black uniformity, and decent local dimming feature. When set in a brighter room, the TV is also very good since it got a great SDR peak brightness and the screen finish is great at dealing with reflection and glare.
The 65-inch X900F measures 57 inches wide by a little over 35 inches tall and two and three-quarter inches deep (without its stand), which isn’t as thin as some displays nowadays, but it isn’t exactly obese, either. The display itself tips the scales at 54 pounds, which makes it substantial in its construction, but not ridiculous. At first glance, the X900F’s appearance isn’t going to make you do a double take. It’s not ugly. mind you, but rather just very restrained and classic in its appearance. Like a well-tailored suit or little black dress, the X900F is ready for any occasion. Around back things are even more spartan, as the X900F sports an almost seamless back panel with nary a sign of branding or government warning to infringe upon its appearance. There are tasteful cut-outs for the X900F’s I/O panel and power cord, but that really is it. So front-to-back, side-to-side, the X900F is an exercise in beauty through minimalism.
The TV comes with a HDR which looks great mostly due to the high HDR peak brightness, which when paired with the local dimming, can reproduce very bright specular highlights. The X900F’s panel itself has a native resolution of 3,840 by 2,160 pixels, also known as Ultra HD. The X900F features Sony’s own Triluminos technology (think Quantum Dots), HDR compatibility (HDR10, Hybrid Log-Gamma, and Dolby Vision), X-tended Dynamic Range PRO, and X-Motion Clarity, all powered by Sony’s latest Processor X1 Extreme.
The full array local dimming of the Sony X900F is decent and better than most LED TVs. It is a small upgrade when compared to the 2017 X900E. The X900F performance is more similar to the 2017 Sony X930E when set side by side, although the X930E has slightly less abrupt transitions of the zones on movements.
Sony X900F Performance
Very similar performance to the Samsung Q8FN. The X900F has deeper black levels, but there is more visible blooming. When set to ‘High’, the feature is very good at limiting blooming and keeping a good overall black level.
The X900F in its Custom mode measured a respectable 435 Nits. Out of the box, the accuracy of the Sony X900F is excellent, and for most people, this TV could be used right away without the need for any calibration. The most accurate picture mode out of the box is the ‘Custom’ picture mode, and it is also one of the picture modes that gives you the most control over all the picture setting available.
The ‘Cinema Pro’ is also very accurate, but this picture mode targets a gamma closer to 2.4, rather than our desired 2.2 target.
The X900F comes with Sony’s voice remote, which is starting to look a little dated compared to competing brands. While LG lets you wield its remotes like a Wii controller, and Samsung’s slim metallic remote features precious few buttons, Sony sticks with an old-school design and layout that provides more buttons than you probably need – save perhaps for that voice button for Google Assistant.
The X900F also offers four HDMI inputs, all of which support 4K HDR sources and HDCP 2.2, but Sony tells us you’ll want to use HDMI 2 and 3 for high-bandwidth sources like a 4K UHD Blu-ray player, 4K HDR-capable gaming console, or HTPC/gaming PC. Unlike some of its competition, the X900F will not automatically detect the need for enhanced bandwidth support, so you’ll want to turn on that feature manually (instructions below). The X900F doesn’t support variable refresh rate (VRR) either, but then again, that’s a feature found only on Samsung QLED TVs at this time, so we don’t knock it for that.
Under the hood is Sony’s X1 Extreme processor, which is the heart and soul of this TV. For the android Sony is still sticking with Android TV for its operating system and streaming platform.
