Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I live in a very remote rural area where we have no public utilities or over-the-air television signals. I could buy into satellite television but it happens that I have good 4G cellular signal on my property so I get all of my television and entertainment via Internet streaming. When I read the specifications on this Sony X800H 43 Inch TV, I got all excited because it supports Apple's proprietary AirPlay protocol. All of my computers and mobile devices are Apple. Unfortunately, all of them are five years or older. The television supports only the latest AirPlay 2, making my older Apple devices with first generation AirPlay incompatible. Oh well, I'll eventually upgrade my devices to take advantage of wireless streaming. Until then, I can still connect my laptop to the television via HDMI to watch iTunes movies for now. Speaking of HDMI, this Sony X800H has four HDMI ports. If only one is plugged in, it will be automatically selected when the set is turned on. If more than one is plugged in, then you can select which one will be used. Video quality via HDMI is vivid with impressive color depth. An analog component video input as well as an RF (over-the air or cable) "F" connector input is also supported. If you have a preference as to which HDMI input is selected when you press the "TV" button on the remote, you can set it up in the television's settings. The X800H excels at Internet streaming with direct support for my favorite streaming service - Amazon Prime Videos (see my photos). Most other major on-line streaming venues are also supported. The television's WiFi connection is easily configured for direct Internet access for streaming and other content. Internet streaming is also sharp and vivid (may vary with content providers and your Internet bandwidth). Because the underlying OS powering this TV is Android, you have options to download additional applications from Google Play to expand the TV's media and external device capabilities. I found that the USB thumb drive support is excellent. I can copy videos and photos to my 128 GB USB drives and view them with very high quality. So far, it has played M4V, MP4, and MOV video files flawlessly. It will not play DRM (Digital Rights Management) encoded video files. This is not a fault of the television but rather it's how DRM works - you can't play it on a display it is not authorized to play on. There are two USB ports. If you have two USB thumb drives plugged in, it will recognize both and offer you the option to play content on either thumb drive. Thus, with both USB thumb drives, I can play up to 512 GB of content via my USB drives. That works out to storing around 250 full length movies. I played some very high quality 4K video on the TV. It was quite impressive. The colors are rich and well saturated, adding to the overall vividness of the image. The image is bright and sharp. I see very little artifacting on gradients, indicating a good color/luminance depth. Of course, you're going to see a lot artifacting (blocking and banding) with lower resolution videos due to lossy compression. It's not the TV causing it. The HDR (High Dynamic Range) capability combined with Motionflow XR frame interpolation produce what I might call an immersive image with a perceived frame rate of 240 (actual frame rate is 60) per Sony's explanation, which results in less motion blur and jitter on fast moving scenes. I test played a few old videos from my USB drive. The television handles the older interlaced video content fairly well without noticeable jitter and combing. Deinterlacing is never a perfect process. That the television does it fairly well is noteworthy for this price range. The sound quality is fairly decent. You're not going to hear deep thundering bass that will rattle the windows but you will hear enough bass that it has an overall decent sound. If you want to rattle the windows, then the television has an optical audio output to direct the sound portion of video content to a high end sound system. The remote control is well laid out and responsive. It supports voice commands, which I found to be quite accurate at interpreting my voice. You can sign into Google Assistant to expand the voice capabilities of the remote. I can use the remote to interact with the television from a good distance. If you have an all-in-one IR remote or your installation is unique in some way that requires a different location of the remote sensor, the television does support an IR remote jack. The remote IR sensor kit must be purchased separately. Finally, the X800H is a power miser. Drawing only 97 Watts, its power demand isn't much more than my laptop, which draws 80 Watts. Living off-grid in a solar powered home, efficiency is of great importance to me. This television earns five stars in efficiency from me. Overall, this Sony X800H 43 inch television gets high marks from me. It is feature rich with well thought out Internet streaming support, numerous methods of content input, vivid color, excellent contrast, brightness, and sharp definition. I'm very pleased with it.