Sony Bravia KD49XE8004 49 inch TV with All New Echo (2nd Generation), Oak Finish

This review is for the 49" 8004 model. I choose a set that was described as being in good condition but would have slight cosmetic damage to the rear of the set and the box would be damaged. The set was cheaper due to this. Personally I don't care about a scratch at the back of my TV and its hardly noticeable when I'm looking for it and not at all when the TV is in place and I'm viewing the screen.Delivery was faster than stated, almost a week faster. A very pleasant surprise on a rainy and cold Irish day when I was stuck at home with a cold esp as I was expecting stuff sent by work instead of my lovely new TV :-)REVIEW..I've been a Samsung fan for a long time and so always went for Samsung TV's, my most recent being a 2016 55" 4k model that I was happy with but neither myself nor anyone else was overly excited about the picture. It was good just nothing that special.I took a chance before purchasing that particular Samsung TV and actually went for a Panasonic which was returned the next day as it wasn't nearly as good as the older model I was replacing.So going for a Sony, a company I've little experience dealing with, made me nervous esp as the reviews seemed a little mixed. The main things I noticed people give negative feedback over are the interface being a little slow and the sound not being great. Samba TV and you view being two more but I'm in Ireland so these aren't a problem as they don't install if setting the TV up outside the UK thankfully.The only issue with that is I can't use the Alexa voice integration which is only supported in the UK. I will set it to UK later as I want to use Alexa with it.I don't find the interface slow nor is there a delay when using the remote control. I use a flagship phone and wouldn't say the TV is as fast but it isn't noticeably slow so as to annoy me either. I'm the type of person who would get frustrated and annoyed if it was as slow as some have said in their reviews. I'm very content with this.That reminds me to mention one issue I've been having which is the TV won't update over the air. This means the built in updater doesn't work for me so I have to download the update to a USB stick, which I have to buy due to needing a thin one due to the angle of the slot on the TV. This doesn't bother me though may really annoy some people.One thing you may want to take note of is that this model doesn't have Alexa support out of the box, not for me anyway. It needs an update from October 2017 which mine won't download itself (it's now March 2018) as stated above. Its Easter weekend now so I can't get to a store to get a USB stick until Monday to see how good or bad the Alexa integration is.The picture on this thing is stunning. I'm used to good screens as I use a Samsung Note 8 phone and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3, both of which have stunning displays and brightness. I did notice the Tab S3 is brighter than the TV and the image is noticeably better, very noticeably so to me and friends I've shown. It's still a stunning display and I was impressed when I got it up and running. Make sure to search YouTube for "HDR" to see just how good it actually is. There is a stunning video of Peru that really shows the screen quality off.This is my first Android tv and I'm impressed. It's far better than Samsung TV software that I'm used to.Kodi is available from the play store which is a lot of fun to play with. I highly recommend you check it out I'm new to it so am still learning but it's pretty cool once you get it going properly. YouTube gave me a good start. Search for "Samsung Bravia and Kodi" to learn how to set it up to view your entire media library on your TV and more.The sound isn't amazing but it isn't bad either.I'm used to using a soundbar with my TV's. I haven't picked one for this set yet as I like to match the soundbar to the TV brand as they communicate way better. After reading other people's reviews I wasn't expecting much from this model. I have an average sized living room and the sound is fine. There isn't a lot of bass, it won't annoy my neighbours and I'm sure to notice a considerable difference when I choose a soundbar but, for now, this is more than acceptable. Room size will massively influence the sound so anyone with a larger living room will most likely feel different.The TV looks great. The bezel is tiny and the actual width of the TV at the top is less than the width of my thumbnail, it's impressively and attractively thin. The bottom is wider, far wider but doesn't bother me as I'm not wall mounting mine. I did see a review where the guy said it was a good thing as he could easily hide cables in the space created by this when wall mounting his, it does mean the TV isn't flush with the wall.I've had the TV less than a week now and it's frozen once, it fixed itself after less than a minute, I have reset it 3 times which was by choice rather than necessity. I'm a bit of a tech nut who likes to totally understand my gadgets so I'll play with them until I'm totally fluent in their options and features.I've seen some complain about the lack of apps in the play store for this TV, others complained about the browser and some other little bits and pieces like that. Personally I use my tablet and phone for most things and have no intention of using my TV for stuff like browsing the net so won't comment on these things.This has Netflix, Spotify, Kodi, Chromecast and YouTube which I'm happy with for now. I really don't need much more. I haven't done it yet but I've read that it's possible to install apps yourself via a USB stick which I'm definately going to play with once I get a USB key that fits.Overall I'm really happy with my new TV so far. In fact I'm having way more fun with it than any TV I've ever purchased. This is mainly because of the Android and Chromecast integration but is definately helped by the fantastic picture quality and more than acceptable sound.I would recommend this TV to anyone but please remember I've only had it a week so that may change at some stage. I'll update this if it does.I forgot to mention the remote and Chromecast.The remote had me a little confused at first as I couldn't find a settings key. It turns out there isn't one. You have to press the Home key then scroll to the very bottom and you'll find settings on the very bottom left.Voice control on the remote understands me better than anything else I own including my phone and Alexa which seems to have problems with my Irish accent. It's understands me first time everytime and is handy for searching YouTube which is all I've really used it for so far.It's got dedicated Play store and Netflix buttons which I don't like personally but I'm sure many will. I do use both but not enough to have an entire button dedicated to each. I wonder if I can remap them, I will update this if I can at some stage.Chromecast is pretty cool, it's my first time using it and it's pretty seamless though Samsung users will notice it does similar to what many Samsung devices have done for a long time if using a Samsung phone or tablet alongside it. Casting is a great way of sending stuff from your android (I don't know a thing about apple) device to your TV. In layman's terms you can make whatever is on your phones screen appear on your TV screen with the press of an easy to find button on your phones screen or by choosing to screen mirror which is a little more complicated but also very easy to do.This is one reason why I don't have a use for the TV's built in browser. I simply browse on my phone while screen mirroring to the TV and so have an interface and browser I am completely familiar with that has all my tabs, preferances and passwords already securely saved. This way you don't have to deal with all the hassle of inputting new passwords etc for sites if browsing on your new TV. Have a look on YouTube if you need to know how to use the screen mirrow feature on your phone, it's pretty easy even if you aren't tech savy and has a lot of uses, it's particularly handy to view photos with family and friends.

This is definitely the best TV I have ever owned. I managed to get it for below £500 from Amazon and I could not be more impressed. The TV was easy to set up and the picture quality is superb! Playing games in 4K with HDR on my PS4 Pro has been fantastic. If you have a PS4 Pro, I would highly recommend playing Ratchet & Clank as it’s one of the best looking games I have ever seen and it somehow looks significantly better in 4K with HDR.The picture doesn’t need much adjusting which is good. I haven’t really tested the sound as I immediately connected a soundbar to it but I would imagine that the internal speakers aren’t great.Contrary to a decent amount of reviews on Amazon, I actually really like the remote and I didn’t find it hard to use at all. The TV also has really good smart functionality with all the apps you would expect (Netflix, Amazon, Youtube etc) and the UI has been surprisingly snappy.A couple of things that the manual doesn’t tell you are that in order to enable 4K output, you have to go into the ‘external inputs’ settings page and change the ‘HDMI signal format’ to ‘enhanced format’ and only HDMI 2 & 3 are capable of 4K.

Why does it lose a star,1. Menu system, hitting home button is laggy, brings it up over the current screen and loads part way down a menu. It's actually quite annoying2. The Tv setting menu (not android) is ugly, and not great to use.3. Not many apps4. The source button for switching between things barely gives you enough time to select your option5. On freeview finding out current prog info and next prog info is not intuitive and I struggle with it.6. I can't access channel 4 and ITV app players without activating youview.And if you activate youview then you can't use HDD record.7. SAMBA bloatware.What do I like?1. Picture is fine2. Apps work fine3. Connectivity is great. No problems connecting my NAS via Chromecast or DLNA etc. Lots of HDMI and USB ports4. Setup was a breeze, just logged into android.FWIW when I was streaming from my NAS either via Chromecast or DLNA the picture wasn't great. The NAS was ethernet connected to router but the router and TV were wirelessly connected. Despite not being large video files although it wasn't buffering the picture was noticeably poorer. Connected TV to router via Ethernet sorted it out just fine.So happy I bought it and I hope sony sorts out the niggles at the top as they're all fixable.

What an excellent TV this is. I had a requirement for a 4K UHD HDR TV that I actually use on my PC desk as both a computer monitor and also for the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro. Originally Inpirchased a cheaper LG 43” set from PC World. It had an obnoxious bright green stick pixel right in the centre. Considering the fact that Insit about 3 feet away from it, there was no way I could keep it. PC World didn’t want to know so that is in room 101 right now. I purchased this Bravia set, powered it on with my fingers crossed. No dead or stuck pixels, but the image quality is so much better than on the LG - night and day difference. It looks slick on the desk. Couldn’t be happier with it. If I had to find one area where I preferred the LG, it would be the remote. The Sony remote is fine, if not a bit bulky but the LG magic remote is better. If I was using it as a Smart TV like most people then maybe the UI is a bit slow to respond, but I’m not so that is a none issue for me, therefore it doesn’t lose a star on those 2 points but they are worth mentioning.I’m short, EXCELLENT picture quality, beautiful design, UI slightly laggy at times and an okay remote control.