Sony’s line-up of smart TVs this year has been particularly interesting for one major reason – Android TV. Android as a platform has taken over mobile phones and it’s finally landed in the living room. Somehow smart TVs of the past have always felt limited, so Android TV brings a wide offering of possibilities to the table. We reviewed one of the top-end models, the W950C a while back and were pretty impressed by it. Today, we look at a model priced slightly down the price bracket, the W800C. On the surface, and from the look of the interface, it looks just like the W950C so let’s see what make this model any different.
Design
The model we are reviewing is the 55-inch KDL-55W800C, so it is very large in size. The bezel is really thin so it looks very impressive, even when it's turned off. This is nothing new though, because the designs seen on the older W800B and the new W950C are almost identical. There is also a glowing LED at the bottom, but there are a lot of tweaks available for the behaviour of the LED, and the option to completely disable it.
Moving to the back of the TV, it's mostly metal except for the plastic block at the bottom. It's there to house all the connectivity options. If it weren't the block, the W800C would be an extremely slim TV through and through. Not all is lost though, the plastic block is moulded with gaps so you can still connect your cables at the rear, while still mounting the TV nearly flush with the wall. There are some basic connectors on the side, which we'll talk about in more detail in the next segment of the review.
The remote control too is like the one bundled with the W950C. There are the right amount of buttons, so it's not confusing and there are well spaced out so you won't keep pressing the wrong ones. The build quality is nothing extraordinary. The layout is intuitive, with the media playback buttons at the bottom. The interesting bit of course, is the interface on the TV. It's a lot different from the interfaces we've seen on previous generations of smart TVs. Things appear more lively, and fun, because of the choice of colours and large icons on them.
Basic navigation is easy, primarily with the up/down and left/right buttons. The menus are neatly categorised so you don't get lost very easily. The Settings menu is resembling of the Android interface on the phone. The settings for the TV's colour and performance are like the previous generations but now are powered by the Android interface. Things appear a bit cleaner and neater to navigate, but the menu overlay takes up most of the screen, so you see very little of the picture you want to tweak.
Features
The Sonly KDL-55W800C is a 55-inch, full HD LED TV, of the edge lit variant. It's a 3D TV but Sony doesn't bundle any 3D glasses with it; they are optional purchases that you can choose to make. There are ample number of connectivity options to choose from. There are 4 HDMI ports, two of which are MHL enabled so you can use them to connect your phones and tablets to the TV over HDMI. One of these four HDMI ports is present on the side so you can easily connect it.
There are also Component and Composite connectors if you need to connect more sources to the TV. The other standard features such as headphone ports, and Bluetooth are present on the TV. One of the two USB ports is present on the side, but sadly, it's the 500mA one which means hard drives don't work on this port. The port that does handle hard drives is present at the back of the TV.
Other connectivity options include the wired RJ45 Ethernet port, which is in addition to the WiFi connectivity. There is an optical audio output port so you can channel high-quality audio to high-end home theatre equipment. The TV comes bundled with an attachable web camera that can latch on to the top of the panel. It attaches to the TV using one of the two USB ports.
Many of the features and differences lie in the experience of Android TV. The W800C runs on Android L, although you'll see very little of the elements you see on a mobile or tablet running the same platform. Like Android phones, there are many of the standard apps on the TV, which include the music player, movie player, the Play store, etc. You only to get to see a tiny fraction of the apps that have been designed specifically for Android TV though. The browser on the TV is oddly Opera, not Google Chrome. Another one of those neat features is being able to receive notifications from the phone to the TV using an app called Notify Bravia. Another interesting feature is being able to rename the boring tags for HDMI and all the other sources, to recorded preset names and even to rename it to a word of your liking. If for example, you don't use screen mirroring, or Component, you can turn it off entirely so your interface isn't cluttered. There's also a daydream mode that runs the TV on a screensaver mode. Another feature which is forgotten is HDMI-CEC support, something Sony calls Bravia Sync. This means you can use the TV's remote to control other devices that are connected to it using HDMI. Sony has a few apps in place that let you interact with the TV. The first is Notify Bravia, which takes all the notifications you receive on your phone and sends it on your TV. This is particularly useful if your phone is on charge, and you happen to receive messages or any other notifications. The other app is called TV SideView, which acts as a remote control for the TV. It's intuitive and pretty easy to use although sometimes, using the remote control feels a lot better because of the feel of the buttons. The app is most useful when you're using the smart features, such as the web browser that requires scrolling and moving the mouse pointer around. The physical remote is very annoyingly slow and not practical for this use. There's also a physical touchpad remote that Sony sells, but it's not part of the package. It also lets you use voice commands to control the TV, using Google Now. The voice detection is pretty decent.
Some of the apps that come preinstalled with the TV is Serial Abtak, which is a lot of pre-recorded content from TV channels around India. As a user, you get to choose the languages and the TV displays channels. The amount of content in each channel isn't a lot, and it isn't very new. Screen mirroring is pretty straight forward, and can be accessed from the Sources list or by going to the Screen Mirroring option on the Home screen. It works pretty effortlessly. The Photo Sharing Plus is a feature that lets you connect to the TV's WiFi network and then use a web browser to send media to it. It allows other users to connect to it to do the same. It's a bit tiring to do this, since DLNA is part of the TV and using any free DLNA app would let you do the same, but much quicker. The USB port can be used to connect a keyboard and mouse. We tried connecting a Logitech K400 to it, and the experience was good. The mouse pointer was reasonably smooth, with little to no stuttering or delay. Scroll gestures are also supported on the trackpad and mouse.
Performance
Verdict
The 55-inch sized, Sony Bravia 55W800C is undoubtedly an expensive TV at somewhere in the Rs. 140,000 price range. You will come across at more affordable, smaller but 4K-enabled TVs than this. The Sony Bravia 55W800C is a practical TV today. It runs the resolution that is most commonly used today and it does it spectacularly well. The Android TV component is a good add-on to an already excellent TV. While it's a constantly evolving platform, the mobile remote access makes it much more usable than the traditional smart TVs of yesteryears. If the 55W800C is too large or too expensive, definitely consider the smaller 43-inch 43W800C model, which sells for around Rs. 67,000.
