Review: Sony KDL-55HX925

Sony’s products usually have style, and it’s very true of the big 55-inch HX925 LED HD TV. Its front is clad with a big slab of Corning’s Gorilla Glass and in all it marries a clean, understated design with excellent image quality.

You will have to go through a set-up phase however. Our review set was way too bright and with important features such as LED backlighting control turned off, leading to blotchy areas on the screen that should have been black. The flipside of the brightness is that the HX925 doesn’t need to sit in a dark lounge, and works great during day time.

A fair bit of trial and error is required to get the best out of the set, which is happiest with 1080i/p and 720p HD material and doesn’t upscale SD content quite as well as some other sets we’ve tested.

DLNA is supported for streaming content over a LAN wirelessly or through the 100Mbps wired Ethernet connection. Two USB ports are available: the HX925 recognised a hard drive but not a corded keyboard.

When it comes to online options, Sony’s offering is fairly comprehensive: you get the usual social media apps, YouTube in HD, and the company is making use of its huge music and movie catalogue through the Qriocity subscription service.

There are also IPTV channels such as Ziln, and Skype voice and video calls can be made through the supplied camera with microphone. There’s a web browser that’s fine for basic surfing, but forget about Flash sites. The big flaw here is that you can’t subscribe to the services via the TV, but have to use a computer and web browser instead.

You can use the Media Remote app for typing if you have a Windows computer but not for driving the TV itself; Sony’s Tablet S on the other hand comes with an app that controls the TV but you can’t enter text with it, which is a strange omission.