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63 Posts
Greetings all - I've been reading through the last several pages as I'm in the market to replaced my 2011 Sharp 80" 1080p set with something newer (and slightly bigger, why not!). In the price range I'm looking at, the 850G everyone here has caught my attention....after first seeing the "new" 800H that is the same price.I did, I got the Sony 85" X850G for the same reasons, it's a far better deal compared to the 900 or 950; the 850G has everything on my checklist at a great price: 85" size, VA panel for deepest blacks, native 120Hz, TriLuminous Color, 10 bit color panel, and is direct back-lit LED, not Edge-Lit! The 850G does not have Full-Array Local Dimming (which can cause blooming as I perceive it), no big deal to me, and it seems to me that the 10 bit panels have much better color than the 8-bit panels using FRC to approximate colors.
So far, it looks like the 2020 year Sony lineup has no such bargain 85" with this premium set of features, there is only the X800H line that's 60Hz native (and costs as much as the 2019 120Hz X850!), or the much more expensive 900 and up models with 120Hz. So glad that I did not wait for the 2020 year Sony models, this 85" X850G is the stand-out, overall winner of a deal, just like the Sony 65" X900E was when I bought it back in 2017. Anyone thinking about it, look no more, get the 2019 Sony 85" X850G while it is still available.
It's hard for me a see a reason to get the 800H over the 850G unless there's some killer update to Sony's design for 2020 that I'm missing?
I'm currently using the Sharp with an AVR that has a Chromecast and Fire TV to feed content since "smart" TV's back then were anything but. I mostly use the Fire TV for Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, etc. and I have to use a Logitech Harmony to fire everything up together and contro the Fire TV, but that means no voice control unless I grab the Fire TV remote.
Having Google TV built in and a mike on the Sony remote gives me hope that I can just use the Google apps for those services and the eARC connection (though I'm sure my AVR is just ARC) to make my AVR into pretty much just an amp to feed the signal to the speakers.
Curious - will the ARC signal get my AVR to turn itself on when I turn the TV on? And, does it allow me to control the volume with just the Sony TV remote? That would be ideal, though I could pull out the AVR remote again and use it for power and volume if need be if the Sony remote could otherwise do everything else.