Sony X75WL vs LG OLED B6

The luminance chart for the X75WL Sony television showed a maximum value of 350 nits, which unfortunately is not an impressive result. The television does not surprise with its brightness, and all the HDR scenes we tested lacked depth and the appropriate lighting effect that should accompany HDR content. Additionally, the tragic coverage of the DCI-P3 colour palette makes it difficult for the television to reproduce rich colours, which significantly affects the overall viewing experience of HDR content. The lack of adequate brightness and poor colour coverage means that HDR effects are very limited in this model.

LG B6 is a moderately bright OLED. After calibration it reaches around 800 nits, roughly 200 nits more than last year's B5. That's down to LG Display's new budget OLED SE panel. In practice this simply provides a bit more headroom and makes HDR look fuller in many scenes than on last year's lower-end OLEDs. That doesn't mean the B6 has no limitations. In very bright shots, when a large part of the screen is brightly lit, brightness can fall below 400 nits. This behaviour is typical of OLED TVs (especially in this segment), and it's then you see the biggest difference compared with pricier models. All the same, we rate the B6's results as really solid. It's still not a TV built to break brightness records, but the HDR effect is strong enough that films really feel like a step up from ordinary SDR picture.

Colour gamut

Using the OLED SE panel has had some impact on wide colour-gamut coverage. Compared with last year's model the figures have dropped by a few percentage points. DCI-P3 reaches about 96%, and BT.2020 around 71%. That doesn't mean the colours on the LG B6 are weak. In most films and TV series they look vivid, well saturated and simply pleasing to the eye. You only notice the difference in very bright, highly colourful scenes. Then colours lose some intensity compared with QD-OLED panels. This is due to the WOLED panel structure. In addition to the red, green and blue subpixels it also uses a white subpixel that helps boost brightness. This comes at a cost: at very high luminance some of the colour is effectively 'diluted' by the white light, so saturation of some hues can be slightly lower. Day-to-day it's not a big problem, but you can see it in the most demanding scenes.

Colour reproduction tests for the model Sony X75WL are conducted in film mode, which offers the best picture settings but also has its flaws. The biggest issue with the X75WL Sony is the white balance – for both HD and 4K HDR content – which is characterised by a dominance of blue. As a result, the entire image feels too cool. The colour checker confirms these errors, showing that colours lean towards cooler shades. Regarding brightness characteristics, the contrast gamma is at quite a decent level; however, the same cannot be said for the EOTF curve. There are significant issues with maintaining the appropriate brightness – the image is either too bright or too dim, which affects the visual perception of the content.

We tested the LG B6 in Filmmaker Mode, the best picture setting available straight out of the box. ISF modes give very similar results, but in our tests we always stick to Filmmaker Mode for better comparison with other TVs. Each of them is a far better starting point than Vivid or Eco, where the picture is heavily boosted and noticeably less natural. For SDR content the factory settings perform really well. Colour errors are small, gamma behaves correctly, and the picture looks natural during regular viewing and does not seem overly enhanced.

It's a bit worse with HDR. Once you start playing that kind of content it's quickly apparent the white balance isn't perfectly set. Too much blue and red makes the image take on a slightly pink tint. Colour gamut measurements and the ColorChecker confirm this, with samples clearly shifting in that direction. It's not a defect that completely ruins the picture, but you can notice it with HDR films. So anyone who wants the most faithful image should consider calibration, which we cover later in the review.

X75WL Sony is one of those cases where image calibration may not be heavily spectacular, but it provides a very good improvement in colour perception. The white balance, both for HD and 4K materials, has been significantly improved – we no longer have a strong dominance of cooler shades. The gamma curve also appears more stable, which translates to better image quality. However, the biggest issue remains the EOTF curve, which is responsible for brightness in 4K materials. Due to the technological limitations of the television (IPS panel and lack of local dimming technology), it's hard to talk about significant improvement, as we can't squeeze more out of this model. Despite these limitations, the tonality of the image has been significantly improved.

During calibration we focused mainly on HDR material, because that’s where the factory settings needed the most correction. We didn’t neglect SDR, though. After tuning it was brought almost to perfection. Colours are very accurate and brightness is controlled as it should be. The biggest change in HDR came from improving the white balance. After removing excess red and blue the pinkish tint disappeared and the image became much more natural. Skin tones, whites and all colours that had previously leaned towards pink improved. After calibration most errors fell below Delta E 2-3, the threshold at which an average viewer stops noticing differences with the naked eye. So the LG B6 can produce a very accurate picture, especially for the manufacturer’s entry-level OLED model.

In the case of low-quality tonal transitions, the Sony X75WL television performs poorly. The lack of any feature to improve tonal transitions results in noticeable imperfections in colour gradation. However, it can be noted that the digital processing is quite good – the image is displayed without overscan, and the overall presentation is relatively good thanks to the added slight sharpness, which some users may appreciate.

LG B6 copes very well with lower-quality material. Much of that is down to effective digital image processing, which can mask some source imperfections without excessively smoothing the whole scene. The "Smooth Gradation" feature proves particularly useful. It lets you noticeably reduce posterization mentioned earlier, especially in dark parts of the image. The safest choice is to set it to Low or Medium. The feature still effectively smooths out harsh tonal transitions, but doesn't yet interfere too much with fine details. Die-hard purists can of course leave it off. Upscaling to 4K also performs very well. Full HD and 720p content retain a fair amount of detail, and the image is neither overly sharpened nor heavily blurred. Some limitations are only noticeable with very poor sources below 720p, where the smallest text and fine elements aren't always perfectly sharp, but this is true for almost every other TV on the market.

The X75WL Sony television features a 60 Hz panel, making it more suitable for watching movies than for fast-paced gaming. This model includes a motion smoother called Motionflow, which allows the user to adjust the picture on a 10-point scale. Smoothness adds intermediate frames, thus increasing motion fluidity, and the image becomes more theatrical while minimising the judder effect. Clarity reduces motion blur, which is especially useful during fast-paced scenes, such as sports or dynamic action in films. With this feature, the user can tailor the fluidity and sharpness of motion to their own preferences.

One of the biggest advantages of OLED panels is their very fast pixel response time. That keeps the picture sharp and prevents visible smearing that often appears on LCD TVs. It does have a downside, though. During slow camera pans motion can look a bit choppier than on LCD screens, where the slower panel naturally masks some of that effect. Fortunately, on the LG B6 this is easy to tame with TruMotion. With the motion smoothing set correctly you can get smoother motion without giving the picture an exaggerated soap-opera effect.

X75WL is not the best TV for gamers. It only has the ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) feature and a basic Game Bar, which are not sufficient to satisfy more demanding users. In this price range, one would expect support for features such as VRR or 120 Hz refresh rates – although in FULLHD, which are already standard – unfortunately, they are lacking here. This is a big downside for Sony, as the competition offers much more for gamers in a similar budget.

LG OLED B6 has plenty going for gamers; it's a complete base for the PS5, Xbox Series X/S or a solid PC. It comes with four full-size HDMI 2.1 ports with 48 Gb/s bandwidth, so you can forget about annoying cable swapping when you want to connect several newer devices at once. We get a full package of sync technologies, from classic VRR to G-Sync and FreeSync. The panel effortlessly syncs its refresh rate to the frame pacing produced by your console or graphics card. Of course ALLM is present: the B6 automatically recognises when a game is running and immediately cuts latency to a minimum. HDR support is also excellent. The TV supports Dolby Vision, and a correctly implemented HGiG means that after an initial calibration in the console settings the picture won't suffer from blown-out whites or lost detail in bright areas. The icing on the cake is the Game Bar. Instead of digging through the full menu mid-game, a single click lets you correct shadow visibility, tweak chosen parameters or simply check the display's current mode. All of this makes the LG B6 a great choice for gamers.