Sony X85L vs Haier K85F

The Sony X85L TV offers solid HDR performance with a brightness of 750 nits, which is sufficient to enjoy vibrant effects. In scenes of moderate difficulty, such as the first, third, or fifth test scenes, a brightness of around 600 nits allows you to fully experience the HDR effect. Unfortunately, in more demanding segments, like the scene from the film Sicario 2, the TV reveals its limitations. Drops in brightness to 250 nits make the HDR effect lose its impressive quality and resemble ordinary SDR. Nonetheless, it is worth highlighting the very good coverage of the DCI-P3 colour palette at 95%, which definitely deserves praise and positively impacts the overall image quality.

Let’s now move on to one of the hottest topics in the world of televisions, which is the quality of HDR performance. In the case of the Haier K85F model, we unfortunately have to make it clear: if you’re looking for equipment to watch content in a wide dynamic range, you should steer clear of this model. The main issue is its very low peak brightness, which during our tests barely reached 250 nits. To give you a better idea of what that means – this level is fine for watching standard SDR content, but it’s absolutely insufficient to show any real benefits of HDR. The image simply doesn’t have the "power" to generate bright, striking highlights. All of our measurements and tests on specialised test patterns confirmed this. As if that wasn’t enough, the television also struggles with colour reproduction. In this budget build, there are no technologies that broaden the colour gamut, such as quantum dot layers (marketed as "QLED"). As a result, the coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space, which is crucial for HDR content, is only around 80%. In practice, this means that the image will not only be dark but also devoid of the vibrant, saturated colours that the director wanted to show us.

The television Sony X85L has been tested in IMAX Enhanced mode, which, while associated with world-class cinema, does not guarantee an image consistent with the director's intent. The main issue is the white balance – there is a noticeable strong dominance of blue and significant deficiencies in red. As a result, the image becomes unnaturally cool and looks artificial. Errors in colour reproduction were confirmed by the Colour Checker test, which showed significant discrepancies – colours were "scattered" like shots from a rifle, and only a few samples hit the target values. This clearly shows that the precision of colour reproduction leaves much to be desired.

The brightness of the image is one of the positive features of the television. The gamma for HD content is at an acceptable level, although minor errors occur, but generally it is quite good. However, the issue remains the brightness characteristic for 4K materials, controlled by the EOTF curve. It is evident here that very small, bright elements of the image are too dim, which is the result of the limited number of backlight zones due to the design of the television.

Alright, how does the television handle colours straight out of the box, without any intervention from our side? The Haier K85F offers a whole range of picture modes, such as Dynamic or Eco, but for anyone wanting to watch films according to the creators' intentions, there's essentially only one that matters: Film mode. This is where we focused our tests, and unfortunately, its name has little to do with reality. The picture on factory settings is very far from what we could call cinematic fidelity and requires many adjustments. Let's start with the white balance, which has a clear deficiency of red colour. In practice, this means the entire image has a cool, bluish tint. Even worse is the issue of brightness management, that is, the gamma curves (for SDR) and EOTF (for HDR). Their graph resembles a true rollercoaster, which terribly impacts the viewing experience. This results in unnatural dimming of SDR content, causing details in the shadows to be lost, and in the case of HDR – an excessive brightening that further exacerbates the problem of clipping. Such a combination, which consists of too cool white combined with chaotic brightness and too much blue colour saturation, leads to enormous errors in colour reproduction. Our measurements on a specialist ColourChecker chart showed errors (Delta E) regularly reaching and exceeding values of 8-9. To put it simply: errors above the threshold of 3 are easily noticeable to the naked eye, so such a result means that the colours on the screen are simply heavily distorted.

Thanks to the use of calibration tools offered by Sony X85L, it has been possible to significantly improve the image quality. After calibration, the white balance for HD content is much more stable, making colours look more natural and enhancing the authenticity of the image. Although it's not perfect, these changes allow viewers to enjoy a more realistic representation of colours, eliminating the earlier cool tone. The gamma, which already performed reasonably well, has been adjusted to an even better version. As a result, tonal transitions and brightness are more consistent, positively impacting the depth and detail of the image.

As for 4K content, despite efforts, the white balance still struggles with a lack of red, which can cause overly warm colours in some scenes. Synthetic tests showed that the EOTF curve in HDR is fairly stable, with a slight boost in mid-bright scenes. However, in actual film material, the TV can still be too bright with fine, light details, which is a result of the limitations of large local dimming technology.

Nonetheless, the calibration has brought significant benefits, particularly in terms of colour accuracy, improving overall image quality and providing a more natural and consistent directorial vision.

No good, but can anything be done about this picture? Is professional calibration able to save the situation? The answer is both yes and no. It needs to be said clearly that there are certain things we cannot overcome. The limitations of the construction itself, namely a poor panel and its narrow colour coverage, mean that you can forget about a sensible HDR effect – we won't be pulling the wool over your eyes on that. The biggest beneficiary of our adjustments is undoubtedly the SDR mode, and it is for watching such content, after calibration, that this television starts to make sense. We managed to tame the white balance in our own way. Although the television only offers basic, 2-point adjustment (rather than precise, 20-point), it's not perfect, but we successfully eliminated that unpleasant, cold "chill" in the picture. Above all, though, we noted a huge improvement in brightness management. The gamma curve, which previously resembled a rollercoaster, looks like an almost perfectly straight line after calibration. This is a sign that the television can finally display an image without artificially dimming or brightening it. The conclusion is simple: even with such a cheap television, professional setting correction can achieve a great deal and extract the maximum potential from it.

In terms of smoothing tonal transitions, the Sony X85L television doesn’t offer any dedicated enhancement options, which is a bit of a downside. On the other hand, the image scaling performs quite well – the television adds a touch of artificial sharpness, which can make details such as tree branches more pronounced, although sometimes with visible jagged edges. This type of effect may appeal to some viewers who prefer a more detailed image.

Let’s move on to digital processing and image scaling, specifically how the Haier K85F handles lower resolution signals, such as from regular television. Right off the bat, we encounter an incredibly annoying and completely incomprehensible issue – the overscan is enabled by default. This means the television artificially enlarges the image, cutting off its edges on every source, even 1080p. To see the full frame, you have to dig into the screen settings each time and manually switch the format to "stretch to 16:9." It's a minor detail, but devilishly frustrating. The scaling of content to 4K resolution can be described in one word: acceptable. And that's about it. The image processor doesn't strip detail from the image, nor does it generate jagged edges or other artifacts. It simply does its job, without any bells and whistles. It’s alright, but nothing more. The most significant and noticeable shortcoming in the digital processing section is, however, the absence of a tone transition smoothing feature. This is an algorithm that could significantly reduce the annoying banding effect we mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, the manufacturer did not foresee such a solution, condemning us to watch the imperfections of the panel and low-quality material in all their glory.

Sony X85L, equipped with a 120 Hz panel, will meet the expectations of a wide range of users – from sports and gaming fans to movie enthusiasts. Movie lovers will surely appreciate the presence of one of the best motion smoothing systems, known as Motionflow. This system offers adjustment using smoothness and clarity sliders – smoothness is responsible for fluid motion, eliminating the stuttering effect, while clarity enhances the sharpness of fast scenes, reducing blur.

The panel in the K85F model operates at a native refresh rate of 60 Hz, which sets certain expectations for image smoothness right from the start. However, we must admit that we were very positively surprised when we found two separate motion control sliders in the settings menu: one labelled "Motion Blur Reduction" and the other "De-Judder." Such generosity in this price segment is an absolute rarity, as manufacturers usually offer at most one shared option. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm faded as quickly as it appeared. It soon became clear why Haier was so "generous" – the slider responsible for reducing motion blur is simply a decoy. Sliding it makes absolutely no visible difference on the screen, so only one of the two options works.

Sony X85L offers a fairly solid set of features for gamers, making it an attractive choice for gaming enthusiasts. First and foremost, the television has a 120 Hz panel, which translates to smooth and dynamic image display, ideal for both fast-paced action games and more demanding sports titles. It is equipped with two HDMI 2.1 ports with full bandwidth of 48 Gb/s, allowing for the full capabilities of next-generation consoles to be utilised. Additionally, Sony X85L supports VRR (variable refresh rate) technology, which helps reduce stuttering and artifacts during gameplay, ensuring a smooth experience. The television also supports G-Sync, which is particularly beneficial for gamers using NVIDIA graphics cards, allowing for screen refresh rate synchronization with GPU performance, eliminating screen tearing. It’s worth mentioning the Game Bar feature, which facilitates quick access to important game-related settings, such as VRR, brightness levels, or display modes, making it convenient and useful during gameplay.

However, there are some limitations. The television does not support HGiG, which may be a downside for some gamers, as HGiG optimises HDR effect rendering in games, providing a more authentic visual experience. Additionally, the Dolby Vision mode, although available, is not practical for gaming due to very high input lag.

Let’s move on to the features for gamers, although we must point out straight away that this is more of a proposal for the "occasional" ones. The manufacturer does boast in the specifications about having HDMI 2.1 ports, which looks impressive on paper, but in reality, it’s largely a marketing ploy. What good is a modern port when the heart of the television is a panel with a refresh rate of 60 Hz? It physically cannot display a signal at 120 frames per second, even at lower resolutions, which takes away HDMI 2.1’s key advantage. What a shame. (That’s why in our tests we note this as HDMI 2.0 ports). Another odd issue is the TV's response to an attempt to calibrate HDR from the console. Changes to brightness settings result in very unnatural image behaviour, which could suggest incorrect implementation of the HGiG standard. To be honest, one shouldn’t worry too much about this, as we have repeatedly mentioned, we simply do not recommend using any HDR content on this screen. However, to counterbalance the negatives, the Haier K85F does have two big and unexpected advantages. The first is the presence of ALLM, or automatic game mode, which switches the TV to low latency mode as soon as it detects a connected console. The second, even bigger surprise, is support for VRR, or variable refresh rate. While it operates within a very modest range of 48-60 Hz, its mere presence is commendable. Thanks to this, the image in games can “tear” less, which realistically improves the gaming experience.