Sony BRAVIA XBR-55HX950 Pro Reviews

In a side-by-side 2D comparison with a Panasonic TC-P65VT50 (Home Theater, October 2012) in a fully darkened room, and relative size aside (the Panasonic’s screen is 10 inches larger), the two sets’ performance was very close. I’d give a slight edge in black level and shadow detail to—surprise—the Sony, though the differences were small in that dark room. But when I turned on some over- head lighting, the Sony’s visible contrast held up better than the Panasonic’s. The black bars on less than full-screen sources were also darker on the Sony; on very bright scenes, the Sony’s picture also popped slightly more. Plasma sets can’t, in general, go as bright as LCDs, and particularly not when they’re called on to produce a very bright full-screen image. The colors on the two sets varied slightly, but not enough to give the edge to either. The Sony was a bit sharper as is typical of LCDs, though its smaller screen likely helped here as well.

Although it's priced higher and performs worse than the best plasmas, the Sony XBR-HX950 is still one of the top-performing LED TVs ever.