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With its 65-inch screen, Triluminos colour technology and new uber-powerful X1 video processing engine, the 65X8505C seems on paper to be exceptionally well qualified for the job of unlocking 4K UHD's full potential.
It backs its picture quality chops up, moreover, with a content-heavy Android TV smart experience and a slinky, space saving design that doesn't distract you from its pictures.
You do have to be careful how you set those pictures up if you want to get the best from them, though, and the Android TV system is at best divisive.
We Liked
Anyone struggling for space will be pleased to find the 65X8505C fitting its screen into a very trim frame compared with all the extra inches bolted on to the 75X9405C's screen.
Picture quality is very strong overall too once you've sorted a few initial problems out, and the screen also scores strongly on its connectivity.
We disliked
The backlight can jump around a bit if you're using the actually fairly necessary Adaptive Contrast functionality, and Sony's upscaling engine can tend to over cook the sharpness with its default settings.
The sound can distort at high volumes, and personally I don't get on with the Android TV smart system.
Verdict
The 65X8505C is far from perfect.
A couple of surprising - given the Sony branding - backlight and excessive sharpness issues together with merely average audio performance, uninspiring 3D and a currently cumbersome Android TV smart system take some of the gloss off things.
But this well-priced 65-inch UHD screen is still good value enough to be worth a look.
