Sony unveils 4K Android TV line-up running Lollipop, alongwith the world's slimmest LED TV at just 4.9mm

Sony India today launched its new Android TV line-up running on Google's Android 5.0 Lollipop OS. The new 4K Android TVs from Sony feature a new X1 processor which boasts of better clarity, color accuracy and higher contrast alongwith the ability to upscale HD or 1080p content to 4K on-the-fly without any distortion. HEVC and VP9 codec support also comes backed in which allows for even 4K playback through YouTube.

Sony X9000C Series LED TV - World's Slimmest

Now, the major attraction of the event was the crazy thin 4.9mm Sony X9000C LED TV. It was slimmer than even my phone and has an almost bezel-less edge-to-edge display as you can see in the image above. It provides an unparalleled immersive experience with rich sound and great picture quality, although we already expect that from Sony by now.

Sony's Triluminous display tech alongwith the Bravia engine also are present on the entire new Android TV line-up.

Features of Sony Android TV:

The entire new line-up of Android Lollipop powered TV's come with some neat features, some of which are Sony's own, let's have a look at some of them:

1. Serial AbTak - This is catered specifically to the Indian market. Serial Ab Tak has a curated list of all TV Shows and popular channels you watch on your TV. You can easily watch/re-watch your favorite TV shows anytime directly streamed from YouTube. The focus here is on the ease of finding the particular TV show you are looking for even if its your regional language. There are filters which help you narrow down the choice.

2. Voice Search - This like Google Now but for your TV, the premium models come bundled with the One Flick remote which has a trackpad alongwith a microphone. You can use the microphone to perform web searches just as you would on Google Now for your smartphone.

3. Notify Bravia - With this you get all your phone's notifications directly on the TV itself. So, even if you are watching a TV Show and are totally immersed, you won't miss that ever important phone call from your boss. Moreover, there is granular control on which notifications can be seen and whether to include the content of messages, names of people calling you in the notification on the companion phone app.

3. Google Play Store - This is by far the biggest attraction, you get access to thousands of apps which are optimized to work on your TV right from the Google Play Store, this also includes games as well.

4. Google Cast - There's no need to use a dongle to connect devices, just hop on the same home WiFi network as your TV and you can share pictures, videos from your phone directly to the big screen in the house.

First Impressions

We checked out the flagship X9000C series as well as the X9300C series. Android Lollipop works great on them, there is no lag and the interface is well thought off with large thumbnails for media and apps, as well as large contextual icons for settings.

The interface is easy to walk through and even games played quite well. Performance was superb. Sony had some demo 4K content onboard which looked great and even up-scaled content from TV shows or YouTube looked good.

We played Asphalt 8 on the X9300C series Sony Android TV and it played flawlessly, that too using a wireless bluetooth controller. So, you are getting a huge support fort accessories that might already be present in your house including wireless keyboards and mice.

Pricing & Availability

The new Sony Bravia 4K Android TVs will be available through Sony centers as well as major retailers starting August and prices start at Rs. 69,990 for the W800C series of Android TVs. At present prices have only been disclosed for the W80C and W95C series. The rest are expected to come later in the month of august. Display sizes range from 43-inches to 75-inches for the top-of-the-line model.