Sony X8500G Series

Purchased Sony Bravia 55 inch KD55X8500G in Feb 2020 with extra Product care warranty. Just broke down june 2025, 4 months after warranty expires, with the exact problem as multiple reviewers earlier - turns on, but then switxmches off and flashes ted 6 times. I contacted Sony help line and they said they can send out technician and cost from $660… Read more

-$1000 and more depending the problem OR Sony can offer you a "special price" to buy a new tv from them. I was offered the current model 55 inch equivalent for $1474.50. The whole process seems like a rip off, there's clearly a common problem with the Sony TV's and Sony is trying to cash in on it.

Sony KD-75X8500G 5 Stars For Picture Quality Only! Slow loading HDDs and USBs – As per usual, one picked up this 75" KD-75X8500G telly from The Good Guys here in Townsville for two reasons. No.1 being one needed it for the upstairs television lounge, and the other to use for comparison purposes with the 85" (same model KD-85X8500G). As per my review of the Sony 85" KD-85X8500G (and in fairness) ONE gives five stars for… Read more

picture quality Only! Unlike the Backlit 85" KD-85X8500G the 75" KD-75X8500G is sidelit and there is a wee difference in the quality of the black backgrounds one appreciates with the 85" model. As with the KD-85X8500G these 75" KD-75X8500G televisions are also pretty slow loading up content on HDDs and USBs, however one has ditched the 2Tb HDD and replaced it with two 1Tb HDDS that still load slowly but a wee bit faster than using one 2Tb HDD.

Update 16 April 2020 One has found the cheap 'n' nasty $369.00 Kogan Series 8 JU8100 (43") just purchased (see my review) is far far quicker and better in handling a 1Tb external HDD full of music folders, and that is with a 128Tb USB also plugged in to it!! (Sad but true).]]]]]

The firmware Upgrade for the X8500G models in the middle of January this year 2020 (apart from the added picture in picture display added for when one strays from the main screen) were most definitely a downgrade and now that one has two of these X8500G sets one now has evidence thereof as one has not updated the firmware for the 75" (and it will stay that way), as one can play certain music and movie formats on the 75" which has not had the firmware update that one cannot play on the Updated 85" (because their 'Update' stuffed up the media players audio codecs or something).

For Picture, these are a reasonable television given the excellent picture quality but one should avoid paying full price for these X8500G models just because of picture quality and putting up with the other features that struggle!

Sony is not the reputable brand it used to be and the senior staff at Sony Australia are nothing more than avoidant self righteous 'figureheads' for a Corporation that no longer gives a continental about customer satisfaction or product quality or especially value for Money.

This is why I suggest if you have a problem with a Sony television or other Sony 'landfill' don't even bother contacting Sony Head Office in Australia, write to:

Kenichiro Yoshida C.E.O Sony 1 Chome -7-1 Kogan Mine to City Tokyo 108-0075 Japan

Include a USB of any video you have of the problem you have with the product including recordings of interactions with their useless technical support primates, which you can legally record by informing them that you are doing so! All fair since they are recording YOU TOO!

Another thing folks, the problems one has loading USBs and HDDs to play on Sony 'turnover' is well documented with the X8500G model and in this 2020 build 75" KD-75X8500G television there is HIGHLY noticeable delayed sound 'motionflow' when watching television whilst HDD and USB is plugged in to the USB ports, something that at least does NOT happen with the backlit 85" KD-85X8500G model of the X8500Gs.

To sum up, this SONY KD-75X8500G television is OK as a television for use as a television for viewing pleasure only nothing else!

And again, as mentioned in previous reviews WHY buy a couple of 8K televisions if the TV networks do not transmit in 8K? They don't even transmit in 4k yet! (Wake up and smell the Corporate Marketing people). Also, one really cannot see a visual difference between the two Side by side!

Buyer BEWARE Sony KD-85X8500G has Beautiful picture... BUT...pathetic performer for external USBs and HDD usage! – One rates this television 3 stars for picture quality only! Got this Sony KD-85X8500G (85") lil' bundle at a super discounted price at The Good Guys here in Townsville at over $2300 off, normally $6,599 In the Sony Store!!! (See screenshot below). Naturally being a compulsive shopaholic one could not resist the temptation of getting this one for… Read more

the downstairs lounge to replace the sony 65 inch KD-X7000F ( see my reviews of the 65 inch here on ProductReview).

Love this new addition to my entertaining family of contraptions!

Sony KD-85X8500G (85") has Android capabilities too, only drawback with this Sony KD-85X8500G (85") bubby is that one cannot record onto hard drive like with the (2 year older) KD-X7000F.

** C o n s u m e r w a r n I n g ** If you are looking for a t v that you connect your usbs or hard drives (up to 2tb sony says) forget it! The substandard processors in these just cannot cope most of the time with these and it's a constant "Peek-a-boo" battle to get them up! See google reviews etc, sony has learnt nothing in the years and one had the same problems with Sony's KD-X7000F 65 inch Corporate turnover.

If you are looking for a big TV for picture quality (only) the Sony KD-85X8500G (85") is Highly recommended. Get em while they're cheap folks they are not worth anywhere near the full price for!!

Has anybody else had problems with this televisions channel info coming up and icons, emoticons music and video files not showing up that worked and showed up prior Sony's mid December 2019 firmware 'update' (for want of a better word)? Send me a message.

If you have one of these televisions one highly recommend you connect an external USB and HDD whilst it is under warranty, SONY specs state you can use up to 2Tb, and considering that there are 3 USB ports USB1 5V 500 Ma MAX, USB2 5V 500 mA MAX and USB3 5V 900 mA MAX one can safely assume that it is OK to use them all if need be or they would not be there (right).... Must add that (as one was told by technical support) if connecting an external HDD that USB2 is the one to connect it to.

Am also in the process of purchasing the dirt cheap TCL and Polaroid televisions for USB and external HDD for performance comparisons for when one drags Sony kicking and screaming to the Federal Court AS the 'cheap and nasties' seem to perform better! The Polaroid 65 inch PL6517AUD Android television has the same USB ports with similar USB multimedia playback formats with 3840x2160 screen resolution. The USB can also handle 2Tb external HDD (a lot quicker too) and for its paltry $999.00 seems to be a better performer than Sony's (reg price) $6,700 showpony. Still waiting on TCL.

[[[[Update 16 April 2020 One has found the cheap 'n' nasty $369.00 Kogan Series 8 JU8100 (43") just purchased (see my review) is far far quicker and better in handling a 1Tb external HDD full of music folders, and that is with a 128Tb USB also plugged in to it!! (Sad but true).]]]]]

Meanwhile, see my Youtube videos, here's a link to my newest https://youtu.be/xIq9g4bG8fM

Sony take heed, on Friday 20 December 2019, the Federal Court of Australia (via the ACCC) fined Volkswagon $125m for making false claims about their 'turnover'. And one reminds Sony that a company/distributor that knowingly sells a product that is faulty or flawed in any way in Australia is illegal (even at a discounted 'special' price)!

Stay tuned!

For consumers experiencing similar problems with Sony televisions here's the contact telephone number of the Federal Australian Competition And Consumer Commission (ACCC).

1300 302 502

Poor Quality, Poor Service 2 failed in 1 week – Sony X8500G 65" 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV Worst tv i have ever had, purchased in Aug died after 1 month had a replacement yesterday to find another faulty out of box failure. Never had a Sony TV, always Samsung or LG. What happened to the quality of Sony and the service? Was told if I don't like it get a refund and buy another TV. Show details

My One Died in Just Over 4 Years – My previous TV was a Panasonic plasma and it was still going strong after 12 years, however technology had changed and I decided it was time to upgrade so I purchased my 65" Sony 8500G at the end of 2019. I decided to go with a Sony as I heard from family and friends that it was a reliable brand. The TV also had a really good picture and this is… Read more

why I have given it 2 stars. Over the 4 years that I had the TV it performed pretty well, apart from the occasional app glitch due to the Sony operating system software or the TV occasionally freezing itself and me having to reset it by turning the power off and on.

After the TV just past the 4 year mark all of a sudden one day it shut itself off and when I turned it on again it gave me 6 blinking red lights and refused to power up. I called Sony and explained what was happening and they gave me a recommended Sony technician to contact who would come out and assess the TV. I called the repair representative and immediately he said that they would charge me $200 to just come out and look at the TV, then they would discuss repair options. I said to him, look it has 6 blinking red lights and from what I have red online it could only be a couple of issues. He replied by saying that it could only be one of two issues. If it was the first problem then the charge to fix it would be $850 and if it was the second issue then the cost to repair it would be the same as a new TV. After almost falling off my chair I said to him what was the point of repairing it if at the bare minimum it would be half the cost of a brand new TV? He agreed and said it was worth me recontacting Sony to see if they would cover the cost of repairing the TV.

So I called Sony, explained to them what was going on, and asked if they would cover the cost of repairing the TV which was only 4 years old. The response I received was sorry sir but the warranty on our TVs is only 2 years old and as this is 4 years old we can't cover any costs to repair it. I then asked the Sony rep, do you think it is right that a TV won't last more than 4 years? I never received a reply to this question but I did receive an offer to buy a new TV from them at a heavily discounted price. After looking into everything I had no choice but to throw this piece of $%&! TV in the garbage and buy a new one. I ended up taking them up on their discounted TV offer and I have purchased another Sony Bravia and have upgraded to the latest X90L version.

However I can promise you one thing, if this new Sony TV dies in a similar timeframe then I will never purchase another Sony TV again. Reading other reviews for this model I can see that a number of people have had similar issues and so maybe this was a dud model that was released which is bad enough because you have just ripped off a number of hard working people who have spent decent money buying one of your products. At the same time this also really makes me question the so called reliability of Sony as a brand. I expect to get 10 years out of this TV and if I don't well then it's good bye Sony.

Sony Bravia TVs – I bought my 1st Sony Bravia TV in March 2017, a KDL65W850C. It died at the 3 year mark. Fortunately I had also purchased the extended warranty so I was able to replace it as it was assessed as having ‘a major fault’. I paid the difference and replaced it with a KD-75X8500G (worth $3400) in April 2020, also with the additional extended warranty… Read more

(thank goodness). Well this one has now died too, just shy of the 3 year mark! Exactly the same issue, completely dead, no power to it. I wrote to Sony and they have basically told me to go away. Needless to say I’ll be choosing another brand this time, very unhappy as i honestly thought Sony was one of the good brands!

Sony disappointing – The picture on this TV is great, the in-built speakers are fine. Since it comes with stock Android there is very little bloatware added, as far as modern smart TVs go it's all good. However the purchase only comes with a 1-Year Manufacturers Guarantee, which you should be wary of because this TV is prone to failure, my unit died due to a… Read more

backlight panel fault out of warranty and the Sony affilliate company that services and repairs in my area could not fix the issue without a replacement panel from Sony, which is very disappointing.

Sony is not the premium brand that they are sometimes perceived as, there are other cheaper 4K TVs out there that have the same quality picture and audio or better for half the price and some of them come with a 3-Year Manufacturers Guarantee.

If Sony won't guarantee their product for longer than 12 months, why should you trust their products? I certainly don't.

Complete Garbage – I purchased this tv thinking Sony would be good due to low recall rates on their products, but no i was sadly disappointed. I feel as though I paid heavily for a 4k hdr panel that anyone can make for half the price. and that is all it is as none of the streaming features seem to work properly YouTube, Netflix, etc. constantly dropping in and out… Read more

of network on WIRED connection. I am a network engineer and I'm confident there is nothing on the network causing this.

The operating system is so slow and laggy, and every day i have to switch it off at the wall to reboot it when it freezes up.

As far as hardware goes, on paper this should be a competent device. Maybe its severely under optimized?

If all you want to do is plug in your hdmi or component devices, then great. Its an over priced 4k panel.

Poor Quality TV - Reasonable Warranty Service – I bought the Sony TV in September 2019 and had almost immediate issues with sound drop outs and screen lock ups. The main board was replaced under warranty and it seemed to resolve the problems for a month or 2, but they faults were intermittent and varied and I started to doubt if it was the TV or maybe my Receiver. Anyway, had the main board… Read more

replaced a second time at the end of the Sony warranty and it started doing similar things straight away, so I suspected my receiver again, so I had that checked out as it was under warranty to, but it was fine, so the TV was the culprit again. I have just logged a claim through the Harvey Norman customer care warranty and hope to get a refund, so I can buy a different TV brand. Interestingly this model seems to be discontinued, whereas some older/lesser models are still available.

Sony, not the brand I thought it was – Just after Christmas 2019 I purchased what I thought was my dream TV and brand, a Sony 85 inch. By February the television randomly started losing sound. Not being able to identify the fault a technician replaced one of two main computer boards within the unit in late March early April. All was good for several weeks until May when the television… Read more

started playing up again. We completely disconnected it from the hi-fi unit thinking we had unknowingly changed a setting and reset the tv to factory settings. It was good for a while and within a few weeks the random loss of sound occurred. Through June to August this was intermittent, probably once a month then by September a little more frequent and then by November several times a week. Again we reset to factory settings in October as we know that is what Sony would ask, we did this three times over October. By last weekend we would randomly lose sound or picture or both and then we lost Air Play as well. As three failures across one weekend was the last straw I contacted Sony who have done nothing about this other than to ask for a factory reset. I complied and all is good for now once again. A technician was sent out who stared at the television again and could not identify a fault. Now before you think I am making this up, I have sent Sony and their 3rd party technicians video after video after video of the faults occurring. Their service is that bad that when the technician turned up he was unaware of the videos and the specific problem. I even asked them not to send someone out without reviewing the videos to understand the problem. I sent Sony an extract under Australian Consumer law that by now I am entitled to a replacement television. Several days earlier they promised customer relations would call me, I am still waiting. Until now I was a devoted Sony purchaser with two other Sony televisions across the bedrooms but they do not back up the warranty and do not seem to care about Australian consumer law and the customer. My understanding is that Panasonic has withdrawn from the Australian market so my recommendation to you is buy Samsung because Sony just do not care.

Quality you expect from a Sony TV – I finally replaced our 10 year old Sony LCD TV, and choosing another brand wasn't a serious consideration. I wasn't replacing the old one because it didn't work - it still worked perfectly after all these years. This was about going a bit bigger (as my eyesight isn't what it used to be!) and upgrading to a smart TV to enjoy all the benefits of… Read more

the digital era without using a chromecast or similar. The 55" X8500G hasn't really disappointed. If you are overly obsessed with aesthetics, you might prefer a TV with no bezel, but to be honest the very narrow frame around the screen isn't important to me. It's still a sleek and attractive television, and (if you use them instead of wall-mounting) the feet are nicely styled and are, more importantly, very stable. One of the winning features of Sony TVs is the built-in speakers which have a far better sound than other, cheaper TVs. However, I would say that as a result of the slimming down of the latest LCDs, the speaker quality has suffered a little. I never needed to use a stereo or soundbar with my old TV, as it had such stunning sound quality. But this one sounds less rich and has less bass, so I'm going to have to look at hooking it up to better speakers. I have tweaked the equaliser, but it doesn't do a lot. My only other complaint is trying to counteract Sony's excessive contrast, which was also a bit of an issue with my older TV. It's hard to get a bright, life-like picture without it becoming over-contrasted (eg. too bright whites and too dark blacks). When you reduce the contrast you lose quite a bit of the vibrance of the picture. There are multiple ways to tweak the picture (brightness, white contrast, gamma, black contrast, contrast enhancement etc) but I've been playing for 3 days now and can't find a setting that I'm entirely happy with. Despite these minor irritations, it really is a TV worth it's price. The responsiveness is extraordinary, as it starts up in a split second and responds to remote commands just as fast. The 200hz refresh means that you get smooth movement and is perfect for those who use the TV to game on via console. My kids have used the Playstation and even an old Wii and the picture is great, and the motion on first-person action games doesn't disappoint. Other advantages: user-friendly settings menus; all the apps you could wish for; dedicated Netflix button on the remote with ability to play/pause/rewind etc; voice-activated Google Assistant which integrates with your other Google devices; reputable quality that comes with a Sony.

Should have bought something else – 1 It won't update automatically, though it tries and fails every time you turn it on or off, and you can't do it manually due to unable to scroll through end user agreement. 2 Our 7 year old LG is more user friendly having a magic mouse than the Sony basic remote. 3 Possible due to it's inability to update but streaming is constantly buffering or… Read more

just blurry to watch. 4 Google apps are 1 tenth available as compared to them on my phone, won't search for any if you try.

Good TV but bugs caught in front of screen and poor after sales support – Bought this new TV and was impressed with the ease of set up and picture. Speakers are a bit tinny but no issue as it's connected to Sony home theatre and good speakers. Great integration with Sony AV Receiver and interfaces generally are good. Then less than 3 months later I noticed three little black dots. Looking closer at them, it appears… Read more

three little flying things made their way between the outer screen and the LCD panel. So I had an $1800+ 4K TV with three obvious spots I cannot remove!

Contatcing Sony, they are adamant this is excluded from warranty and I have received a looooong run around from Harvey Norman Coburg (over a month since I wrote and complained). My next stop is ACCC and Consumer Affairs Victoria to get support after trying both manufacturer and retailer.

Having bought and used Sony products for over 20 years, this is a real disappointment as when one buys a good quality product, it shouldn't be too hard to provide proper after sales service.

I have never had a flat screen with this problem. As it is wall mounted I believe the holes where the stands would go is the access point, but no one really wants to inspect, just say it's not covered and offering a replacment TV with a small discount.

TV is great by itself, but connecting to other devices can be problematic – Great TV, excellent picture and 4k upscaling Is reason why I gave it 5 stars. Also The Sound outputted by the TV by itself is also the best i've ever heard. Connecting other devices to it or setting it up as part of a Home Theatre System can be a bit fiddly and problematic. No matter how much I try I cant get the Sound to automatically output… Read more

from TV to the Receiver (a SONY 4k Receiver) without having to change the setting on both the TV and Receiver (ie change both to TV). Also Im having trouble getting the Colors right from other devices like my Media Computer (It isnt TV's problem but the other devices like the Receiver I think)

Disappointing, AGAIN – It replaced a Sony Bravia. Great picture quality etc. but one big disappointment for me was the headphone option. With the old Bravia the headphones can be left plugged in, they can be used by one person whilst another can hear the normal speakers (great for a hard of hearing partner). Simply turn down the normal volume to hear only through the… Read more

headphones. This ability is gone on the new TV. It is also extremely fiddly and difficult to see to plug in the headphone jack to the rear and side. It also cuts off the normal speakers so the dual listening option is gone. Its a real step backwards in ease of use.