I was about to buy new AF8 TV - should I be put off by Android?

[alistairgd]

I'm about ready to buy a new TV, and have picked the new AF8 over Samsungs Q9 - mostly because of the great sound and OLED.

BUT I am reading so much negativity over the android operating system, being slow, buggy, and unstable, that I am thinking the OS should be higher on the priority list - which would probably take me to LG.

Any advice from Sony TV owners...?

[stormyuk]

My advice having owned a 2017 XE9005 ATV for about 8 months is don't bother. Its a great TV let down by a poor OS. Don't think I will buy another ATV unless it gets a serious upgrade.

[royabrown]

The Sony uses an LG OLED Panel, probably the same as in the LGs, and is generally agreed to use it better. From:-

https://www.cnet.com/news/lg-oled-tvs-dont-mess-with-success-in-2018/

It will also be interesting to see whether the extra processing will be worth the price difference between the C8 and B8, or better than the processing on Sony's OLED TVs (my guess in both cases: it won't).

The Sony is about £500 cheaper, and will likely not need an additional soundbar, where the LGs will, so a potential further saving there.

Either will wall-mount, something that would have ruled out last year’s Sony for me.

Your can’t record on the Sony, unless you disable YouView, in which case you lose All4 and the itv Hub, though a £20 NowTV stick (no need to subscribe, unless you want to) will provide these at the small price of occupying an HDMI port. Or you could cast them to the Sony’s built-in virtual Chromecast device.

Yes, the OS lets the set down  But for £500....

(Full disclosure) I had an early Android set, Dec 2015, which had to be booted out of the lounge in favour of a Samsung that other family members could work. But that was then, and Android has moved on significantly since.

And No 1 son has the set now, and never reports an issue back to us.

[alistairgd]

Thanks guys.

I think I will put up with Android, the picture and sound are too good to miss.

[E01577]

Dont buy a Sony TV. I really regret it. I bought it on the strength of Sonys brand name and my good experience with Playstation. Yes, the TV has an excellent picture, but the OS is so unstable,I can guarantee you will regret your purchase within the month. 

[Kuschelmonschter]

Wouldn't buy a Sony either. The software they put on those devices is total garbage. It is only partly Google's fault. While Android TV is a big let down, the cheap MediaTek processor plus totally buggy drivers they put into Sony ATV are a major pain. At some point I resorted to an Apple TV 4K. The Nougat update for Sony ATV however dramatically broke HDMI (ARC) for me. It took me several minutes until the TV accepted the input signal from the Apple TV 4K. It otherwise permanently switched to the soundbar (on the ARC port) which wasn't even an input device, but only an ARC device. If you look at latest FW releases, they are a total disaster even in the picture department, suffering from occasional video dropouts or dimming issues. Bugs like that don't get fixed in a timely manner, if at all. All Sony ATVs also still wake up several hundred times over the course of a single night, see here, let alone privacy issues which nobody seems to care about (like here and here).

You might want to read more about it in my review.

After 2 years I could finally return mine due to standby and privacy violations.

Don't ask me about a better brand. There probably is none. But I am done with Sony... for good...

[hija31]

I agree with Kuschelmonschter. Don't buy Sony. 

The software that they have is , and its not android because Sheald has also android but there sw. is top.

[Edited for language]

[lollypop11]

My advice: dont buy it. I bought X900E last year and have regretted since due to poor OS and lack of support. 

[Itom86]

Same here. I bought my atv2 xd83 last year because I thought that Sony and Google somehow a guarantee for reliability and long time support. 

Yes, the picture quality is amazing (in that category), but the software is simply rubbish. 

Believe me, in a few years smart features will be more important than the picture itself. I'm sure you don't want to spend a fortune and regret it after, because of the lack of support. 

I'm not saying that I want to send back my tv, but I won't put my money on Sony anymore.

[rooobb]

@alistairgd I think it is better you decide by yourself 

Here I upload a test of my own A1 set and you can decide if it fits your requirement or not https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/android-tv/how-really-slow-is-android-tv/m-p/2429785#M25486

BTW no brand is immune to software bugs see rtings review of the acclaimed Tizen interface https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/q9fn#question_22799