The company badly needs to reimagine its remote control and certain other aspects of TV operation. The navigation wheel in the center is packed with strange buttons that lead to shortcuts that you simply do not need. The remote control is a chaotic mess and has changed very little over the years. Both versions of the remote are poor but having to make a choice between two evils I choose the one with the best buttons. In our opinion, the buttons are too hard to press down and personally I prefer the X900F’s remote control to this one. OperationSony must feel that a soft plastic coating is more exclusive than the coating used on the remote control that comes bundled with X900F because A8F once again has a remote control with a top side made from soft plastic (same as A1). This is something that Sony must address. ![]() Other manufacturers are capable of controlling standby consumption so Sony should surely manage, too. This has been an issue on every single Sony Android TV that we have tested to date. We did some further testing on the issue and can conclude that it happens regardless of whether a USB hard drive is connected, regardless of whether ?quick start’ is activated or not, and regardless of any other settings we could find. The screen stays off but standby consumption jumps to almost 20W. We noticed that the TV still spontaneously wakes up from standby to do. Another "feature" that Sony added for this years models is the "Samba Interactive TV", which is simply a clever name for an algorithm that analyze your TV behavior and use it to serve targeted advertisements where the UI allows for it. There are a few added options in the menus since A8F has some extra built-in measures to handle the risk of burn-in such as a panel refresher and a pixel shifting mechanism that, respectively, serve to reset or level out tiny variations in pixels and to move the picture to avoid having channel logos get stuck on the panel. We refer to our Sony XF90 review for more information. And because A8F is based on the same SoC (MediaTek MT5891) it delivers identical performance. Still no Android 8.0Android 7.0 on A8F is identical to Android 7.0 on Sony X900F that we recently reviewed. Sadly this is far from the norm and other manufacturers might want to pick up the pace and follow Sony's lead. Sony is one of the few manufacturers who upgrade older models and the 2015-series has just recently been bumped to version 7.0 as well. User experience & features Sony AF8 comes pre-installed with Android 7.0 and Sony has promised to roll out Android 8.0 later. In the box we found a remote control that has the same button layout as the one that comes bundled with X900F but a different finish that is identical to the remote control for the A1 model. ![]() Samsung recently demonstrated in a side-by-side comparison test how it has managed to further reduce reflections. The level of reflections in the OLED panel is largely comparable to last year’s models. The electronics box on the back is in fact not much deeper than the one fitted onto LG’s OLED TVs but A8F nevertheless looks a bit thicker. The frame around the bezel has a metallic finish and the OLED panel is of course extremely thin. ![]() Like EZ950 we do not consider it a major concern since you rarely need to connect cables, especially if you wall-mount the TV, but it takes away some of the magic. ![]() Part of the reason is that fairly large plastic panels cover most of the compartments with little or few components behind, which leaves a lot of free space that makes it feel cheap. The plastic feels rattling – like on Panasonic EZ950 – and considering the price class, we think it is fair to expect more. All connection ports point either down or to the side, and as we have come accustomed to, Sony has fitted it with small panels, or compartments, that can be removed to access connections. It makes the top of the box looks slightly out of place because this is where the subwoofer is found. The standard electronics box that most OLED TVs carry on the back looks somewhat different on A8F as it also accommodates part of the speaker system that takes up some extra space. As such, A8F looks more like OLED TVs from competing brands than A1. The easel stand has been sacrificed in favor of a new, flatter rear section. Unlike A1, A8F is designed to be wall-mounted. First impressions The A8F expands Sony’s line-up of OLED TVs as last year’s A1 model will carry over into 2018.
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