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Sony Bravia 5: Two-minute review The Sony Bravia 5 is a mini-LED TV with crisp images, strong contrast and great gaming features. It occupies that level in Sony’s TV range where the brand has historically struggled to maintain its high standards. The Bravia 5, though, bucks this trend in pretty spectacular fashion. The Sony Bravia 5 retains both mini-LED lighting and local dimming, for starters, as well as an 120Hz panel to keep gamers happy. Sony says the Bravia 5 LCD panels are still made to the brand’s Master Backlight Drive standard too, and they’re equipped with a full up-to-date version of the Google TV smart system. There are ‘catches’ to this promising specification, of course. In particular, the Bravia 5 won’t benefit from as many dimming zones as the step up Bravia 7, or achieve so much brightness. In reality, though, the 65-inch Bravia 5 (AKA the K65XR55) delivers much less of a step d...

Two-minute review Even though the Samsung HW-Q950A stretches the definition of soundbar to the max by actually comprising four separate bits of kit, there’s nothing about its appearance that prepares you for the scale of sound it delivers. The main soundbar is more than a metre wide, but slim enough to tuck under the screen of most of today’s TVs. The rears are heavy but sufficiently compact to easily fit on a bookshelf, and despite carrying an unusually large 8-inch driver, the subwoofer has a slim-enough profile to hide down the side of a sofa or under a sideboard. Jump to... Price and availability Design and features Audio performance Should I buy it? Tucked inside the HW-Q950A’s relatively unimposing set of speakers is a remarkable – unprecedented, in fact – 16 channels of sound, delivered via 22 speakers. And driving all those channels of sound is a mammoth 616W of unbridled audio horsepower. While the HW-Q950A’s masses of power and huge channel count might not be o...

One minute review UPDATE: There's a new TV in town! The LG CX OLED has been succeeded by the LG C1 , an iterative update with a new processor and upgraded interface. The changes are pretty small, though, so anyone looking for the most bang for their buck may want to consider opting for 2020's LG CX model regardless – and you can read all about it below. The LG CX OLED TV might not look like a huge step forward in comparison to the LG C9 . However, under the hood, LG has done a great job at focusing on the flaws that we saw in the previous model.  What that means is that LG CX OLED TV is substantially in every way. The result is an extremely engaging cinematic performance that gives movies and TV shows the loving treatment they truly deserve. Significant changes to the Alpha a9 Gen 3 Processor have cleared up any issues leftover from the LG C9 OLED, too – as well as improving the way that faces are displayed by the chip's processing. While the LG CX OLED has since b...

One-minute review The Polk React soundbar hits the ground running with a stylish, compact design that manages to look cute, serious and neutral all at the same time. The rounded corners and huggable felt finish give it an almost soft look, in fact. Jump to Price and availability Design and features Audio performance Should I buy it? All thoughts of softness disappear when you fire it up, though. Despite only essentially being a stereo soundbar , the React can pump out a forceful sound capable of filling even large rooms with whatever film you’re watching. It does this without any distortion in the bass or mid-range, too, despite having enough power and projection to make sounds appear to be coming from the sides of the room rather than only in front of you. Detailing is excellent, and while bass is only solid if you buy the soundbar by itself, low frequency impact becomes really good if you add the optional React sub to your package. Wider dispersion of vocals, more g...

One-minute review The 65A9G sees Hisense returning to the OLED TV fray for the first time since 2019: it’s a 65-inch model that delivers the usual ‘every pixel makes its own light and colour' advantage that’s made OLED so beloved of home entertainment enthusiasts.  Its charms don’t stop there, though. Its features list also includes support for both of the Dolby Vision and HDR10+ premium HDR formats alongside the more common HDR10 and HLG systems. Its smart features are provided through Hisense’s increasingly decent VIDAA smart system. And perhaps most promisingly of all, the 65A9G has been deemed by IMAX as a good enough picture performer to deliver the benefits of its IMAX Enhanced content mastering system. The 65A9G goes the extra mile with its audio, too, in the shape of Dolby Atmos playback supported by a built-in soundbar and dedicated up-firing drivers.   It’s slightly cheaper than its 65-inch OLED rivals, too, despite delivering excellent sound quality and typical...