After leading the TV industry for decades, Sony is now facing serious competition from half a dozen competitors. And after pulling its TVs out of South Africa several years ago, Sony is now looking to stage a comeback, in the local market at least. This is its mid-priced offering built to the expected high Sony standards and sporting all the most useful and current TV tech such as HDR10 and Dolby Vision.

The picture is excellent and, thanks to the processing power of the X1 chip, the X80H never feels as if it’s trying too hard. Colours are perfectly balanced: another Sony trademark, and while the blacks are solid and on par with more expensive sets, they still fall short of OLED.

Sony have always taken TV audio seriously, and the X80H uses a unique oval speaker shaped to perform like a full-size, full-range driver, but designed to fit into the thin profile of a modern TV set. The resulting sound is fantastic and easily the best in our line-up. This X-Balance design means that you can pack away that ageing hifi and stream music straight from the TV instead.

The X80H also has Chromecast and Apple AirPlay built in so you can easily stream music or video clips from your phone directly to the TV. Sony TVs now all use the Android TV 10 operating system, and this is probably the best implementation of this we have seen so far, with the most efficient home screen. It also means you have access to a full Play Store of apps, for video and audio apps. Unfortunately, Sony also missed a few tricks with the X80H, some of which might be deal-breakers. It doesn’t have Bluetooth audio, so you can’t hook up cordless headphones for gaming or silent, late-night viewing. At 50Hz, the screen refresh rate is the lowest on test here, and will discourage gamers, especially those moving to the new consoles.

55” UHD, 50 Hz refresh, HDR10/Dolby Vision, 20 W audio, Dolby Atmos, LAN/ WiFi/Bluetooth, 4× HDMI 2.0, 2× USB, Android 10, R10 000