Sony X90CH Series - 4K UHD LED LCD TV


Sony X90CH Series - 4K UHD LED LCD TV

It’s a great TV. The X90CH is the model name for the CostCo version of the X900H. That’s all. We’re still waiting on the Android 11 update to fix the few lingering features that the game lacks, but otherwise it’s a fantastic TV for the price.
Right now 120Hz cuts the number of horizontal lines in half, but that should be fixed when the OS update happens, along with delivering the VRR and ALLM. I wish it had more storage, but I bought a USB drive and just plugged it into the side. Android is simple like that.

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Plus the great warranty!

Does this have the ATSC 3.0 tuner?

Yes. There’s a link that takes you to the Sony specifications page and it mentions ATSC 3.0.

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With sidenote. Important to click the sidenotes:

ATSC/NEXTGEN TV (ATSC 3.0) (11)
(11) - Firmware update may be required.

I bought this TV from Costco last month. Great color, sharp, very good contrast. I don’t game so I can’t speak to that, but for simply streaming TV its top notch. Now, I used my Costco credit card and ended up with a 7 year warranty. Don’t know if I would chance a 30% savings for a 90 day warranty…that’s up to you.

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Do we know who refurbished them?

Probably some 3rd party vendor. I’m always wary of refurbished items that aren’t refurbished by the original manufacturer.

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We used to own only SONY TVs… until they became unreliable - stupid things like tuners failing. So we stopped buying them and bought Panasonic and Samsung… until Samsung gave up the lead to LG. Panasonic and SONY appeared to walk away from consumer electronics, especially in the US. SONY a seems to have woken up a bit, at least for TVs, after they split into separate divisions.

So when it came time to start looking for a replacement for our still bullet-proof beloved Panasonic Plasma TV, we had settled on LG but could not justify the premium price of what we wanted, spectacular OLED. (Trivia bit: SONY uses an LG panel in its OLED model.)

When we compared similar price point LCD TVs from Samsung, LG, and SONY, we had to admit this TRILUMINOS SONY with Full array local dimming backlight and its sister without local dimming had the others beat in being able to display detail in dark scenes.

The challenge - the price of this model with local dimming starts to nip at the LG OLED models.

So we had almost settled on the non-local dimming version of this model to get the price down in the 500’s. It still had better dark scene detail vs the comparable Samsung and LG.

In the back of our heads, that SONY reliability pain lingered. The 5-year SONY warranty helped. (The Costco folks said that when Costco extended the manufacturer warranties of LG and Samsung to 5 years, SONY approached them and offered to do 5 years, manufacturer.)

Then we did some research and talked to sales people about whether SONY had turned the corner on reliability (admittedly our experience was pretty old at this point). The Android operation system of the SONYs started popping up. A lot. Random rebooting. And while SONY might get that right with updates, this issue stalled our purchase. Hopefully SONY will get this right.

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For folks middle-aged or older, isn’t this a sad bit of nostalgia? Panasonic and SONY used to beat each other up with cool products across the consumer electronics spectrum. Various SONY Walkman’s, compact portable TVs, the Panasonic military-style portable products…

Noticed the reliable Panasonic DVD players recently showed up in force again at Best Buy, just in time for DVDs to become a legacy thing.

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Hello. It’s refurbished by one of our 3rd party vendors.

You can get new LG CX oleds at close to these refurb non-oled prices.

Here are the quotes I got. Big name retailer, prices are new in box with with delivery (the guy actually placed mine right inside my front door). Prices shown are for the unit plus a 5-year warranty, free shipping, but tax was added on.

77CX: 2300+400

65CX: 1100+150

48CX: 700+150

As much as I wanted the 77, I went with the 65 as it was plenty good enough for my space.

Also I’m absolutely positive that they still made a profit on the sale, which tells you just how bad the retail markup is. LG is enjoying their monopoly. I’m really glad vizio and philips are entering the oled game and hoping they knock LG down to more reasonable pricing.

So now you know what to shoot for If you know how to work a deal.

(And if anyone thinks this isn’t legit, take a close look at my pseudonym. Make fun if you like - I know there will be a lot of jealousy-driven thumbs down and ad hominem attacks - I’ll be chuckling as I enjoy my tv.

I’m also not the only one who has enjoyed this pricing).

A new 65CX for $1250 ?? Yeah right. Just checked: Costco $1949, Bestbuy $1999, Amazon $1996. The OLED has the best contrast. But the color and brightness are about the same as the Sony. That, and the screen is more fragile and you have the risk of burn in. OLEDs are the future. But right now, they are not worth $600+ more than this TV

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I bought the 65” new at Costco for same price with a 5 year warranty so I would not call this a great price. The TV has been great and works seamlessly with Sony receiver driving the sound for my setup. Highly recommend! I do have my gear in the closet at the end of 35ft HDMI cable. Planning to mount the video sources on the back of the set (FireTV, AppleTV, and DirectTV Genie) on the back of the TV so I’m only sending audio over the old cable.

I totally agree. If you lose the manufacturer’s warranty it’s a BIG risk. Speaking from experience . .

This guy randomly posts the same prices for LG that for some reason or another NOBODY can find in the wild. Also for what’s it’s worth Panasonic or Philips is supposed to be bringing OLEDs here. I’m leaning more towards Phillips but there OLEDS have gotten race reviews in other countries.

Fair warning, I tried to buy a refurbished unit from Amazon for the same price and when I got it the bottom half of the tv didn’t work. It was shipped UPS and taken back UPS the next day so I’m confident it wasn’t handled with the most care.

90 days may be long enough considering it took me only one to realize it was borked. But it was a pain to have to go through and disappointing considering it was supposed to be checked.

Wait, so you had to take it back to UPS? We’re you charged shipping or stock fee? Or is that a Woot thing only? I ordered and it’s my first time buying refurbished from Woot and I’m nervous :confused:

The sweet spot in LG OLED pricing is the 55” model, our local Costco’s have been selling it for $1,249 and it is currently $1,349 delivered from Costco.com.

As to when Panasonic is coming back to the US with TVs, not holding breath - they’ve never been able to fully figure out distribution in the US. And that includes back in their heyday.