Televisions

Curved screens remain a source of debate in AV circles. Yet regardless of whether you love or hate them, you can’t ignore them – and that goes for manufacturers as well as punters. So I find myself faced with the 65S9005B: the first curved TV launched in the UK by Sony. And a very striking sight it is too.

The general TV trend these days is towards ever bigger screens. An interesting exception to this rule has emerged in recent months, though, in the comely shape of 48in OLED TVs.

While Sony’s flagship 4K TVs for 2014, the X9005B series, are magnificent performers, they represent a considerable challenge for your average UK living room. Firstly, they’re not cheap, and secondly – not to put too fine a point on it – they’re absolutely massive. Don’t get me wrong – I still find the X9005B series highly attractive, with spectacular front-firing magnetic fluid speakers etched into their huge frames. But they really do eat up your real estate.

This 65-incher delivers two substantial new chapters in Sony’s OLED story: a new panel sporting a laminated aluminium heat sink, so that it can be run more brightly, and a new Bravia XR ‘Cognitive’ video processor. The result is a premium picture performance...

While some love the look of curved TVs, others worry about the impact curved screens can have on the viewing experience in the form of issues like viewing angles, onscreen reflections and distorted geometry. Cue the Sony KD-65S8505C: a 65in TV that tries to balance curved aesthetics with less controversial picture characteristics by using a markedly shallower curve than rival screens.

Whatever angle you take, Sony's KD-65X9005B is a formidable 4K proposition. With its mould-breaking design, pixel-pushing picture processing and audiophile pretensions, it sees Sony’s TV division at its most confident in years.

If the current trend is to try and minimise the space the new generation of TVs take up by giving them incredibly slim frames, Sony’s KD-75X9405C is the untrendiest TV of the year. It's not just content with assaulting your living room space with a vast 75in screen; this monolithic beast adds sidebars down each side of that screen, making it look more like an 85in set.