Sony’s 84” 4K behemoth TV

On Thursday, Geekzone moderator Stu (BighammerNZ) and I were invited to Sony's headquarters in Ponsonby, Auckland as part of their "Sony Open House" promotion.  It was a launch to show off the new stuff in Sony's technology line-up.

In brief we saw:

• VAIO Duo 11 - Sony's tablet offering, it slides up to show a full QWERTY keyboard under it's 11.6" screen.  Wasn't too impressed with it as it felt too heavy and clunky when compared to the much nicer Apple iPad/Samsung Galaxy Note/Microsoft Surface.
• Walkman F800 - slim, phone like device running Android.  Much smaller form factor, and far more power than the old tape playing Walkman I used to own.
• SANS410/SANS510 - new compact speakers offering 360 degree coverage, all controlled through an app through your home WiFi. Sounds great, packs a lot of punch, definitely see myself buying one for home.
• MDR-1 headphones - with a wireless bluetooth version and a noise-cancelling option, very comfortable, over-the-head style headphones.  My only concern was they are very pricey ($400-500 range)
• Personal 3D viewer - these are a head-mounted display that when you put it on, it gives the impression of watching a 20m wide screen, 20m away.  It's a surreal experience wearing them (this model doesn't have the integrated earphones as the previous one did) and with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, it's very easy to forget about the world around you.  You can focus each eye individually, and the headbands easily adjust to fit any size head.  At around $1,100, they are expensive for something that can only be used by one person at a time.  Very cool tech none-the-less.

The real star of the evening was their 84" 4K TV, which I can only describe as:

Wow.

(sorry I have no decent photos from the event)

Pictures and video really can't do justice to how amazing this TV is.  At 84" it really makes a statement.  The 60" TV Sony had setup next to it was dwarfed in comparison.  I kept reminding myself that it was just about twice the size of my tiny 46" screen at home.

4K is a stunning picture, 4x better than current HD.  The big issue at the moment is there is little content (other than up-scaling existing HD which looks pants) available.  The demo content we did watch was amazing - think of the first time you saw HD content when compared with standard definition.

If you get a chance to see this in person, I highly recommend.  You'll be blown away with how truly amazing the picture is.

How much to get one of these bad boys in your living room? $35k.

I'll happily take any donations to my "buy Nate a new TV fund".