Sony PlayStation VR review

Sony PlayStation VR review

There's a lot riding on the PlayStation VR. Sony's VR ambitions. Maybe, the VR industry as a whole.

With more than 46 million PS4s in households already, it's common knowledge that it'll probably completely trash Oculus Rift and HTC Vive sales. How many people do you know who could afford more than $1000 on a PC and high end headset? How many people do you know who could afford a PS VR? Exactly.

But that also means it will be most people's introduction to 'good' VR. With compromises made on the hardware to achieve that price, PlayStation VR is not perfect. But it's going after console gamers hard and ultimately, it is still a truly awesome PS4 accessory.

We're going to try to not compare the PlayStation VR to a VR system essentially twice its price - the HTC Vive - but with nothing else in the PS VR's category of quality but affordable VR, that is the benchmark. We'll update this review after PlayStation VR launch day and revisit it in a few months because this will live and die on the games.

Sony PlayStation VR review: Initial set-up

Sony really has found a sweet spot in terms of keeping the PS VR practical and accessible. If you already have a PS4, setting up the PlayStation VR is super simple. Just set up your PlayStation Camera first - this is required to play, not an extra like the Move controllers - then follow the instructions to connect all the correct cables from the Processor Unit to your PS4.

The main thing to remember is that it becomes a pass-through for your HDMIs - one goes from the TV into the unit, another from the unit to the PS4. One small niggle: this does affect HDR performance on your TV.

Then just connect the headset itself to the Processor Unit - we'd recommend going with the longer cable here so you can turn around comfortably - and power on the PlayStation VR via the in-line controls which also include volume and mic buttons.

Sure it's not wireless like a mobile VR headset but you (probably) won't need to rearrange your furniture either. There's no room mapping needed, you just need to tinker with the Camera to line it up with your head once you've plonked your new VR gaming chair where you want it to be. Sony recommends playing PS VR seated rather than standing, sitting 5 feet from the Camera with enough room on either side for you to lunge/duck/turn and that's about right.

It helps if your PS4 is close to your TV as the standard PlayStation Camera wire is pretty short and this needs to both hook up to your console and be able to see your face. You might think this goes without saying but in my flat we have the PS4 and other consoles and boxes tucked away in a corner of the open plan lounge/kitchen with the HDMIs going through the walls from the wall mounted TV down the other end of the room. It was tricky but I still made it work.

Our only beef in fact is that if you're a little OCD about having no wires in the living room, it's tricky to make everything look neat - there's the HDMIs going to the headset, for instance, and depending on which PS4 you have USBs on the front too which means cables looped around from there too. It's not a dealbreaker for me but our editor-in-chief Paul Lamkin was a little more unhappy.

Set up is easy and you also always know where you are with the menus - once you've downloaded some VR games (which can take a while) they just appear in your regular PS4 menu for you to select. This appears in VR too using PlayStation's Cinematic Mode - it's a 2D screen floating in blank 3D space and you can press the PS button on your DualShock to quit apps and games and get back to it at anytime which is reassuring.

Sony PlayStation VR review: Design and comfort

We have a soft spot for the PlayStation VR's design which we're just gonna go ahead and call stylish. With its blue lights (which act as head tracking points), the padded crown section on your forehead and the black and white finish, this looks like a complete consumer headset from the near future. When newbies see it, they want to put it on their heads… like now.

Once it's on, it's feels very light, at 610g, and doesn't feel like it's going to slip down your face or bother your nose like other high end headsets can. That's even after an hour or so of playing. There's no pass-through camera to see what's going on in the real world but there is a super handy button on the bottom of the headset that slides the screen back and forth to get a secure fit or check up on the room you're in without taking the whole thing off.

The wire also doesn't get in the way, especially as you won't tend to be stood up moving around - we've only managed to disconnect the PSVR once by moving and that's just because it was trapped under the chair leg.

It's easy to get to grips with but that doesn't mean the design is perfect. Because there are no adjustable straps and a cushioned band instead it can be quite uncomfortable to get on and off, catching your hair (if you have it) when you pull it off without extending the band again for instance. There is a button round the back to control this, as well as a dial to tighten it up, but often you'll forget and just yank it off.

The rubber sections around your face and particularly to the sides feel flimsy and don't give you that secure feeling of being enclosed in a cushioned Vive or even a Gear VR. Essentially even though they don't let any light in, if you bash the side by accident during a game, say, it can flex and let some of the world around in which is exactly what you don't want. Maybe we'll see future accessories to address this but for now, it can be slightly distracting, not to mention a little sweaty.

Then there's the fog - Sony hasn't quite managed to solve this problem of when you first put the headset on or use it in a new temperature/room. It's not too much of a problem and it does disappear but, as a first impression, it's not ideal.

Sony PlayStation VR review: Display

As we said, the PlayStation VR sits smack bang in the middle of high end headsets and mobile VR headsets. The display is a single 5.7-inch 1920 x 1080 OLED - both Rift and Vive have two displays a-piece and what we have here is a similar size to a Note phone in a Gear VR. It's a 100 degree field of view which is slightly smaller than Rift or Vive (and some mobile VR headsets now).

Still, Sony has a couple of things going for it with an (up to) 90Hz, or even 120Hz, refresh rate (using its 'reprojection' tech when games aren't running natively at those rates) and RGB sub-pixels designed to increase the overall immersion of the picture.

The VR worlds we saw via this headset look rich, vibrant and immersive on the display and as Sony boasts, we encountered very little visible lag in the images thanks to its less than 18ms latency. If this was higher-res, it would be dazzling. When viewing objects close up, in particular, the con starts to crumble but to be fair this is something that even the high end Rift and Vive make compromises on.

And we'll probably say this more than once: if you've been spoiled by Vive, you'll notice the difference immediately. But the truth is that many people haven't used Vive yet and/or can't afford it, and PS VR will be enough to bowl them over. There's also a slight screen door effect here. You'll spot it in the intros of games, in particular, before they get going and you're looking around at abstract 3D menus. But once games get going, you'll forget all about it as you concentrate on the gameplay at hand.

So it's not the most mindblowing VR headset display but, combined with a compelling game narrative, it's more than good enough to help you feel like you're in that VR world.

Sony PlayStation VR review: Tracking and performance

This is not a VR system built for lots of physical input and that's OK. If you're happy sitting down and getting the thrill of moving your head, ducking and turning round to shoot in different directions, then you are well served here - just don't expect to be running around your living room. The 1:1 head tracking by the PlayStation Camera is superb and, in games where you can see the DualShock as an animation in VR (like Tumble VR), this is tracked very well in terms of turns and micro movements.

Note: we've been testing the PS VR with the now outdated PlayStation Camera but will update the review once we've tried the redesigned Camera accessory that's going on sale soon - although Sony itself says there's no difference at all when it comes to performance.

So here's where things trip up a little: the Camera is supposed to be able to track your head if you turn around as it's 360 degree and there are head tracking points on the back of the band. But if you're in something likeLondon Heist where the action is all around and you might want to look over a desk to shoot or turn back to see an exploding van, you can quickly find yourself 'outside the play area'. If you switch players of different heights or fancy standing up, you'll have to recalibrate the Camera which quickly becomes annoying and essentially involves two people. When you're in a game, you can hold down 'options' on a DualShock to reset to your view, though, which is quick and works like a charm.

When 'picking' up blocks to solve laser or stacking puzzles in Tumble or grabbing guns and other objects, the controller tracking and in-game movements don't match up as well as something like what Vive can offer. It's good enough to work and offer some clever, delightful tricks like 3D audio taking advantage of you holding a phone to your ear (when using headphones, of course). And again the more impressive tech is over double the price plus the cost of a gaming PC.

Sony PlayStation VR review: Controllers

A real plus point for the PlayStation VR is that you can just play with your DualShock controller that you already own (thus saving money) or your Move Motion controllers if you have those. It's worth saying that it's awesome that you can start playing with controls you're already used to from years of gaming.

If you don't already own the Moves, you can buy the new redesigned, rebranded stick controllers either as a launch bundle or at a later date. There's a lot of freedom and the PS VR Aim controller - the gun shaped one which will work with upcoming sci-fi game Farpoint - will join the options soon enough too.

We'll update this review with our thoughts on the Move controllers for now, we'll say the potential is hella exciting - they can act as guns, wands, swords, torches with 1:1 hand tracking.

They aren't as intuitively designed as Oculus Touch and don't have finger tracking but they're smaller, lighter and less unwieldy than Vive's controllers. As the PS VR Aim shows, the VR peripheral market for PlayStation VR could be huge and quickly gain momentum once the headset launches and more games go live.

Sony PlayStation VR review: Motion sickness

We can't ignore motion sickness on the PlayStation VR, when the headsets ship we predict more than a couple of stories about this. Maybe it's the display resolution or some other technical difference but we've had a few bouts of mild motion sickness with the PS VR; more so than with more expensive headsets like Vive.

Now, it really does depend on the game and how long you've been playing. Various members of the team experienced some nausea ranging from barely noticeable to on the verge of actually throwing up when playingfor over an hour. Sony says takes a 15 minute break after an hour and we strongly advise sticking to this no matter how tempting it is not to.

Some games are more likely to make you motion sick than others too - namely any game that artificially moves you and there's a lack of controls as to the speed/direction. So racing games like the VR Luge demo and things likeDriveclub VR may be a problem - just see how you feel - as well as the high speed space dogfights of EVE: Valkyrie or a rollercoaster segment in Until Dawn: Rush of Blood. In games where the action was slower and we stayed in a more static viewpoint, we experienced close to zero motion sickness.

The other thing to keep an eye out for - literally - is headaches and eye strain. Keep blinking, close your eyes during loading screens and take regular breaks.

Sony PlayStation VR review: Games

The PlayStation VR isn't even shipping yet and Sony has already won the VR games war. The big figure is that 50 titles are slated to launch by the end of 2016 and we've already been getting to grips with ten of them pre-launch.

Yes there are still high quality demos that leave you wanting more - seeLondon Heist - but there's already a hell of a lot of variety and quality in the games available at launch and coming soon. There's experimentation with story and controls but there's also games and characters and environments that you recognise. Plus it's not all $50 titles so you won't go bankrupt within days.

We've been playing 3D puzzle game Tumble VR and virtual reality stapleBattlezone (a timed launch exclusive for PlayStation) but there's also the addictive Headmaster and fun for all the family Job Simulator.

We're talking well realised, repeat play games some of which are long-ish and have really strong narratives that truly suck you into the VR with multiplayer for games like the very fun mech battle game Rigs: Mechanised League andEVE: Valkyrie (which you'll be able to play against Rift users). For now, it's probably missing that one, great first person title that offers hours and hours and gameplay - which won't be made quickly or cheaply for VR by anyone - but it's really only a matter of time (and resources).

Dell XPS 13 Review

Dell XPS 13 Review

The Dell XPS 13 became our top overall laptop by offering a 13-inch screen in a more compact package than its competitors, along with a winning combo of design, comfort, performance and battery life. Since its introduction, everyone has been trying to catch this ultraportable, but no one has been able to knock off the champ. Now, Dell has raised the bar even higher with an update to its XPS 13 (starting at $799; $1,099 as tested) that adds the latest 7th-generation Intel Core CPUs (Kaby Lake), even more battery life and stronger Wi-Fi performance.

Design

The XPS 13's most striking feature is its Infinity display, which has almost no bezel around the screen. This is what allows Dell to cram a 13-inch screen into a chassis you'd typically find on an 11-inch notebook. It also makes it look like the screen is floating above the base of the system, allowing you to focus more on your content.

The rest of the laptop is just as attractive as before, even if it's not as thin as some competitors. The top and bottom are made of machined aluminum, which gives the frame a durable and rigid feel. The deck on the inside is even better. It uses a comfortable, soft-touch, carbon-fiber material with a subtle-but-cool checkered pattern, which makes typing a real pleasure.

The soft-touch carbon-fiber deck makes typing a real pleasure.

Between the silver XPS 13 and the rose-gold XPS 13, I'll take the sexier sheen of the rose gold. The silver model is handsome, but the gold version pops, and it's more gold and less pink than the 12-inch MacBook. However, the rose-gold XPS 13 costs $50 more, and it's not available on the Core i3-powered base configuration. 

Weighing 2.7 pounds for the nontouch model and 2.9 pounds for the touch-screen version, the XPS 13 is lighter than the 3-pound MacBook Air but not as featherweight as the HP Spectre (2.45 pounds) or the 12-inch MacBook (2 pounds). At 0.33 to 0.6 inches, the XPS 13 is also a bit thicker than the Spectre (0.41 inches) and the MacBook (0.5 inches). But you also get more ports on the XPS 13.

Ports

Unlike skinnier ultraportables, the XPS 13 packs all the ports you need.

You'll find two USB 3.0 ports and an SD card reader, as well as a headphone jack and USB Type-C port with Thunderbolt 3 support. That means you can attach the XPS 13 to two 4K monitors at once. You can also charge the XPS 13 over USB Type-C, though it comes with a proprietary AC adapter.

In comparison, the HP Spectre has three USB Type-C ports, and the 12-inch MacBook has a single USB Type-C port that doesn't support Thunderbolt 3.

Display

You have two display options on the Dell XPS 13, and both of them are pretty great. There's a full-HD, non-touch-screen model with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a matte finish. Or, if you want to spend $1,599, there's a quad-HD touch-screen model with a higher resolution of 3200 x 1800 pixels. This glossy panel also offers richer colors, though it's more reflective.

When watching Luke Cage on the nontouch XPS 13, I could easily make out the bullet holes in a car door the hero ripped off to use as a battering ram. I also enjoyed wide viewing angles, allowing me to experience the melee from 45 degrees without the panel washing out.

Based on our lab tests, the nontouch screen produces a strong 93.6 percent of the sRGB color gamut (100 percent or above is great), and the hues it shows are highly accurate, based on its Delta-E reading of 0.76 (0 is ideal).

We expect the touch-screen XPS 13 to offer better color saturation but less accuracy, and we will update this review once we have tested that model. 

The HP Spectre hit 100 percent of the gamut and notched a Delta-E of 1.3, and the MacBook delivered 107 percent and 1 on the same tests.

The XPS 13's nontouch panel isn't the brightest, as it reached 302 nits on our testing. That result is above the category average but below the Spectre (359 nits) and the MacBook (327 nits).

Audio

The stereo speakers on the XPS 13 get plenty loud, but the sound gets a little harsh at maximum volume. But that's at the default settings. When I turned up the bass in the Waves MaxxAudio Pro app, Sublime's "What I Got" sounded more balanced. The guitar plucks mixed well with the punchy drum line.

You can make other tweaks, too, such as Reduce Noise and Revive for streaming, and adjusting the Details in tracks with a virtual knob.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The typing experience on the XPS 13 continues to be fairly comfortable. The 1.2 mm of travel is a little less than the HP Spectre's 1.3 mm, but it offered springy feedback. I reached 71 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is a bit below the 78 wpm I reached on the flatter MacBook keyboard.

Dell's roomy Precision touchpad lived up to its name, offering smooth and precise scrolling. I had no problems executing various gestures, such as swiping with three fingers to switch apps and tapping with three fingers to launch Cortana.

Performance

Dell equipped our review model with a 7th-generation Core i5-7200U (Kaby Lake) processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB hard drive. These components provided swift performance in everyday use and our lab tests, even if the difference between this generation and the last model isn't that substantial.

Specs

CPU	3.1-GHz Intel Core i5-7200U
Operating System	Windows 10 Home
RAM	8GB
Hard Drive Size	256GB SSD

Hard Drive Type	SSD
Display Size	13.3
Native Resolution	1920x1080
Optical Drive	None
Optical Drive Speed	n/a
Graphics Card	Intel HD Graphics 5500
Video Memory	128MB
Wi-Fi	802.11ac
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 4.1
Touchpad Size	4.1 x 2.3 inches
Ports (excluding USB)	USB 3.0
Ports (excluding USB)	Thunderbolt 3
Ports (excluding USB)	SD card slot
Ports (excluding USB)	Kensington Lock
Ports (excluding USB)	Headphone
Ports (excluding USB)	USB Type-C
Warranty/Support	one-year limited hardware warranty
Size	11.98 x 7.88 x 0.33-0.6 inches
Weight	2.7 pounds
Company Website	http://www.dell.com

Plantronics Voyager 5200 review

Plantronics Voyager 5200 review

Design and Fit

Make no mistake: Voyager headsets are gigantic chunks of kit that scream, "I'm wearing a headset!" This may actually be good, because as I was testing headsets last week, my daughter kept worrying about whether I was going insane and talking to myself. No such danger with the 5200, which pairs a 2.25-inch behind-the-ear unit with a 2.75-inch-long red-and-black boom. No one will question whether you are wearing a headset or responding to the voices in your head.

I've loved previous Voyagers because their over-the-ear design makes them super secure. The 5200$119.99 at Amazon doesn't fit me as well as older models. I think the the ear hook is a little shorter than it used to be, so I had a little trouble getting it past the temple of my glasses, and the earbud hung a little bit high in my ear until I spent some time settling it. That is disappointing, and reduces the perceived volume a bit.

The headset has a physical on/off switch on the back, and two easily findable and pressable volume buttons on top. On the boom, there's a call button and a voice command button. The boom swings around, making the headset completely reversible between the right and left ears, and there are three different eartip sizes for the best fit.

Feature-wise, the 5200 has it all, for a Bluetooth headset. It pairs via NFC or Bluetooth, and you can pair it to multiple devices. It announces callers' names and lets you tell it whether to answer or ignore calls by voice. Built-in voice commands let you dictate text messages and get directions, with more accuracy than I got from Google Now on other headsets. It won't read your texts to you, though. A smartphone app, Plantronics Hub, lets you make the headset beep if you lose it, and monitor its battery life from your phone.

Performance

Thanks in part to its huge size, the 5200 has the best range of any headset I've tested recently, able to hit about 60 feet when in line of sight from the handset, although calls became pretty poppy after about 40 feet. Speaking of that popping: Interference sounds better on the Voyager 5200 than on other headsets we've tested. On other headsets, it often comes through as digital garble, which is difficult to understand. But on the 5200, interference sounds like pops and clicks, through which you can still clearly make out a voice.

Noise cancellation is aggressive on the 5200, and the price is a little bit of robotic voice quality. That said, it mutes background cars and buses with no problem. Wind noise offers a bit more of a challenge, and some wind made it through in testing (wind noise has always been an issue for Voyager headsets). But the 5200 is definitely your best choice for transmissions from very noisy areas.

The Voyager 5200 isn't perfect. I'm a little disappointed in its battery life, given its size. We got 5 hours, 16 minutes of voice calling, which is less than the seven hours promised. If that makes you nervous, an optional $39.99 charging case holds two more battery charges. The headset can be closed into the battery case, or can sit up in it, ready to be plucked out and used.

Conclusions

Plantronics Voyager headsets have had excellent voice quality for years. If you have a previous Voyager model like the amazing Legend, you don't need to replace it with the 5200. But if you're shopping for a heavy-usage, indoor-outdoor Bluetooth headset right now, the Voyager 5200 is still the benchmark by which we judge the rest, and our Editors' Choice.

LG OLED55C6V smart tv review

LG OLED55C6V review

WHAT IS THE LG OLED55C6V

The OLED55C6V is the first TV we’ve seen from LG’s 2016 OLED range. Costing £3,000, it's a 55-inch model with a curved screen, and it arrives packing new support for Dolby Vision’s high dynamic range technology as well as – according to LG – a significantly improved picture performance compared with LG’s already classy 2015 OLED models.

LG OLED55C6V – DESIGN AND FEATURES

Let’s get the divisive bit out of the way first: the OLED55C6V's curved screen. The curve is fairly shallow as such things go, but it’s there and it can, as usual, lead to some distortions and onscreen reflections if you have a bright light source opposite the screen.

On the flipside, the OLED55C6V’s curvature adds a little extra glamour to what’s already a stunning design – not least because curving the left and right edges gently forwards makes it easier to appreciate the incredible thinness (barely 3mm) the OLED panel enjoys over around 50% of its rear.

This view also serves to highlight the gorgeous, glinting silver trim applied to the screen’s outer edges. Basically any LCD screen with aspirations of trying to out-design OLED might as well just pack up and go home.

Connections on the OLED55C6V are effective rather than exemplary, on account of including only three HDMIs when ideally there would be four. Two support Ultra HD and HDR streams, though, and you can playback your multimedia collections via either a trio of USB ports or via the TV’s Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connection options.

The integrated Wi-Fi can also access a decent set of online apps and video streaming options, including Now TV, Netflix and Amazon Video. In past years, LG has fallen a little short when it comes to offering the UK’s most important catch-up TV apps. However, the Korean brand has put that right for 2016 by introducing support for the Freeview Play catch-up platform via a firmware update rolling out to its latest smart TVs as we speak.

All of the OLED55C6V’s smart features and sources are predominantly accessed via the latest version of LG’s webOS platform, which has undergone a few changes. The scrolling "launcher" bar is now longer, so it can host pretty much every app you have. Plus, there's now a new My Content section, into which you can bookmark favourite content to make it easier to return to.

The main point about webOS, however, is that LG appears well aware of the fact that it’s best not to mess too much with something that already works extremely well.

With regards to the OLED55C6V’s panel technology, the key point here is that every pixel in an OLED screen produces its own light level, independent of its neighbours. You don’t have to be Stephen Hawking to figure out that this means OLED TVs have the potential to deliver far superior contrast, much deeper black levels and far more accurately positioned, localised light than their LCD counterparts.

The sort of pixel-level light precision OLED can deliver has become even more important, it seems to me, now that HDR content has arrived on the scene. After all, as LCD TV after LCD TV is proving this year, nothing highlights the shortcomings of using external lighting systems shared over groups of pixels more than the extra light intensity and variation associated with HDR footage.

What’s more, LG claims to have introduced a raft of improvements for 2016 from its already exciting 2015 OLED TVs. Particularly intriguing is new support for the Dolby Vision take on HDR, which adds an extra layer of dynamic metadata for scene-by-scene optimisation. It also introduces a degree of optimisation based on the particular screen being used. LG is the first brand to adopt Dolby Vision in the UK.

The company has also greatly increased the brightness it can achieve in its 2016 OLED TVs – critical when it comes to delivering HDR – while simultaneously claiming to have reduced the issues with light "banding" and sudden black-level loss suffered by many of its 2015 models.

Other features of note are support for 3D, using the passive 3D system; sufficient picture setup tools to earn the endorsement of the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) as a TV that one of its engineers could come and professionally calibrate; and, last but not least, Ultra HD Premium status.

If you're unfamiliar with the latter term, it means the OLED55C6V delivers deep enough blacks, bright enough brights, sufficient resolution – with its Ultra HD panel – and enough of the DCI-P3 digital cinema colour spectrum to rank as a top-quality HDR performer, according to standards defined by the AV industry’s Ultra HD Alliance working group.

LG OLED55C6V – SETUP

To get the best out of the OLED55C6V will involve some tweaking of its settings.

The single most important thing to bear in mind is that you really shouldn’t adjust the TV’s main brightness setting – as opposed to its "OLED Brightness" setting – any lower than 49 or any higher than 52. Slip below 49 and shadow detailing in dark areas starts to become crushed. Push higher than 52 and the trademark ultra-rich black levels of OLED suddenly start to plummet.

I’d also urge care with LG’s rather messy motion processing. I found I achieved the best balance between judder reduction and distracting processing side effects by choosing the TruMotion User mode and setting both the judder and blur compensation to level two or three.

Make sure noise reduction is turned off for all native 4K feeds and good-quality HD feeds, and avoid the "Vivid" picture option when watching HDR, since it leads to excessive "bleaching" of colours and white areas.

Personally, I'd also avoid the HDR Effect mode LG provides to try to convert standard dynamic range content into HDR, since it doesn’t represent colours convincingly – and the set does superbly with SDR content in its native form.

LG OLED55C6V – PICTURE QUALITY

With no other brands offering serious OLED TV ranges, it would be easy for LG to just tootle along in its own little OLED world without feeling the need to change things much beyond making its OLED TVs ever cheaper.

However, the OLED55C6V proves emphatically that LG isn't twiddling its thumbs between OLED generations, for it really is a terrific improvement on any television that’s gone before.

For instance, LG has tackled the light banding and sudden black-level loss issues of 2015. Both crop up very, very occasionally when watching HDR footage, but so rarely and so much more subtly – so long as you haven’t pushed the brightness setting too high – that they're now a small price to pay for the huge advantages that OLED brings elsewhere.

LG has delivered this big improvement in light control, moreover, at the same time that it’s greatly increased the brightness it can obtain from its OLED panels. And this brightness increase comes without any compromise on the stunning black-level response that’s OLED’s trademark.

This has a transformative effect on the OLED55C6V’s handling of my nascent Ultra HD Blu-ray collection, since it essentially means you no longer have to think of OLED as performing well at the dark end of the expanded HDR light spectrum.

For while it’s true that premium LCD TVs can deliver HDR’s bright highlights far more emphatically and dazzlingly than the OLED55C6V (more on this presently), the OLED screen certainly gets bright enough with its light peaks – which hit around 550 nits in the TV’s HDR standard mode – to sell HDR’s benefits more effectively than last year’s screens.

In fact, I can readily imagine many serious AV fans feeling that the OLED55C6V sells HDR’s all-round benefits better than even the best LCD TVs, thanks to its peerless handling of the dark half of HDR’s luminance range. For as well as being capable of hitting black levels of a depth that’s simply beyond the reach of LCD TVz, the OLED55C6V also places inky black pixels right alongside punchy white or colour ones with essentially zero light pollution between the two.

The impact this degree of light control has on dark HDR scenes is mesmerising and beautiful. And since you’re not continually being distracted by the light "towers" and blooming effects seen on LCD screens, pictures are spectacularly immersive. The latter is one feature serious AV fans crave above all from a TV.

The OLED55C6V’s extra brightness means there’s less chance for dark areas in predominantly bright HDR scenes to look like mere shadows, while OLED’s sensational black level response also proves a stellar foundation for the rest of its colour palette to "bounce off".

The result is nothing short of an assault of colour when watching the wide colour gamuts that are part and parcel of current HDR content – and I mean that in a good way.

The range of colours is as wide and expressive as anything I’ve seen from a flat TV to date, yet alongside the stunning dynamics you'll also see subtle tonal differences delivered with a degree of finesse not previously seen on any LG TV.

The excellent colour performance joins with the screen’s native UHD resolution, too, to enhance the sense of detail and depth in the delivery of good-quality Ultra HD Blu-ray pictures.

While I’m on the subject of HDR, it’s worth quickly comparing the set’s Dolby Vision HDR presentation with its handling of the standard HDR 10 format. Unfortunately, Dolby Vision content is extremely hard to find in the UK – in fact, the only content out there right now is Marco Polo on Netflix. Luckily, I had a clip of Pan encoded in Dolby Vision on a USB stick, and was therefore able to compare the look of this against the Pan Ultra HD Blu-ray release. The results were striking.

The most immediately obvious difference is that the Dolby Vision presentation is far less bright than LG’s HDR 10 presentation. This may be enough, I guess, to automatically turn some viewers towards the HDR 10 approach where a choice is available. However, if you look a little deeper then the Dolby Vision take on things turns out to be pretty compelling.

For starters, its colour palette is markedly richer in terms of both the saturations and subtleties it contains. Even better, there’s far more visible light and shade detail in the image’s very brightest and darkest areas than you get with LG's HDR 10 approach.

All in all, so long as you can get beyond the idea that HDR is simply about brightness – and you’ve probably already made this leap if you’ve bought an OLED TV rather than an LCD one -– then Dolby Vision appears to give you a much more refined and, for want of a better word, "cinematic" image.

However, for now we’ll be spending the vast majority of our time watching standard dynamic range material. To that end, the OLED55C6V is superb at handling SDR’s more limited light and colour demands. So much so that, as noted in the Setup section, I’d strongly recommend you let the TV stick to showing SDR in its native form rather than applying LG’s HDR Effect mode. The latter simply introduces forced and unbalanced colours, and "flare outs" in the brightest areas of the "upscaled" SDR picture.

The OLED55C6V fares a little better when it’s upscaling only resolution – as in, HD to UHD – rather than colour and brightness too. Pictures look detailed, without looking more noisy, even if the results aren’t quite as crisp as the upscaled images of LG’s big-name 4K rivals.

For all their many stellar and unique traits, however, the OLED55C6V’s OLED-driven pictures aren’t perfect.

The biggest issue is the very occasional appearance of a peculiar glowing effect over the very blackest parts of HDR images and, more rarely still, over detailed, darkly coloured backdrops.

The noise pretty much completely removes detail and light subtleties from the affected areas, and draws further attention to itself by breaking down into quite defined blocks and blotches that stand proud against the infinitely more refined picture information around it.

Less extreme dark scenes also sometimes suffer with subtler speckly colour noise over background areas, which can occasionally be aggressive enough to drag your eye away from the main action.

he OLED55C6V’s relative shortage of brightness also leads to a noticeable loss of subtle detail in areas of bright colours and whites, compared with the bright LCDs that are capable of getting up to around the 1,000-nit mark to which many of the Ultra HD Blu-rays released to date are mastered.

One final area in which there's room for improvement is motion handling. As suggested in the Setup section of the review, a fair amount of judder is visible when the TV’s motion processing isn't engaged. However, putting the default motion processing modes to use results in images that suffer with quite distracting processing side effects.

On a positive note, the OLED55C6V’s niggles don’t amount to much at all in the overall scheme of things. It delivers a really impressive step up from the previous OLED generation and it’s the first TV I’ve seen so far that actually makes dark HDR scenes look right.

LG OLED55C6V – 3D PICTURE QUALITY

I’ve long been a fan of the way LG’s passive 3D solution works on Ultra HD TVs, and the OLED55C6V does nothing to dent my enthusiasm.

There’s none of the tiring, distracting flickering often seen with active 3D TVs, and while 3D images aren’t completely free of cross-talk ghosting, there’s far less of it than you tend to get with active 3D solutions.

Detail levels are decently high with 3D, too, while the OLED55C6V’s spectacular colour and contrast performance helps the TV to delineate a profound and believable sense of 3D scale.

LG OLED55C6V – SOUND QUALITY

The OLED55C6V sounds slightly better than you might have expected given its super-skinny design – but that’s not to say that it's much better than average by the standards of the LCD TV world at large.

Its best audio qualities are the surprising width of the soundstage, some reasonably clear and convincing vocal handling, and a solid amount of treble detailing.

On the downside, bass is limited and can succumb to a distinct thumping effect under pressure; the set can’t go particularly loud; and at high volumes those treble details can begin to sound painful on the ear.

OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER

As usual with premium LG TVs over the past few years, the OLED55C6V ships with a "Magic Motion Remote" that lets you control the TV just by pointing at the right part of the screen and pressing select. Others have tried to achieve the same thing, but for me, LG’s take on the technology is by far the most intuitive.

If you fancy finding out how good your video game collection can look on an OLED TV then there’s more good news. Measurements of the OLED55C6V's input lag – the time it takes the TV to render image data received at its inputs – put it at just over 30ms on average. This is pretty much as good as it gets for UHD TVs currently, and shouldn’t have a major negative impact on your performance in twitch-response games.

SHOULD I BUY AN LG OLED55C6V?

So long as you don’t mind its curved screen and can stretch to its £3k asking price, the OLED55C6V simply has to be on your list. It isn’t quite perfect, despite all the improvements on last year’s OLED efforts, and the best LCD TVs – such as the Samsung UE55KS9000 and Sony 75XD9405 – continue to hold an advantage when it comes to delivering the brightness attributes of HDR.

However, when it comes to dark SDR scenes and especially HDR, the OLED55C6V makes OLED’s advantages look even more emphatic than they were before. In doing so, this TV delivers the more consistently immersive viewing experience that many AV enthusiasts crave.

VERDICT

Some sporadic noise in dark scenes and detail clipping in bright picture areas mean that the OLED55C6V isn’t the perfect TV. That said, it delivers huge improvements over LG’s previous OLED efforts, with pictures that look nothing short of mesmerising for the vast majority of the time.

Sony MDR-1A over-ear headphones review

Sony MDR-1A over-ear headphones review

The MDR-1A can be called Sony’s signature over-ear headphone, or the within-reason premium offering before things go into crazy expensive audiophile territory. Let’s see if the MDR-1A should be your next upgrade.

Design

I really like the MDR-1A’s design. It’s both classy and edgy. The black, stealthy styling has a sophistication to it, as the leather-dominated headband blends into shiny metallic stems. Then a deep red edge is lined between the earcup and earpad, for a touch of flair

The soft, leather-wrapped earpad cushions and seamless stitching also invoke the premium feel. The attention to detail doesn’t stop there, as you’ll uncover a brushed metal band when you extend the headband to make it larger.

I’m glad that the MDR-1A looks the part, as it’s not a cheap headphone. That said, it does lose of its premium appeal when you pick it up. The hard plastic construction is immediately noticeable (the 

metallic finish is a deception). Still, I have no question about the MDR-1A’s durability.

Sadly, these over-ears don’t have a fold-able design. Many headphone manufacturers are doing this these days so the headphone can compact down to a travel-friendly size. But at least the earcups can rotate to lay flat. This means that the carrying case doesn’t have to be as thick. Speaking of which, the included case is drawstring-style and maintains the leather aesthetic.

Usability

The packaging includes an extra cable (with an in-line remote for playback control and a microphone to take phone calls), so this means that the cable is removable. You’ll find the 3.5mm connection on the left earcup, as one arm of the stem extends downward for easy access. The benefit of a swappable cable is replaceability. Cables can go bad, and you don’t want to have to replace the entire headphone if it happens.

You may have noticed that the ear pads look fairly substantial. Sony’s goal was both comfort and sound isolation. The ear pad cushions are constructed with an “enfolding design” to minimize sound leakage.

This in no way means that the earcups are stiff and uncomfortable. Quite the opposite is true. The pads are more soft than firm. Bear in mind that as they are leather, they will heat up over a lengthy period on your head. But all in all, these earpads are one of the comfiest that I’ve used. The sound isolation was also great.

Sound

Oh boy, the sound. The MDR-1A captures you from the bat. Sony was totally not going for a “reference” kind of sound, but rather, engaging. There’s a clear emphasis on bass. But it doesn’t irresponsibility call for attention and overshadow the rest of the spectrum. It’s boisterous in the right ways: depth and impact. You can almost feel the low-end’s sound waves shake the space within the earpads. It borders on head-rattling; if you love bass, you must try these headphones.

However, from an audiophile perspective, I have to throw a word of caution. If you like a balanced/neutral sound, these may not be for you. The bass is the clear star of the show here. It does at time borderline on boomy, but impressively controlled for the most part.

I don’t mean to downplay the rest of the range, though. The MDR-1A is detailed across the board. Second to the bass is the mid-range. Vocals and instruments in this region sound satisfyingly full and rich. Too often sound signatures recess the mids and do them an injustice, not so here. The soundstage is also pleasant, as the separation and placement of notes fill the space around you.

I wasn’t as impressed with the treble as the other ranges. It’s good, but can fall flat at times (there could be more extension) or get overshadowed by another sound. I wouldn’t call it recessed, because when the track calls for it, it’s prominent and detailed.

Final Thoughts

Sony’s expertise certainly shows in the MDR-1A. The design is attractive from either a sophisticated perspective or someone who likes standout styling, the wear/comfort is impeccable, and the sound is an experience. Though, the plastic build and bass-heavy sound may put some serious listeners off, but I can see it being fine for many people.

The MDR-1A is more premium than your standard over-ears, so the price tag won’t be for the faint of heart. They retail for $299. But you are getting a well-made, good-looking, super comfortable, and fun sounding headphone.