Take a moment and step back to January 2017. That’s when Sony announced the A1E OLED, a cool new TV that used the display itself as part of the speaker. The big problem with the TV was how weird it looked. So Sony fixed that, and the new A8F series is decidedly more traditional.
I mean look at the new A8F.
You can just barely make out the back of the display and you’ll notice there’s no giant speaker being used as a stand. Also look at the angle. A normal close to 90-degree angle from the floor.
Now look at last year’s A1E.
This thing is so tilted it is downright jaunty, and the big cloth covered speaker is eye catching...which is odd for something that will be pressed up against a wall most of the time.
Besides the new look this new TV is, for the most part, the same. It will still implement Sony’s Acoustic Surface technology, which uses the display as part of the speaker, and it will still be an OLED display capable of 4K Dolby Vision and HDR 10 playback. It will also still use Sony’s X1 Extreme processor to make content look as good as possible on the TV, particularly content that isn’t 4K HDR.
However this year Sony has also introduced a full Google Assistant client in the TV to operate alongside the Android TV service Sony already uses to make its TVs smart. That means you’ll be able to ask your TV what the weather is like, or have it remind you that you need to stop watching The Crown because you have a meeting in ten minutes.
Convenient, and the perfect accoutrement for such a traditional OLED.
We’re live on the ground in Las Vegas at CES 2018! Click here to read our complete coverage.