Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
Audio quality remains as good as ever, although that didn’t need improvement as badly as picture quality did. It isn’t as good, it must be said, as if you were to connect a decent dedicated soundbar, such as the Sonos Beam 2, but better than you’ll get with most TVs at around the price of Sky Glass.Indeed, Sky Glass plays host to a full 3.1.2 Dolby Atmos-compatible audio system. Four drivers are housed in the “soundbar” part of the TV – one centre speaker, one 120mm bass woofer and two stereo drivers – and there’s a pair of upward-firing Atmos speakers in the top corners of the TV set to deliver Atmos’ height effects. The TV’s coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut is now 79%, which is better but still not great. However the biggest improvements are to be seen in peak brightness. With Custom mode selected and local dimming enabled we saw peak brightness reach 804cd/m2 with a 25% patch of white in the centre of the screen and a still respectable 704cd/m2 with the standard 10% patch displayed, up from 439cd/m2 at launch. One thing you might want to disable, however, is the TV’s motion control sensor, which it uses to turn on the TV when you walk into the room. This might sound like a clever feature but you don’t always want the TV to switch on when you walk into the room, especially with energy prices so high. I also found that, if I left the door open to the room it was in, it would also turn on when I walked past. That’s not ideal.
After a false start, it’s finally beginning to deliver on its promise. Sky Glass still can’t quite compete with Sky Q for content and versatility, or standalone TVs and soundbars for image and audio quality, but improvements to the user interface and, most importantly, picture quality since launch have elevated it from also-ran to a genuinely attractive alternative. There’s also the option to save your own picture settings in the Custom mode, which allows you to adjust various parameters, including contrast, video brightness, colour saturation, hue/tint, white balance, local dimming and colour temperature. This is an updated version of our original Sky Glass review, in which we awarded the TV three stars. After a series of updates to the television’s user interface and picture quality, we’ve upped the star rating and added a well-deserved Recommended award.
Despite all of those drivers, however, and the additional up-firing Atmos speakers, the surround-sound effect is limited. I wasn’t overly impressed with the way Sky Glass delivers bass, either; even with the Bass Boost option toggled on in the settings, there’s very little low-end thump and rumble. In its default configuration, it sits on a central stand with the bottom edge of the set almost flush with the surface of your AV stand, but it can also be wall-mounted, and all the hardware to do that is included in the box. Bear in mind, however, that even without the sturdy stand attached to the rear, it’s still a bit of a lump, with the stand-less 43in weighing 14kg, the 55in on test 23kg and the 65in 28kg. I’d advise against mounting it on a plasterboard wall.
Sky Glass is a big product for the UK satellite TV giant. Not only is it the first TV the company has built, it’s also the first time Sky has produced a streaming-only product without compromising streaming quality and features. Colour performance while viewing standard dynamic range content (SDR) using Movie mode colour proved decent, with Sky Glass covering 95.1% of the Rec.709 colour gamut when measured using our colorimeter and the Calman colour calibration software. There’s 215W of total amplification, too, ensuring that these deliver audio that’s far more forceful than most other TVs you’ll encounter, with vocals and speech delivery a real strength of the system. I fired up a John Legend concert recording on Sky Arts and both the piano and Legend’s voice came across in a convincing and pleasing manner. I eventually managed to connect it to my home Wi-Fi using the TV’s WPS button and the same on my Devolo Magic Powerline adapter. If you come across the same issue, you’ll have to (rather counterintuitively) select the “I have Sky Broadband” option, as the “third-party broadband” connection option doesn’t give you the choice of using WPS.
Was this discussion not helpful?
It’s still not as flexible a system as Sky Q, where you can record any programme, watch it whenever you like and keep it on your hard disk in perpetuity. It comes with a built-in Dolby Atmos soundbar that runs along the bottom and includes speakers that fire upwards. And you can use it with any broadband connection, though Sky recommends a minimum of 10Mbits/sec for HD content and 25Mbits/sec for 4K content. For testing colour accuracy in SDR, we tested a number of modes and found Movie mode best for overall colour performance with an average Delta E of 0.8 – right up there with some of the best TVs we’ve tested. On the positive side, programmes allow you to “Play from start” if you come in halfway through and you also get some, albeit not all, of the fancier features from Sky Q’s sports channels, including the ability to catch up with highlights while you’re watching. Not only is SDR performance better than it was at launch, but Sky has also improved its HDR output considerably. It still isn’t the last word in HDR performance but it does now deliver convincing and enjoyable HDR picture quality.
Great Deal 
New Comment