Sony has revealed its Bravia TV line-up for 2017, following much the same format as its excellent 2016 televisions, but boosting performance and tweaking the design in many areas.

Sony is offering a full selection of 4K HDR televisions for 2017, on top of a selection of HD and Full HD models, and with all these numbers and options, it's easy to get confused. 

In many cases, these models will start to appear alongside the 2016 models and the easy way to spot the year is the model number - XD for 2016, XE for 2017.

Broadly speaking compared to 2016, the new models have a cleaner design, brighter displays for better HDR and more power for more effective processing.

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Sony Bravia A1 OLED

  • Screen sizes: 55in, 65in, 77in (TBC)
  • OLED, 3840 x 2160 pixels, HDR
  • Price: £2,800, £3,800, £20,000

Sony introduced a new flagship for 2017 and with it comes a new display technology for the company: OLED. The Bravia A1 was the only OLED option in Sony's line-up for 2017, bringing the advantage of slim design thanks to OLED's self-illuminating properties. 

Design is very much the story for the Bravia A1, as it includes a unique built-in sound system. Placing twin actuators left and right behind the screen itself, it uses the display as an "acoustic surface". A subwoofer is built into the stand on the rear, meaning a completely clean design, with no speaker grills or excess bloat around the body. Amazingly, although the display is the sound surface, there's no interference with the picture.

That OLED display means jaw-dropping colours and near perfect blacks, but it's not as bright as Sony's other flagship, the Bravia ZD9, which is LED and better positioned to delivery dramatic HDR effects. 

With the Bravia A1 OLED very much a show piece, not only because of the display technology, but also the wonderful design, this is an expensive TV, especially in the biggest 77-inch size - yours for only £20,000.

On the technical front, it's a 4K HDR TV, supporting Dolby Vision, offers HDR remastering for SDR sources and offers super bitmapping to tidy up low data sources, like streaming content. It runs Android TV and YouView in the UK.

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Sony

Sony Bravia ZD9

  • Screen sizes: 65in, 75in, 100in
  • Direct lit LED, 3840 x 2160 pixels, HDR
  • Price: £4000, £7000, £60,000

The Sony Bravia ZD9 was a late-2016 launch and it quickly became apparent that this is one of the greatest TVs ever launched. It won Pocket-lint's coveted 2016 Best Television award and from that strong position continues as Sony's flagship other model. 

The ZD9 offers very different screen sizes - the 100-inch model is £60,000, so unlikely to be a consideration, but the 65-inch model at around £4000 is more realistic, if you want the very best Sony offers.

This is a full array TV, meaning it has direct illumination behind the display surface, meaning much better control of light for more accurate colour, deeper blacks and brighter whites and better overall contrast. It delivers an HDR experience that's one of the best we've ever seen - and Sony will happily admit that this delivers more punch in HDR than its A1 OLED TV. 

There's also a lot of design gone into making your TV clean, with a cable management system built in to route those cables across the back and down through the stand for a clean finish. 

It runs on Android TV, with YouView for those in the UK, offering you 4K glory in fantastic style.

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Sony

Sony Bravia XE94

  • Screen sizes: 75in
  • Direct lit LED, 3840 x 2160 pixel, HDR
  • Price: £4300

Sony's TV range gets a little confusing at this point as the XE94 is only available in one size - 75-inches. This models also offers full array illumination, which marks it out as different to the XE93 it sits alongside, which uses Slim Backlight Drive+, an edge illumination system. The reason this TV can't offer that Slim Backlight Drive system is that it's too big; the result is a slightly fatter TV, but better performance too. 

This is a replacement for the XD94 of 2016, cleaning the design up and integrating the cable management system from the ZD9, so you get a clean TV front and rear.

The rear of this TV, apart from hiding colours, has a two-layer design so it looks slimmer when viewed from the sides. The rear is also finished in a neutral tone, close to the sort of colour that many people paint their homes, again designed to blend in when viewed from the sides. 

The XE94 uses the X1 Extreme processor found the A1 and ZD9, although it doesn't offer the same level of contrast that the ZD9 does. It's powered by Android TV and will offer YouView in the UK. Sony has also told us that this TV will have an over the air update to support Dolby Vision and HLG, which will round-out a very complete 4K HDR feature set.

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Sony Bravia XE93

  • Screen sizes: 65in, 55in
  • Edge lit LED, 3840 x 2160 pixels, HDR
  • Price: £2,000, £1,600

The Sony Bravia XE93, as we've just said, matches the design and most of the spec of the XE94, but comes in smaller screen sizes. The big change is that it uses the Slim Backlight Drive+ system for illumination. This is an edge illumination LED display, diffused through Sony's system. In this case, the LEDs are placed across the top and bottom edges, rather than at the sides which is more conventional. 

One of the advantages this brings is that slimmer design, again aiming to reduce visual clutter. It has the ZD9's cable management system, but this is a slimmer overall TV because of the illumination system it offers. 

That enhancement in physical design does mean a slight drop in performance as the illumination isn't as accurate as the XE94, ZD9 or A1, but it is more affordable. It uses the same powerful X1 Extreme processor, so it's likely to be one of the top choices for 2017, as the performance is still very good.

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Sony Bravia XE90

  • Sizes: 75in, 65in, 55in, 49in
  • Direct lit LED, 3840 x 2160 pixels, HDR
  • Prices: £3,200, £1,800, £1,400, £1,200

The Bravia XE90 occupies a new position for Sony TVs, offering a middle ground that sits under the XE94. What this TV really offers is a full array, i.e., direct LED illumination, but at a range of sizes, including down to a small 49-inches, the smallest TV of this illumination tech that you'll find, with the advantage of local dimming. 

The design of this TV is close to that of the XE94, with the nice cable management system and so on for a clean finish, using the same look-through stand design. 

The performance comes down a notch though: it only offers the X1 processor (rather than the "Extreme" of the higher models) and that will mean that the XE90 isn't as capable in some areas. Sony highlights contrast as being one area - so rather than this being an XE94 mini, it looks like a step down. 

However, local dimming means the XE90 will outperform the XE85 in terms of contrast, black levels and colour reproduction. 

It runs on Android TV and offer YouView in the UK.

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Sony Bravia XE85

  • Sizes: 75in, 65in, 55in
  • Edge lit LED, 3840 x 2160 pixels, HDR
  • Price: £2,700, £1,700, £1,200

The Brava XE85 offers a nice clean design again with cable management, but is a step down in technology, offering a conventional edge lit LED display, meaning the performance isn't a match for those TVs we've mentioned above. 

It has the X1 processor to clean up your lower quality content, like getting rid of colour banding in low quality streaming content, for example. 

This is really an entry-level 4K HDR TV from Sony, the big thing here is that it offers larger screen sizes than the XE80 which sits below it, and has a slightly more powerful processor. 

It is powered by Android TV, so is a fully featured smart TV and offers YouView in the UK.

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Sony Bravia XE80

  • Sizes: 49in, 43in
  • Edge lit LED, 3840 x 2160 pixels, HDR
  • Price: £900, £800

The Sony Bravia XE80 is really Sony's starting point for 4K HDR TVs. It offers a nice slim design with cable management to keep things tidy, but at this level, this TV doesn't offer the X1 processor you'll find on the next models up, instead offering the older X-Reality Pro system. 

That's going to mean that it's technically less capable than the larger TVs that sit above it, but if you're looking at the 43-inch model (the smallest 4K HDR TV that Sony is offering in its 2017 selection), then some of those changes will be less noticeable than they would, for example, on a 65-inch TV. 

It's powered by Android TV for a fully connected experience and offers YouView in the UK.

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Sony

Sony Bravia XE70

  • Sizes: 65in, 55in, 49in, 43in
  • Edge lit LED, 3840 x 2160 pixels, HDR
  • Price: £1,400, £800, £700, £630

A later addition to the 2017 line-up was the XE70. This is still a 4K HDR TV, but slotting in at the bottom of the pile, it's a lot cheaper.

There are some notable differences when it comes to functionality. This isn't not an Android TV and it doesn't offer YouView. But this is a smart TV, so there are still apps for services like Netflix and YouTube.