Sony A90J OLED – Master Series OLED with optimized panel - The best 2021 TV?

You have to hand it to Sony for this high-end TV. It simply looks and feels absolutely high-quality. Its design itself is quite simple, but the TV can fit perfectly into almost any living room thanks to the extremely thin metal frame and the slim-looking feet.

The feet can be attached in three different ways. In one position, they are located to the right and left of the display, so that the TV itself is flush with the base. If the feet are centered, the A90J can be placed on a smaller surface, but it is a bit more wobbly. Last but not least, there is the “soundbar” positioning of the feet. The stands are very far apart and support the TV very well. There is also enough room to place a soundbar under the TV without it protruding into the picture.

However, if you want to use a wall mount, you’ll be pleased to find that the Sony A90J also does very well on the wall. The small depth and the narrow frame make the TV look really outstanding on the wall as well!
It should be noted that the interfaces are not all aligned towards the picture side, but also downwards. That makes them somewhat difficult to reach in some circumstances.

It is probably common knowledge by now that the picture quality of OLED TVs is usually outstanding. But the new Sony high-end OLED TV adds something to the picture quality!

Like other OLED TVs, it also has perfect blacks, which comes with a theoretically infinite contrast ratio. Its panel has also been optimized, allowing the Sony TV to get brighter for longer periods of time without the Automatic Brightness Limiter having to intervene or damage the organic LEDs. It normally reaches a peak brightness of ~850Nits, which is a really good value for an OLED. It can’t get nearly as bright as Samsung’s LED-LCD flagship QN90A, but it’s enough to show HDRHigh Dynamic Range – image/video with more dynamic range (contrast range) content with Dolby VisionDynamic HDR-format with a color depth of up to 12 Bits and Mastering of up to 10,000 Nits very well and to bring out brighter details.

Although the picture quality decreases in fairly bright rooms, the A90J can still keep up with most TVs even under these conditions. One reason for this is the excellent reflection behavior, which reduces any reflections very well. Furthermore, it has an extremely wide viewing angle, so the picture quality is not, or only very slightly, affected even under very oblique angles.

But it’s not just the new panel that makes the Sony A90J one of the best TVs of 2021. The new Cognitive Processor XR used for image processing optimizes the image to be displayed immensely so that it gives a natural impression. This really makes a world of difference. Other manufacturers do this as well, of course, but not as well as Sony so far.

With its 120Hz panel and an almost instantaneous response time, the Sony A90J leaves hardly anything to be desired in terms of motion handling. Movements are displayed smoothly and there is almost no motion blur. If a particularly sharp eye does notice something, this can be further minimized by the Black Frame InsertionProcess that inserts black “blank images” as intermediate images. This makes movements appear finer and clearer. feature. However, the brightness of the TV is minimized when using the BFI, which can be much more annoying for most than the barely noticeable motion blur.

The low response time also has a disadvantage though. StutterStatic Frames being displayed too long on the screen – no fluid motion can occur with low frame rate content. For example, the image can stutter a bit during slow camera pans, but this can be cleaned up by the interframe calculation. However, the soap opera effect is visible here, which is not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea.

JudderInconsistent time frame due to the input frequency not mismatching the TV’s frequency (e.g. 24p via 60Hz) can also be cleaned up from all sources.

With the outstanding motion handling and the low input lag of about 12ms at 4K@120Hz, gaming is of course a great experience. It also has an HDMI 2.1 interface and Dolby VisionDynamic HDR-format with a color depth of up to 12 Bits and Mastering of up to 10,000 Nits.

Although the Auto Low Latency Mode is not available, there is an Auto Picture Mode, whereby the A90J switches to gaming mode when a Playstation 5 is connected. Xbox users do unfortunately not benefit from this feature. A VRRVariable Refresh Rate – synchronizes the display’s refresh rate with the output refresh rate of the graphics card feature was added in March 2022 through a software update.

All in all, you get an excellent TV for gaming. However, if you want a TV with Dolby Vision, ALLMAuto Low Latency Mode – Automatically detects connected consoles and keeps input lag as low as possible. and 4K@120Hz right away, you unfortunately won’t find it with the Sony A90J yet. Instead, though, you can take a look at the LG G1, which has these features out of the box.

That Sony can really score in terms of sound compared to almost all other manufacturers has already been proven in the last few years with the A8 and AG9.

The 60W 2.2 channel sound system also uses the Acoustic Surface Audio+ feature, where the sound really comes from the center of the screen. There are actuators behind the display that turn it into a speaker – so you are right in the middle of the action.

It has two integrated 10W subwoofers that produce the essential bass, but they cannot produce quite as much low bass due to the TV’s low volume.

The TV also has Sony’s Acoustic Auto Calibration, which adjusts the sound to the room and the viewer’s position. Both DTSMulti-channel-sound-system (Surround Sound) competing with Dolby Digital and Dolby AtmosObject-based surround sound format with 3D-Sound from any direction are available as audio formats for the A90J via HDMI eARC, so you can create a truly enveloping cinema atmosphere with a suitable soundbar or sound system. The OLED can also be integrated into the sound system as a center speaker, so you don’t have to miss the Acoustic Surface Audio+ feature even when using an AV receiver.

From now on, Sony is the first manufacturer to use Google TV as the smart operating system for its TVs. But actually, the new operating system mainly changes the look of the previously used Android operating system. Navigating through the user interface is really intuitive and also very smooth. There is a huge number of apps and even more can be installed through the Google Play Store.

But actually, the apps are somewhat out of focus with the new operating system. So, if you are looking for a certain series or movie, you do not have to open 5 different apps and search for it one after the other, but can conveniently let the Google TV operating system do the job and start streaming immediately. Of course, you still need the subscriptions for the respective streaming services.

As expected, the Google TV Smart OS already has the Google Assistant integrated as a voice assistant, which can be used to comfortably navigate through the system. The use of Amazon Alexa is also possible, but requires a third-party device.

Apple users can also look forward to some features. The high-end TV supports Airplay 2 and Apple Homekit. A twin tuner is also available, but as always with Sony, only the USB recording function is supported and not time-shifted TV.