Sony INZONE M9 II  Monitor Review

The Sony M9 II has a simple design that's different from the original Sony INZONE M9. The monitor is now entirely black, including the plastic monitor backing. The new circular stand base has a plastic exterior, is sleeker, and takes up less space. The monitor fits in well to both an office or gaming environment.

The build quality is good. The texture on the back of the monitor feels good, and while it takes some effort to tilt the monitor it stays in place well after you set its position.

The ergonomics are great. While it offers a wide range of adjustments other than rotation, its standout feature is its ability to swivel to any angle thanks to its circular base. This makes it easy to connect cables to the monitor by swiveling it completely around. It also comes with a rubber band for cable management.

The base is small for the size of the monitor, and it wobbles quite a bit when bumped. The height adjustment is at an angle, so the total thickness decreases as you raise the monitor. At its maximum height, it's 6.6 inches (16.7 cm).

The joystick control is located at the back of the monitor. It's easy to use but is a bit sensitive, so it can take some getting used to.

• DisplayPort 1.4 cable
• Power cord
• Power supply
• User guides
• Stickers

The Sony M9 II has mediocre contrast, and blacks look gray against bright highlights. The local dimming feature is ineffective at improving the contrast with the checkerboard pattern, but it's better with real content.

Settings:

• Local Dimming: High

The local dimming feature is okay. It has 96 zones in an 8x12 array. The zones are too large to allow for precise dimming in dark scenes, and the algorithm tends to turn on more zones than needed. There's some noticeable blooming around bright objects, but very little black crush because of this. It isn't very good for subtitles, though, as it tends to light up large areas of the screen. Additionally, as you move off-center and view the screen from an angle, both black crush and blooming become notably worse.

That said, it keeps up with fast-moving content well, so you don't see a trailing bright edge behind fast-moving, bright objects. For comparison, you can also see the video when Local Dimming is set to 'Low.' While this results in a bit less black crush, 'High' still looks better overall because of its better contrast.

Settings:

• Picture Mode: sRGB
• Brightness 100
• Saturation: 50
• Local Dimming: Off

This monitor has great brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to easily overcome glare in a bright room, and there's no variation in brightness between content.

If you turn Local Dimming on, there's variation in brightness between different content, as you can see below:

Settings:

• Picture Mode: DisplayHDR
• Brightness: Locked
• Local Dimming: Locked

The HDR brightness is amazing. Highlights are bright enough to pop, and it easily overcomes glare in a bright room. Additionally, its PQ EOTF has a sharp cut-off at peak brightness, so highlights get as bright as possible.

If you want to adjust Brightness and Local Dimming, you can use the 'Game' Picture Mode, though it has slightly worse EOTF tracking.

The gray uniformity is decent. While the outside of the screen is darker, there isn't too much dirty screen effect.

Unfortunately, this monitor has poor black uniformity. Even with local dimming off there's noticeable clouding throughout. When local dimming is enabled uniformity is much worse. Zones light up many parts of the screen that aren't needed, causing worse uniformity and haziness around objects in slow-moving scenes. This is notably worse than on the original Sony INZONE M9, though it's less noticeable in fast-moving scenes.

The accuracy before calibration in the sRGB mode is fantastic. It locks colors to the sRGB color space effectively, so they aren't oversaturated, and both the white balance and color temperature are great, too. However, brighter parts of scenes are too dark. The sRGB mode also locks out the Gamma adjustment.

The accuracy after calibration is fantastic.

However, due to the monitor's EDID including an asterisk in its name, we weren't able to save an ICC profile for this monitor. As a result we left the monitor in sRGB mode for this test, so there's no improvement to the monitor's gamma accuracy, and bright parts of scenes are still too dark.

The SDR color gamut is fantastic. It displays virtually all of the sRGB color space used by most desktop and web content. It has good coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space, but it can't display the full range of greens in that color space and slightly oversaturates reds, so it isn't ideal if you need to edit in Adobe RGB.

The HDR color gamut is great. It has excellent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used by the vast majority of current HDR content. While its coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space is limited, there aren't many tone mapping issues with either color space.

The HDR color volume is great. It displays dark colors well, but it struggles to properly display very vivid colors.

The Sony INZONE M9 2 has a decent horizontal viewing angle. While it looks dark at wide angles, it's still fine if you want to share the screen with someone next to you for co-op gaming.

The Sony INZONE M9 II has fantastic text clarity. Even with ClearType off (bottom photo), text looks sharp, and enabling it makes letters look bolder (top photo). These photos are in Windows 10, and you can also see them in Windows 11 with ClearType on and with ClearType off.

The direct reflection handling is mediocre. Despite having a matte coating, there are still noticeable mirror-like reflections in a bright room.

The black levels remain consistent in a bright room, as they don't rise much.

This monitor has distracting reflections in a well-lit environment. While it gets bright enough to fight some glare, visibility is still a problem, especially if you place it opposite a sunny window.

The gradient handling is fantastic. There's some banding in darker shades, but it displays bright areas of similar color properly.

Despite trying different cables, computers, and graphics cards, the maximum refresh rate over HDMI is 144Hz. If you're looking for a monitor with a higher max refresh rate, check out the 240Hz AOC AGON PRO AG276QZD2.

On top of supporting FreeSync VRR and G-SYNC compatibility, this monitor also supports HDMI Forum VRR.

The motion handling is good across the VRR range. Although there isn't much motion blur, the 'Fast' overdrive setting has inverse ghosting as the refresh rate drops. The 'Standard' overdrive is better if you want more consistency across the VRR range, but it has more blur. The 'Faster' overdrive has such high CAD that it passes the limits of the chart, as you can see in an alternative chart.

The refresh rate compliance is good. Although its response time isn't fast enough to make full color transitions before the monitor draws the next frame at its max refresh rate, it's better at lower refresh rates.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 160Hz is very good. Motion looks sharp with the 'Fast' overdrive setting, as it has less blur than 'Standard' and less inverse ghosting than 'Faster.'

The CAD at 120Hz is very good. It's similar to its max refresh rate, but there's a bit more inverse ghosting.

The CAD at 60Hz is decent. Unlike at higher refresh rates, the recommended overdrive is 'Standard,' which has motion blur, because 'Fast' has too much inverse ghosting.

The Sony INZONE M9 II has an optional backlight strobing feature to reduce persistence blur. It only works with fixed 160Hz or 120Hz signals and can cause image duplication. We didn't observe Sony's backlight scanning technology noticeably affecting strobing performance. As you increase the Effect setting from '0' to '2' persistence blur is less visible, as you can see below:

This monitor doesn't have any noticeable VRR flicker with changing frame rates, which is fantastic for gaming.

The backlight remains flicker-free at all brightness levels, which helps reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to flicker.

The Sony INZONE M9 II has low input lag, ensuring a responsive gaming or desktop experience at any refresh rate. Input lag changes slightly if the you use the Latency setting, as you can see below:

The Sony INZONE M9 II is fully compatible with the PS5 and PS5 Pro. It also supports a few extra features specific to the PS5, including Auto HDR Tone Mapping, which optimizes your HDR experience to match the capabilities of your display.

Though it defaults to the 'Game' Picture Mode with the PS5, you can select another mode if you prefer. Additionally, while contrast is slightly improved with Local Dimming set to 'High,' there's blooming, and motion appears less smooth.

This monitor is fully compatible with the Xbox Series X|S. The Xbox doesn't support HDR with 1440p or 1080p signals, so this isn't a limitation of the monitor. Though it defaults to the 'Game' Picture Mode with the Xbox, you can select another mode if you prefer.

Unlike the original Sony INZONE M9 this monitor doesn't have a USB-C port.

This monitor works well with macOS. If you’re using a MacBook, you can close the lid and continue working on the screen, and after reopening the lid, windows return to their original positions. While HDR works, it looks washed out.

This monitor has a few extra features, including:

• INZONE Hub: Allows you to adjust monitor settings from your computer.
• 24.5-inch Mode: Decreases the content area of the screen to 24.5 inches, which some esports or competitive gamers may prefer.
• Crosshair: Adds an undetectable virtual crosshair to any game.
• FPS Counter: Shows the current frame rate from the source.
• Black Equalizer: Adjusts gamma to make it easier to spot objects/players in dark scenes without adjusting bright scenes.
• TÜV Rheinland Certified Blue Light Filter: The monitor has reduced blue light to help minimize eye strain.

If you're looking for a 4k monitor that provides glasses-free 3D gaming with compatible games, check out the Samsung Odyssey 3D G90XF S27FG900X.