Sony A90K OLED TV Review

The Sony A90K has a premium design that looks great in any room. It has very thin bezels on three sides that help it blend into your environment.

Update 08/09/2023: The brightness of the TV has increased considerably in the 8-month measurements. This TV doesn't seem to have received any firmware updates that would explain this difference, and the settings used are the same as the previous measurements, so we're not sure why it's increased.

The stand is slim and not very intrusive. It supports the TV well while not taking up much space on your table.

Footprint of the 48" stand: 19" x 8.8". The position, as shown, barely lifts the bottom of the display off your table, so if you place anything in front of it, it'll block the screen. There are extensions included in the box that lift the TV off the stand (as shown here), giving you 3.2" between the table and the bottom of the screen, so most soundbars will fit without blocking the screen.

The back of the TV has a checkerboard pattern similar to other 2022 Sony TVs. There are included covers to hide the downfacing inputs, but nothing to block the inputs on the side. Sadly, there's nothing for cable management.

The Sony A90K OLED has fantastic build quality. It feels solid and well-built. There's very little flex to any of the panels, and the metal feet support the TV on the stand really well.

The Sony A90K has a near-infinite contrast ratio with perfect black levels in dark rooms. It means it's a fantastic choice for watching content in dark environments.

The Sony A90K has unremarkable HDR peak brightness. Although bright highlights aren't as bright as most LED displays, like the Samsung QN90B QLED, it still delivers an impactful HDR experience thanks to its near-infinite contrast ratio. Sadly, like with HDR content, there's a noticeable variation in peak brightness with different scenes, as large bright scenes are considerably dimmer than the brightest highlights in dim scenes.

These results are from the 'Custom' HDR Picture Mode with the Brightness at its max, Color Temperature on 'Expert 2', and the HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Gradation Preferred'.

If you prefer a bright image over an accurate one, set the HDR Picture Mode to 'Vivid', Contrast to its max, Color Temperature on 'Cool', and Peak Luminance to 'High'. It results in a noticeably brighter image, reaching a peak of 788 cd/m² with a 2% window, but the picture isn't as accurate.

The HDR brightness in Game Mode is nearly the same as outside of Game Mode, and there isn't a noticeable difference. These results are with the same settings as outside of Game Mode, but with the Picture Mode set to 'Game'.

The Sony A90K tracks the HDR PQ EOTF almost perfectly, which means that most scenes are displayed very close to what the content creator intended. There's a smooth rolloff near the TV's peak brightness, ensuring fine details in bright scenes are preserved.

If you prefer a bright image over an accurate one, set the Contrast to its max, Advanced Contrast Enhancer and Peak Luminance to 'High', and HDR Tone Mapping to 'Brightness Preferred'. This results in a brighter image, but it doesn't change the peak luminance.

The Sony A90K's SDR peak brightness is just passable. Like all OLED TVs, it has an aggressive Automatic Brightness limiter that makes large bright scenes dimmer, which isn't ideal if you use it as a PC monitor or watch sports like hockey. It also automatically dims static content, like the HUD in some games, as a burn-in prevention method. This 48" model is slightly brighter than the Sony 42 A90K OLED, but the difference isn't noticeable with real content.

These results are from after calibration with the 'Custom' Picture Mode, Brightness at its max, Contrast at '90', Color Temperature on 'Expert 1', and Peak Luminance on 'High'.

If you want the brightest image possible and you don't care about accuracy, then use the 'Vivid' Picture Mode with the Brightness and Contrast at their max, Live Color, Advanced Contrast Enhancer, and Peak Luminance on 'High', and the Color Temperature on 'Cool'. It results in a peak brightness of 766 cd/m² in the 2% window.

The Sony A90K has an excellent HDR color gamut. It has perfect coverage of the most commonly-used DCI-P3 color space, and it has decent Rec. 2020 coverage. The tone mapping with bright scenes is good overall, but saturated colors are a bit off, causing a loss of fine details in certain scenes. These results are nearly identical to the Sony 42 A90K OLED.

The Sony A90K has good color volume. It displays dark colors well because of its near-infinite contrast ratio. Because of its W-OLED panel and white subpixel, pure whites are much brighter than colors, and it doesn't look as vibrant as the Sony A95K OLED.

The Sony A90K has good accuracy before calibration. Except for cyan, most colors are displayed accurately. The color temperature is very slightly on the cold side, but again, it's not noticeable. The biggest issues are with gamma and the white balance. Gamma is slightly darker than our 2.2 target in dark scenes, and bright shades of gray are a bit off. Note that monitors and TVs use different calibration targets, so these results aren't comparable to the Sony 42 A90K OLED.

The Sony A90K is easy to calibrate, and the overall image accuracy is fantastic after calibration to the D65 white point.

You can see the full settings for our calibration here.

The Sony A90K has excellent gray uniformity. The screen is uniform throughout, with very little dirty screen effect in the center that could be distracting while watching sports. Like any OLED, there are thin vertical lines in near-black scenes, but they're hard to spot unless you sit close. There's much less vignetting on the 48" model than there is on the Sony 42 A90K OLED.

Like any OLED TV, the Sony A90K has perfect black uniformity, as any pixel that's displaying black is turned off. It results in a perfectly uniform image with no blooming around bright highlights.

The Sony A90K has an amazing viewing angle. The image remains consistent when viewed from the sides, which is great if you have a wide seating arrangement or like to move around with the TV on. Colors shift a bit at a moderate angle, especially greens, which is a bit noticeable at the sides of the screen if you're using it as a PC monitor and like to sit close to the screen, but it's not a significant issue.

The Sony A90K has superb reflection handling. Reflections from bright light sources aren't very noticeable, but the anti-reflective coating gives everything a bit of a purple tint.

The Sony A90K has superb gradient handling. There's a bit of banding in dark shades of gray and green, but even that is hard to notice. You won't see much banding with regular content. There's a Smooth Gradation feature to further improve gradient handling, and it works well with real content.

The Sony A90K uses an RWBG panel, also known as W-OLED, with four subpixels. Because all four pixels are never all on at the same time, you can see different pixel configurations here and here, and here.

The Sony A90K has a near-instantaneous response time that results in no noticeable motion blur behind fast-moving objects. However, due to the sample-and-hold nature of all OLED panels, there's still persistence blur, especially with low frame rate content.

The Sony A90K isn't technically flicker-free, but it doesn't use pulse-width modulation (PWM) to adjust the brightness of the display. There's a small dip in brightness that corresponds to the display's refresh rate; however, it isn't noticeable.

The Sony A90K has an optional black frame insertion feature to reduce persistence blur. Like all 2022 OLED TVs, it only works with 60 fps content, which is disappointing. The BFI score is based on the flicker frequencies at which it works and not the actual performance.

The Sony A90K has a motion interpolation feature to bring 30 and 60 fps content up to 120 fps. It works well with lower settings in most content, but like all TVs, there are some artifacts with fast-moving content.

Due to the Sony A90K's near-instantaneous response time, there's significant stutter with lower-frame-rate content as each frame is held on longer.

The Sony A90K removes 24p judder from any source, including 60p/i sources that don't have a Match Frame Rate feature, which helps with the appearance of motion in movies. However, if you enable the BFI feature, it can't remove judder from 60p/i sources.

The Sony A90K supports HDMI Forum VRR to reduce screen tearing, but like all Sony TVs, it doesn't support FreeSync. It supports Low Framerate Compensation to continue working with low frame rates. Sadly, the lack of FreeSync support is disappointing if you have a PC with an older AMD graphics card, as only the latest AMD GPUs support HDMI Forum VRR.

The Sony A90K has low input lag in Game Mode. It's a bit higher than most similar TVs, like the LG C2 OLED, but it's still good enough for a responsive gaming experience.

The Sony A90K supports most common signals under the HDMI 2.1 bandwidth up to 4k @ 120Hz with HDMI ports 3 and 4. 4k @ 120Hz signals are displayed properly on those two ports, including proper 4:4:4 or RGB for clear text, with no resolution-halving issues. The TV doesn't support 1440p; it upscales 1440p signals to 4k or shows a black screen when trying to force a 1440p signal.

The Sony A90K works well with the PS5, but you have to use HDMI ports 3 or 4 to get the most out of your PS5. It's part of Sony's "Perfect for PS5" program, and it has a few PS5-specific features like the Auto HDR Tone Mapping and Auto Genre Picture Mode.

The Sony A90K also works well with the Xbox Series X, but again, you have to use HDMI ports 3 or 4 to get the most out of it. It supports Dolby Vision gaming, but only with a fixed 60Hz refresh rate, as you have to choose between VRR support and Dolby Vision support.

The Sony A90K supports the maximum HDMI 2.1 bandwidth of 48Gbps, but only on HDMI ports 3 and 4. HDMI ports 1 and 2 are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth. Unfortunately, HDMI port 3 is also the eARC port, so if you want to use a receiver with eARC, you can only connect one high bandwidth source, like a console, at a time.

The Sony A90K supports eARC, allowing you to pass high-quality, uncompressed audio to a compatible receiver through an HDMI cable. You can also connect a compatible Sony soundbar to the S-Center speaker input and use the TV's speakers as a center channel.

The Sony A90K has a mediocre frequency response. Like most TVs, there's very little bass response, so action scenes have very little thump or rump. Above the low-frequency extension (LFE), the frequency response is smooth in the mid and low treble range, so most dialogue is crisp and easy to understand. There's a bit of a drop-off in the mid to high treble range, but it's not noticeable. It gets very loud, but the drop-off in treble is even worse at high volume levels, and there's some compression.

The Sony A90K has good distortion performance. There's a bit of audible harmonic distortion, and it's a bit worse at high volume levels.

The Sony A90K comes with the same Google TV smart platform as other 2022 Sony TVs. It's easy to use and fast.

Unfortunately, like most TVs, there are ads throughout the interface. You can opt-out of personalized ads; however, this doesn't change how many ads you'll see; rather, it just limits how personalized they are.

The built-in Google Play Store has a great selection of additional apps, so you're sure to find your favorite content.

The included remote is compact but well-built and has a great selection of features. The buttons are backlit, and there's an ambient light sensor on the remote that automatically activates the backlight when needed. There's a mic on the remote, and the TV also has a built-in mic that allows for hands-free voice control. With simple voice commands, you can change inputs, launch apps, or search for content.

There's a single button behind the TV to turn it On/Off, change channels, adjust the volume, or switch inputs. It also has a switch to turn the built-in mic on or off if you're concerned about privacy.

• Remote control
• 2x AAA batteries
• Leg extenders
• Cable management tie wrap
• User guides