Sony A9G OLED TV Review

The Sony A9G is a high-end 2019 OLED TV and directly replaces the 2018 Sony A9F OLED. All OLEDs deliver very similar overall picture quality, so the design and the additional features are the main differences from one to the other. The main competitors to the Sony A9G are the LG B9 OLED, LG E9 OLED, LG C9 OLED, and Sony A8G OLED. The main LED competitors are the Sony Z9F, the Samsung Q90/Q90R QLED, and the Samsung Q80/Q80R QLED.

The Sony A9G's design is outstanding. It has a clean and minimalist look, with thin bezels on all sides, and the flat stand doesn't take up a lot of space. However, unlike the A8G, the stand isn't adjustable, making it difficult to place a soundbar in front without blocking part of the screen.

The stand is flat and it supports the TV well, with only a slight wobble when nudged. As mentioned, the stand isn't adjustable, which can be an issue if you also have a soundbar.

The footprint of the 55" model is 18,3" x 10.1"

The back of the TV has an interesting checkerboard design, with vents for cooling the TV's internals and panels to hide the inputs. There's cable management built-in, routing all the cables to a single exit at the bottom for a clean setup.

The borders are thin and won't distract you in any way.

The TV is very thin and won't stick out when wall-mounted.

The build quality is excellent. The TV feels premium and is very solid with no gaps or loose ends. You should have no issues with it.

Like all OLED TVs, the A9G has an infinite contrast ratio capable of producing perfect blacks.

Due to OLED's emissive technology, this TV can turn individual pixels off and doesn't need a backlight. As such, there are no issues with blooming around bright objects in dark scenes, and subtitles are displayed perfectly.

SDR peak brightness is decent. The TV gets bright enough for most settings, but visibility can be an issue in very bright rooms.

We measured the peak brightness after calibration, using 'Custom' Picture Mode, with Peak Luminance set to 'High', and Color temperature set to 'Expert 1'.

If you don't care about image accuracy, you can obtain higher brightness levels. We were able to momentarily reach 768 nits with the 2% window using the default settings of the 'Vivid' Picture Mode, Brightness set to 'Max', Contrast set to 'Max', Peak Luminance set to 'High', Adv. Contrast enhancer set to 'High', and Color set to '60'.

Decent HDR peak brightness. It's good enough to display bright highlights in HDR content when viewing in a dark environment, but it isn't as noticeable in a bright setting.

We measured the peak brightness, using 'HDR Cinema' Picture Mode, with Brightness set to 'Max', and Color temperature set to 'Expert 1'.

If you don't care about image accuracy, you can obtain higher brightness levels. We were able to momentarily reach 794 nits with the 2% window using the default settings of the 'Vivid' Picture Mode, Brightness set to 'Max', Contrast set to 'Max', Black Level set to 'High', Adv. Contrast enhancer set to 'High', and Color set to '60'.

Gray uniformity is excellent. There's no noticeable dirty screen effect and uniformity in darker scenes is equally outstanding. Like previous OLED TVs, there are some very faint horizontal and vertical lines that are noticeable when displaying near-black scenes in a dark room.

The Sony A9G has excellent viewing angles. This is great for large rooms or seating arrangements that require you to view from the side.

Like all OLED TVs, black uniformity is perfect.

Outstanding reflection handling. Although it has a glossy finish, it's very effective at reducing the intensity of reflected light, making it suitable for use in most bright rooms.

The color accuracy is decent out-of-the-box. There are some inaccuracies with several colors, particularly with shades of gray, and the color temperature is much warmer than our target of 6500K, resulting in a slightly reddish tint. Gamma doesn't follow the target, with most scenes appearing brighter than they should. If you want a TV that has better out-of-the-box accuracy, check out the Sony A9S OLED.

Color accuracy is exceptional after calibration. The color temperature is almost right on target and gamma is perfect. Any remaining inaccuracies shouldn't be noticeable without the aid of a colorimeter.

The TV features an auto-calibration feature, but you still need a colorimeter.

You can see our recommended settings here.

The A9G upscales 480p content, like DVDs, well, with no obvious upscaling artifacts.

720p content, like cable, looks good and is displayed without any obvious issues.

1080p content, like Blu-rays or older game consoles, looks excellent.

4k content is displayed perfectly.

The Sony A9G can't display an 8k signal.

Like all other OLEDs, this TV uses a 4 sub-pixel structure, but all 4 sub-pixels are never on at the same time. This image shows the green, white, and blue sub-pixels. You can see the red sub-pixel in our alternative pixel photo.

The Sony A9G has an impressive wide color gamut. The EOTF follows the input stimulus well until it starts a sharp roll-off towards the TV's peak brightness. The 'Game' mode EOTF is almost identical as you can see here, although some brighter scenes might be slightly brighter than they should be.

If you find HDR too dim, check out our recommendations here. These settings make the TV significantly brighter in HDR mode, as shown in this EOTF.

The color volume is decent. The TV has difficulty displaying bright saturated colors, as the use of the white subpixel to boost brightness desaturates the pure colors at high brightness levels.

Exceptional gradient performance, however, there's some very minor banding when displaying gray, green, and red. The TV's Smooth Gradation feature can remove most of it, but it may cause a loss of some fine details.

The Sony A9G exhibits some very faint temporary image retention, although this isn't noticeable in normal use.

This test is only indicative of short term image retention, and not the permanent burn-in that may occur with longer exposure to static images. We're currently running a long-term test to help us better understand permanent burn-in. You can see our results and read more about our investigation here.

Although we don't expect most people who watch a varied content to have any issues, there are risks of permanent burn-in on the A9G, just like on all OLED TVs.

This TV has two features to help mitigate burn-in. We recommend enabling the Pixel Shift option and run the Panel refresh procedure once a year or less, as Sony recommends.

You can read about our investigation into this here.

The response time is superb. It's near-instantaneous, resulting in a clear image with almost no motion blur.

This TV doesn't use PWM to dim. However, there's an imperceptible dip in brightness at about every 8ms, which is in-line with the TV's 120Hz refresh rate.

Update 01/11/2021: We've retested the BFI and can confirm that the backlight flickers at 96Hz in 24p content when the Clearness is set to 'Low' or 'Medium', and 48Hz when it's set to 'High'. This is the same behavior that we noticed on the Sony A8H OLED and Sony A9S OLED.

This TV has an optional black frame insertion feature that can help further reduce the appearance of motion blur.

BFI is enabled on the A9G by setting Motionflow to 'Custom' and Clearness to 'High'. When BFI is enabled, it causes judder when playing back 60p content.

The Sony A9G can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120Hz, otherwise known as the Soap Opera Effect. If there's too much motion, the TV stops interpolating in order to avoid causing artifacts. This sudden change in motion can cause the image to appear jerky.

See here for the settings that control the A9G's motion interpolation feature.

Due to the TV's near-instantaneous response time, lower frame rate content can appear to stutter, as frames are held on for longer. If you're bothered by it, enabling motion interpolation and BFI can help.

The Sony A9G can remove judder from any source. However, when BFI is enabled, the TV has judder when playing back 60p content.

See our recommended settings to remove judder here.

The Sony A9G has a native 120Hz panel; however, it doesn't support any variable refresh rate technology to reduce screen tearing when gaming.

This TV has excellent low input lag. Two picture modes provide low latency: 'Game' or 'Graphics' mode. You can use either one for proper chroma 4:4:4 support, but 'Game' mode is recommended. Unfortunately, enabling motion interpolation does add a significant amount of input lag.

Note: the 1440p @120Hz input lag measurement was done using another PC, as the TV could not display the 1440p @ 120Hz resolution from our laptop. This shouldn't have a significant impact on the measured input lag.

If you want a TV with lower input lag, check out the Sony A8H OLED.