Sony INZONE M9 Monitor Review

The Sony INZONE M9 Monitor has a unique design and a gamer aesthetic. The front of the monitor has a simple design, and the back shares many similar design elements with the PS5 and the other Sony INZONE products, like the Sony INZONE H7 Wireless. The stand has three legs that support the monitor like a tripod.

The build quality is decent. It's mostly plastic, and some of it feels pretty cheap and not very premium. The stand doesn't work as well as it should for a monitor at this price point; it wobbles quite a bit and takes a while to recover from wobble.

The ergonomics are disappointing. It's hard to adjust the screen for others, and even its height adjustment is limited. The back of the monitor is pretty plain, with an RGB light strip near the top of the display and a hook on the back of the stand for basic cable management.

The height adjustment is at an angle, so the total thickness varies depending on the height of the display. At the lowest point, the total thickness is about 9.7" (24.7 cm), and at the highest setting, it's about 8.3" (21.1 cm), so the distance between the user and the screen varies as you adjust the height.

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

• Power cord
• Power supply
• User guides
• Stickers

Unfortunately, it doesn't come with any cables to connect it with your source.

The Sony INZONE M9 has a mediocre contrast ratio, so 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.

The local dimming feature is just okay. It has 96 zones in an 8x12 array. The zones are still a bit too large to allow for precise dimming in dark scenes, and the algorithm tends to turn on more zones on 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. It also keeps up with fast-moving content well, so you don't see a trailing bright edge behind fast-moving, bright objects.

It's an okay implementation of local dimming, but it's limited by the relatively small number of zones, and because it tends to turn on more zones than necessary, the impact is limited. You can see two real scene videos of the local dimming feature in action and from an angle.

If you want a 4k monitor with similar features and a better local dimming feature, look into the Cooler Master Tempest GP27U.

This monitor has great brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to overcome glare in a bright room, and there's no variation in brightness between content. That said, if you want something even brighter, look into the INNOCN 27M2V.

These results are from after calibration in the 'Game 1' Picture Mode with Brightness set to max and Local Dimming set to 'High.'

The HDR brightness is great. It gets bright enough for an impactful HDR experience, and while large highlights pop, small highlights are dimmed. The PQ EOTF follows the target curve well for the most part, but with a slow roll-off at the peak brightness, it doesn't let highlights get the brightest they can.

These results are from the 'Game 1' Picture Mode with HDR enabled, Local Dimming set to 'High,' and Brightness set to max. The picture modes available depend on the source, as 'Game 1' is the only mode available with a PC, and 'Cinema' is the only mode with a Blu-ray player.

The horizontal viewing angle is just alright. Although it has an IPS panel, the image washes out from wide angles, but it's still fine if you want to use it for a co-op gaming session with your friend sitting right next to you.

The vertical viewing angle is decent, but the image washes out if you're looking at it from above or below.

The Sony M9 has very good gray uniformity. There's very little dirty screen effect in the center, but the sides of the screen are a bit darker.

This monitor has passable black uniformity. With local dimming disabled, the entire screen is cloudy, and there are a few bright spots throughout the screen where the backlight isn't quite even. With local dimming enabled on 'High,' there's noticeable blooming around bright objects, but the uniformity is better besides that.

The Sony M9 has okay accuracy before calibration. It doesn't have an sRGB mode, so colors are way too oversaturated, and there are some inaccuracies in most colors. However, the white balance is excellent, and the color temperature is close to the 6500K target with the Color Temperature setting 'Warm.' Even gamma follows that target sRGB curve well, but dark scenes are too dark.

The accuracy after calibration is fantastic. The main advantage of calibrating it is that colors aren't oversaturated anymore, and other inaccuracies are hard to see.

The SDR color gamut is fantastic. It displays 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, so it isn't ideal for publishing.

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

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

The text clarity is fantastic. Using Windows ClearType (top photo) results in sharp text, but it isn't necessary to use. The matte screen coating introduces some haziness, but it isn't the worst case of it either.

The Sony INZONE M9 has good reflection handling as the coating significantly reduces the intensity of bright lights. Thanks to its high peak brightness, you won't have any issues using it in a well-lit room.

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

Oddly, the max refresh rate over HDMI is limited to 120Hz, even if the HDMI ports have enough bandwidth for a 144Hz signal. Even forcing a 144Hz refresh rate doesn't work, so the only way to get the max refresh rate is over DisplayPort.

On top of supporting FreeSync VRR and G-SYNC compatibility, it 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 rate drops. The 'Standard' overdrive is better if you want more consistency across the VRR range, but it has more blur.

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

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 144Hz is very good. Motion looks sharp with the 'Fast' overdrive, 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 just 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.

Unfortunately, this monitor doesn't have an optional backlight strobing feature, which is commonly known as black frame insertion.

There isn't any noticeable VRR flicker with changing frame rates, which is fantastic for gaming. However, you need to update the firmware to M009 and newer to make sure you aren't experiencing any issues. On previous firmware, there were some VRR flicker issues, particularly with the PS5. After playing certain games for a few minutes, the monitor sometimes started flickering severely, even if you closed the game and changed sources. This issue occurred frequently with Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales on the PS5. However, this doesn't happen after updating the firmware.

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

The Sony INZONE M9 has very low input lag, ensuring a responsive gaming or desktop experience at any refresh rate.

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

This monitor is nearly fully compatible with the Xbox Series S|X. However, the console doesn't support HDR with 1080p or 1440p signals, so this isn't a limitation of the monitor.

It supports USB-C and power delivery, but it doesn't deliver enough power to charge a laptop while you're using it.

The Sony INZONE M9 works well with macOS. There are no issues with VRR, and if you're using a MacBook, windows return to their original position when you wake the computer from sleep or if you close and reopen the lid.

This monitor has a few extra features, including:

• Crosshair: Adds a virtual crosshair to any game that can't be detected by the 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 adjust bright scenes.

It also has a KVM switch that makes it easy to switch between two sources and use the same keyboard and mouse connected to the monitor. However, you need to update the firmware to get it work.

The on-screen display is organized in a logical way and is easy to navigate.