Sony A90J OLED TV Review

The Sony A90J looks similar to other high-end Sony OLEDs and has an adjustable stand. With its thin bezels and metal accents, it looks sleek and premium and is sure to make an impression in any living room.

Update 10/16/2023: After seeing its brightness surprisingly increase after eight months, the TV's brightness has come back down to expected levels. Again, we're not sure why the TV's brightness is fluctuating so much.

The stand can be set up in one of two ways, either with the feet flat, bringing the TV flush against the table, or raised up to give you space for a soundbar. There's also a third configuration where the feet face inward to make a smaller footprint, but it's only available on the 83-inch variant.

Footprint of the stand: 51.1"x12.5" (standard position) or 45.3"x12.5" (soundbar position)

The Sony A90J doesn't have much in the way of cable management except for some paneling that covers a portion of the cables and an included cable tie, but overall it looks fairly clean. The back of the panel itself is metal, while the rest is plastic with vertical ridges. Some of the inputs are bottom-facing and are hard to reach when the TV is wall-mounted.

The Sony A90J's build quality is superb. It feels incredibly sturdy in either of the stand positions, with no wobble or flex. It's a very solid-feeling TV, as expected from a high-end model like this.

The Sony A90J has a near-infinite contrast ratio thanks to its OLED panel, which can produce perfect blacks. They look deep and inky in a dark room, which is ideal for movies.

Since this TV uses self-emissive OLED technology, there's absolutely no blooming around bright highlights or subtitles in otherwise dark scenes.

The panel doesn't have a backlight, but thanks to its nearly infinite contrast ratio, it has the equivalent of a perfect local dimming feature with no zone transitions. We still film the zone transition video on the TV so you can see how the screen performs and compare it with a TV that has local dimming.

There's no difference in dark scene behavior between the calibrated picture modes and Game Mode.

The Sony A90J has good HDR brightness, good enough to make bright highlights pop. However, there isn't much consistency across scenes with different luminance levels due to the TV's Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL). It performs similarly to the LG G1 OLED, but it's not as bright as the LG G2 OLED. Warming up the TV doesn't significantly impact the HDR brightness.

These measurements are before calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Custom
• Brightness: Max
• Contrast: 90
• Color Temperature: Expert 1
• HDR Tone Mapping: Gradation Preferred

We also measured the brightness in the 'Vivid' Picture Mode. It reached 777 nits in the Real Scene Highlight and 976 nits in the 10% window.

In 2021, there’s a new settings menu called HDR Tone Mapping. Our measurements use the 'Gradation Preferred' setting, but it may be helpful to note that while the 'Gradation Preferred' setting results in a more accurate EOTF, the 'Brightness Preferred' setting lets you get a brighter image without having to make too many other adjustments. If you want to see the difference these settings make, you can see the 'Brightness Preferred' EOTF here and the EOTF with HDR Tone Mapping disabled here.

To make HDR brighter, set Advanced Contrast Enhancer to 'High', Peak Brightness to 'High', set Brightness, Contrast, and Gamma to max, and 'Brightness Preferred' in the HDR Tone Mapping menu. These settings result in this EOTF. We should also note that we were able to adjust the settings to achieve a peak HDR brightness measurement of 1291 nits in the 2% window, which is close to the 1300 nits that early reviews claimed. However, the screen got very hot and quickly dropped back down to a lower luminance level, so while the TV is technically capable of hitting an exceptionally high peak brightness for an OLED, realistically speaking, you won’t get that kind of brightness with real content using ideal settings.

The HDR brightness in 'Game' mode is very similar to the HDR brightness outside of ‘Game’ mode. That said, the brightness measured slightly lower than outside of 'Game' mode, especially the real scene brightness. As with SDR, you can set HDR Tone Mapping to 'Brightness Preferred' to get a slightly brighter image, though we expect that this will depend highly on the content. Warming up the TV makes certain Real Scenes brighter, but doesn't change much overall.

These measurements are before calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Game
• Brightness: Max
• Contrast: 90
• Color Temperature: Expert 1
• HDR Tone Mapping: Gradation Preferred

These are measurements in the 'Game' Picture Mode with the Brightness Preferred setting enabled:

• Real Scene Highlight: 667 cd/m²
• Peak 2% Window: 804 cd/m²
• Peak 10% Window: 769 cd/m²
• Peak 25% Window: 511 cd/m²
• Peak 50% Window: 293 cd/m²
• Peak 100% Window: 193 cd/m²
• Sustained 2% Window: 763 cd/m²
• Sustained 10% Window: 723 cd/m²
• Sustained 25% Window: 499 cd/m²
• Sustained 50% Window: 293 cd/m²
• Sustained 100% Window: 192 cd/m²

The TV has superb PQ EOTF tracking, so content is displayed at the correct brightness level. It's slightly over-brightened at all luminance levels but barely so, and it never strays far from what it should be. The TV follows the curve nearly perfectly up until the panel's max brightness, followed by a slow roll-off which preserves bright details.

The Sony A90J has okay SDR brightness. It’s a bit dim in real scenes compared to an LED TV, and the Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL) causes scenes with large areas of brightness to dim overall, so the brightness isn’t the most consistent across different scenes. It's a bit brighter than the new, smaller sizes of the Sony A90K OLED. Warming up the TV has no significant impact on its SDR brightness. If you want a high-end TV that gets much brighter, check out the Samsung QN900A 8k QLED.

These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Custom
• Brightness: Max
• Peak Luminance: High
• Color Temperature: Expert 1

We checked the brightness with other Picture Modes. 'Cinema' isn't as bright as 'Custom' because it has a Real Scene Peak Brightness of 248 nits. 'Vivid' is also still brighter as we measured a peak of 780 nits in the 10% window.

The TV has an excellent color gamut. It's wide enough for HDR content and has near-perfect coverage of the commonly used DCI P3 color space. Its coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 is only decent, though.

The color volume is decent. It only really struggles a bit with very bright colors, which aren't as bright as on QD-OLED displays like the Samsung S95B OLED.

The Sony A90J has amazing pre-calibration color accuracy. Colors and white balance are both excellent, with few inaccuracies. The color temperature is quite close to our 6500K target, but it's on the cooler side. Lastly, gamma follows the target very well, with only the brightest scenes appearing a bit brighter than they should.

After calibration, the Sony A90J has exceptional color accuracy. Any remaining inaccuracies aren't noticeable, and the TV's color temperature is very close to the target value. Gamma is practically perfect. The TV was also very easy to calibrate. You can download the Calman for Bravia app to access 20-point calibration and Custom Pro, but you also need a 2018 version of Calman or newer on your PC to access calibration. You can see our full calibration settings here.

The Sony A90J has excellent gray uniformity. The screen looks very uniform overall with almost no dirty screen effect, and we didn't notice any banding or issues in near-dark scenes, although this can occur with more extensive use.

Note: A few owners have reported seeing a grid-like pattern on their TVs in uniform scenes. It's usually not noticeable with real content, but this is a manufacturing defect; if you see it on yours, you should exchange it.

Since OLEDs can turn off individual pixels, the Sony A90J has perfect black uniformity, with no distracting blooming or halo effect around bright areas of the screen in dark scenes.

The Sony A90J has an excellent viewing angle, but it's not quite as good as the LG A1 OLED. It's wide enough that the image won't look washed except at extreme angles, where the TV is considerably dimmer.

The Sony A90J has fantastic reflection handling. It diffuses both direct and indirect reflections very well, so glare isn't an issue, especially in more moderate lighting conditions.

The Sony A90J has great gradient handling in HDR, with only bright greens having noticeable banding.

The Sony A90J has excellent low-quality content processing. It's very effective at smoothing out macro-blocking and pixelization when streaming content, with very little loss of fine details.

The TV has superb sharpness processing and upscaling overall. Fine details in low-resolution content are upscaled well, and text is clear and easy to read.

These results are with the following processing settings:

• Sharpness: 60
• Reality Creation: Auto

The Sony A90J uses a WRGB sub-pixel layout, where all four subpixels are never lit simultaneously. While this TV is said to be able to brighten all four pixels at once to achieve a higher peak brightness, we never saw all four sub-pixels lit at the same time, even when we recorded 1291 nits. You can see some of the blue sub-pixels lit up in this photo.

Like all OLEDs, this TV has an incredibly fast pixel response time. There's very little blur behind fast-moving objects, but due to the sample-and-hold nature of OLED technology, there's still some noticeable persistence blur.

The TV isn't quite flicker-free, as a small decrease in brightness corresponds with the display's refresh cycle. It's very different from pulse width modulation flicker (PWM) on TVs with LED backlights and isn't noticeable.

The TV has an optional black frame insertion feature (BFI) that reduces the appearance of persistence blur caused by the TV's nearly instantaneous pixel response time. BFI also reduces the TV's perceived brightness, which is noticeable.

The TV can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120fps to make motion look smoother, which is also known as the 'Soap Opera Effect'. It performs fine during slower scenes, but there's a fair number of artifacts in busier scenes or panning shots.

Due to the TV's nearly instantaneous response time, there's noticeable stutter with low frame rate content. The black frame insertion feature and the motion interpolation feature can help reduce the appearance of stutter, but they both have their drawbacks.

Unlike the LG A1 OLED, the Sony A90J TV can remove judder from all sources. You don't need to enable any additional settings for native 24p content. For 24p content via 60p/i or via native apps, set Cinemotion to 'High' and Motionflow to 'Custom' but leave the sliders at 0.

The TV has HDMI Forum VRR support with firmware v6.4048, and it works without any issue on the Xbox Series X for a tear-free gaming experience. However, it doesn't support FreeSync. It's also G-SYNC compatible, but there are some issues with it. It removes tearing with 4k @ 120Hz signals from the NVIDIA RTX 3060 graphics card, but at first, the screen flickered until the TV and PC were both reset. Still, there wasn't any screen tearing or flicker in Destiny 2 with a 4k @ 120H signal. Despite there being a few issues depending on the signal, VRR reduces screen tearing when it works properly.

The TV has a low input lag, although it's slightly higher than competing high-end models and rises significantly outside of 'Game' mode. To get low latency, you can use either the 'Game' or 'Graphics' Picture Mode, though we recommend 'Game' mode to get the lowest latency for gaming.

The TV supports most common resolutions up to 4k @ 120Hz. However, 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 A90J is not fully compatible with the PS5 due to not supporting 1440p. Still, as part of Sony's 'Perfect for PS5' lineup, it supports a few unique features when paired with a PS5, including Auto HDR Tone Mapping and Auto Genre Picture Mode. After a firmware update to version PKG6.5660.0668NAA, the Sony Bravia XR A90J also now supports both VRR and ALLM.

We received comments suggesting that the A90J has more banding issues in HDR at 4k @ 120Hz than in SDR. We retested the TV to check for this. With Destiny 2 on the Xbox Series X, there was slightly more banding in HDR in parts of the sky or the main menu, but you'd have to look for it to notice. On the PS5, we tested with Call of Duty: Cold War, and the visibility of banding is highly dependent on the map. With some maps, there was noticeable banding in both SDR and HDR, although it was worse in HDR. In others, the banding was more minimal and only noticeable in clouds in HDR. With Destiny 2 on the RTX 3070, however, we didn't notice an appreciable difference between SDR and HDR regarding banding. It leads us to believe that while there is more banding in HDR than in SDR at 4k @ 120Hz, it's highly dependent on the content.

The Sony A90J can nearly take full advantage of the Xbox Series S|X consoles. It only supports Dolby Vision gaming at 60Hz, not at 120Hz, though, and the TV doesn't support 1440p. After a firmware update to version PKG6.5660.0668NAA, the TV now supports both VRR and ALLM.

We received comments suggesting that the A90J has more banding issues in HDR at 4k @ 120Hz than in SDR. We retested the TV to check for this. With Destiny 2 on the Xbox Series X, there was slightly more banding in HDR in parts of the sky or the main menu, but you'd have to look for it to notice. On the PS5, we tested with Call of Duty: Cold War, and the visibility of banding is highly dependent on the map. With some maps, there was noticeable banding in both SDR and HDR, although it was worse in HDR. In others, the banding was more minimal and only noticeable in clouds in HDR. With Destiny 2 on the RTX 3070, however, we didn't notice an appreciable difference between SDR and HDR regarding banding. It leads us to believe that while there is more banding in HDR than in SDR at 4k @ 120Hz, it's highly dependent on the content.

HDMI ports 3 and 4 support the full 48 Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, while HDMI 1 and 2 are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth. However, because HDMI 3 is also the eARC port, you lose an HDMI 2.1 slot if you connect a receiver, so you can't use HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on multiple devices simultaneously.

The Sony XR55A90J supports eARC, allowing you to pass high-quality, uncompressed audio to a compatible receiver through an HDMI cable. It supports all major audio formats, so you don't have to worry about compatibility with external sources.

The TV has a decent frequency response. It has more bass than most TVs but is still very muted. While dialogue sounds okay overall, and the TV gets very loud, there's a lot of compression at higher volumes, resulting in pumping artifacts.

Distortion performance is decent. There isn't much distortion at most volume levels, but it gets quite distorted at max volume.

The TV uses the Google TV smart platform, which is very smooth and fairly easy to navigate, with no bugs or issues.

Unfortunately, there are ads in the app store and on the home page, which you can't turn off. You can opt out of some suggested content, but you can't get rid of it completely.

The Google Play Store has tons of apps available to download, and they run very smoothly. It has Google Chromecast built-in, meaning you can cast content from your phone.

The Sony Bravia A90J has a similar remote to other Sony OLEDs, like the Sony A9S OLED. It has shortcut buttons to the most popular streaming apps and a dedicated Google Assistant button that activates its voice command feature. You can use voice commands to change inputs, adjust certain settings, search within apps, and more. It can also be used as a universal remote, although it may depend on your country and particular device. The remote also has new, motion-activated backlighting, so you can see the buttons in the dark. We also tested the TV to check if it still works with the Android TV app, even though it now has Google TV. It works perfectly, and you get the same features as you did with Android TV, like voice control.

There's a single button on the back of the left side. Press it to move through options and hold it to select, which is also how you can choose to power the TV on/off.

• Remote control
• 2x AAA batteries
• Documentation
• Cable tie