The Sony A95L OLED is Sony's flagship 4k QD-OLED TV in 2023, replacing the Sony A95K OLED. It's powered by Sony's Cognitive Processor XR image processor and is the only Sony TV in 2023 to use MediaTek's latest Pentonic 1000 HDMI chipset. It uses the popular Google TV smart interface, which is easy to use, has a huge selection of streaming apps, and has an internal microphone for hands-free voice control. It also supports Sony's S-Center speaker input, which can turn the TV into a center speaker channel for a connected soundbar or home theater receiver, and an ATSC 3.0 tuner for up to 4k over-the-air broadcast support. We bought and tested the 65-inch model, but it's available in 55- and 77-inch sizes, so there's something for most viewing environments.
Our Verdict
The Sony A95L is excellent for mixed usage. It's an excellent gaming TV thanks to its responsiveness and modern gaming features. You also get perfect blacks, punchy colors, incredible accuracy, and impressive HDR brightness, so it looks amazing whether you're gaming or using it in a dedicated home theater. It looks good in a bright room too, since it has decent SDR brightness and fights glare from both direct and indirect light sources. However, its black levels do rise when exposed to ambient lighting, so you do lose some of the visual impact an OLED has in a dark room. Finally, the TV has an incredibly wide viewing angle, which makes it great for watching content with a large group of friends or family.
Perfect blacks with no blooming around bright highlights.
Incredibly wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
Does a great job lessening the intensity of direct reflections.
Black levels are drastically raised in rooms with the lights on.
The Sony A95L is amazing for a home theater. Since it's an OLED, it displays perfect blacks with no blooming. You also get impressively bright highlights in HDR content, and its QD-OLED technology means it displays a huge range of vibrant and lifelike colors with almost no banding, so HDR content looks stellar. Colors and the brightness of HDR content are incredibly accurate, so this is a TV that stays true to the filmmaker's intent without needing calibration. You also get Sony's top-tier upscaling and low-quality content smoothing, so you get a solid-looking image when watching low-bitrate streams or DVDs. Unfortunately, due to the TV's nearly instantaneous response time, there's noticeable stutter in movies and TV shows.
Perfect blacks with no blooming around bright highlights.
Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
Does an outstanding job upscaling and a great job cleaning up low-quality content.
Impressive HDR peak brightness means highlights really pop.
Noticeable stutter due to the TV's fast response time.
The Sony A95L is good for a bright room overall. It has great direct reflection handling, which really helps to reduce the intensity of any lights you have placed opposite the screen. It also has the SDR brightness needed to handle glare in most bright rooms. Ambient lighting doesn't have a big impact on the perceived saturation of colors, so you can enjoy a vibrant-looking image regardless of your lighting conditions. Unfortunately, ambient lighting causes its black levels to raise significantly, and the TV has a slight purple tint to it when in a bright room. This makes the image look a bit washed out, so you lose the impact this OLED has when viewed in a darker room.
Colors stay vibrant in a room with ambient lighting.
Does a great job lessening the intensity of direct reflections.
Black levels are drastically raised in rooms with the lights on.
The Sony A95L is great for watching sports. It does a great job of reducing the intensity of direct reflections and has the SDR brightness needed to handle glare in a well-lit room. It has outstanding upscaling capabilities and does an impressive job removing artifacts from heavily compressed streams and broadcasts, so you get a clean-looking image that doesn't look too soft when the game you're watching isn't presented in an ideal way. This TV really excels with colors, so colors in sports are accurate and really stand out. You also aren't distracted by the dirty screen effect thanks to its very good uniformity, and its incredibly wide viewing angle means it delivers a consistent image if you're stuck watching from the sides of the screen, making it great for large group gatherings.
Incredibly wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
Nearly instantaneous pixel transitions for no noticeable blur behind fast motion.
Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
Does an outstanding job upscaling and a great job cleaning up low-quality content.
Does a great job lessening the intensity of direct reflections.
Very good gray uniformity with no noticeable dirty screen effect.
The Sony A95L is excellent for playing video games. It has nearly instantaneous pixel transitions, so motion is clear even in the fastest of games. Its input lag is a bit higher than models from competing brands, so although it's low enough for a responsive feel, you might want to look elsewhere if you mostly play PVP games. However, it has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth for up to 4k @ 120Hz with VRR, so you can fully take advantage of your PS5 or Series X. Blacks are inky, highlights in HDR games are impressively bright, and you get incredibly vibrant colors, which leads to a punchy and impactful image when gaming in HDR.
Nearly instantaneous pixel transitions for no noticeable blur behind fast motion.
Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
Impressive HDR peak brightness means highlights really pop.
Higher input lag than competing models from other brands.
The Sony A95L has very good overall brightness. Its HDR brightness is impressive, so you get bright and impactful highlights in HDR content. It's not as bright in SDR, but it's still decent enough to overcome glare in a room with ambient lighting.
Impressive HDR peak brightness means highlights really pop.
The Sony A95L is an OLED, so it has outstanding black levels. Blacks are deep and inky when viewed in a dark room, with no blooming around bright highlights.
Perfect blacks with no blooming around bright highlights.
The Sony A95L has superb colors. It displays the exceptionally saturated and bright colors QD-OLEDs are known for, so you get a very vibrant viewing experience in SDR and HDR. Furthermore, colors are very accurate without requiring calibration, so this is a TV that stays true to the content creator's intent out of the box.
Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
Note: We're in the process of improving our tests related to image processing, but this score should give you a general idea of how a TV performs overall with its image processing capabilities.
The Sony A95L has amazing processing overall. The brightness of HDR content is very accurate, thanks to its fantastic PQ EOTF tracking, and there's almost no banding in color gradients. You also get outstanding upscaling capabilities, and the TV does a great job cleaning up artifacts and low-quality content.
Does an outstanding job upscaling and a great job cleaning up low-quality content.
Fantastic HDR brightness accuracy.
Almost no banding at all in color gradients.
The Sony A95L has excellent responsiveness while in Game Mode. Pixels transition from one RGB value to another almost instantly, providing very sharp motion. You also get VRR for nearly tear-free gaming. It has low input lag, so it provides a responsive feel while gaming, but it's higher than competing models from other brands, so you might want to look elsewhere if you want the lowest input lag possible.
Nearly instantaneous pixel transitions for no noticeable blur behind fast motion.
Higher input lag than competing models from other brands.
We're in the process of fixing the way we evaluate a TV's overall motion handling. This section is currently broken, and the score isn't indicative of how well a TV handles motion overall.
Performance Usages
Changelog
- Updated May 08, 2025: Converted to Test Bench 2.0.1. We did this to fix an issue with our scoring in the Supported Resolutions section, since TVs with a refresh rate higher than 144Hz were being penalized for not supporting 144Hz.
- Updated May 07, 2025:
Mentioned the newly reviewed LG G5 OLED in the Ambient Black Level Raise section.
- Updated Mar 26, 2025:
We wrote text for the new tests and rewrote text throughout the review after updating pre-existing tests and scores for Test Bench 2.0.
- Updated Mar 26, 2025: We converted the review to Test Bench 2.0. With this new methodology, we've added new tests to expand the scope of our testing, adjusted our scoring to better align with current market conditions, and added performance usages that group related tests together to give more insight into specific aspects of a TV's performance. You can find a full list of changes in the TV 2.0 changelog.
Check Price
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the 65-inch Sony A95L, and these results also apply to the 55-inch and 77-inch models. There are no other variants of this TV, and it's the same in all regions.
| Size | Model | Available Stand Positions |
|---|---|---|
| 55" | XR-55A95L | Standard, Soundbar |
| 65" | XR-65A95L | Standard, Soundbar |
| 77" | XR-77A95L | Standard, Soundbar, Narrow |
Our unit was manufactured in September 2023.
Compared To Other TVs
The Sony A95L is one of the absolute best TVs that money can buy, and it offers a perfect combination of impressive picture quality and a wide range of features for everything from streaming shows to playing games. If you're strictly after the very best gaming TV, you can get slightly better performance from competing models like the Samsung S95D OLED and the LG G4 OLED. On the other hand, if you're after the very best TV for a home theater, the A95L is unmatched due to its superb accuracy, top-tier image processing, and exceptional overall image quality. Unfortunately, it's also significantly more expensive than similar models, and that extra cost isn't worth it for most people.
See our recommendations for the best 4k TVs, the best TVs for movies, and the best OLED TVs.
The LG G5 OLED and the Sony A95L OLED trade blows, but the LG is the better TV overall. The Sony has the advantage when it comes to colors, so it delivers more vivid colors in some content. However, the LG is certainly no slouch when it comes to color performance. On the other hand, the LG is brighter in HDR, so highlights and purely bright scenes are punchier in HDR. The LG also offers lower input lag, supports 165Hz, and supports FreeSync VRR, making it the more complete package for gamers. Finally, the LG is brighter in SDR and has better overall reflection handling, making it more suitable for bright rooms.
The Sony A95L OLED and the Sony BRAVIA 8 II OLED are very similar overall, but the A95L is a bit better. The A95L is brighter in SDR, has better accuracy in SDR, and has less banding in color gradients. On the other hand, the BRAVIA 8 II has a slight edge with HDR brightness and color volume. With most content, you won't notice a difference between them, so go with whatever model is more affordable.
The Sony A95L OLED is better than the Sony BRAVIA 8 OLED. The A95L uses a QD-OLED panel, displaying more vibrant, lifelike, and brighter colors in HDR with less banding. It's also brighter in HDR and has better PQ EOTF tracking, so highlights pop out more on it, and it displays an image that is closer to the content creator's intent. The A95L is brighter in SDR, too, so it overcomes a bit more glare in a bright room. The A95L also has much better pre-calibration accuracy; it's so impressive that even the most astute observers won't feel the need to get it calibrated.
The Samsung S95D OLED and the Sony A95L OLED are very similar TVs. The Sony model has better processing for low-quality and low-resolution content, so lower-quality streams or DVDs look better on it. The Sony also has better PQ EOTF tracking, so it's more accurate in HDR when it comes to the content creator's intent. However, the Samsung model has better color volume, so it can display colors in HDR a bit brighter. When it comes to gaming, the Samsung TV has lower input lag for a more responsive experience, and it supports up to 4k @ 144Hz for PC gamers with high-end graphics cards.
Test Results
The Sony A95L has impressive peak brightness in HDR. It's bright enough to bring out very bright specular highlights, even in very bright scenes. Overall, it delivers a very impactful HDR experience.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: Professional
- Brightness: 100
- Contrast: 90
- HDR Tone Mapping: Gradation Preferred
- Peak Luminance: High
For even better HDR brightness, check out Sony's 2024 flagship model, the Sony BRAVIA 9 QLED.
The Sony A95L is dimmer in the Standard (Game) mode than the calibrated picture modes. It's still bright enough to deliver a great HDR experience overall. For a better overall Game Mode performance, see the cheaper Samsung S89C OLED.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: Standard (Game)
- Brightness: 100
- Contrast: 90
- HDR Tone Mapping: Gradation Preferred
- Peak Luminance: High
The Sony A95L has decent peak brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to easily handle glare in most rooms, but it does struggle slightly in rooms with a ton of natural sunlight. Like all OLEDs, it struggles with extremely bright scenes, but this isn't very noticeable in real-world usage.
These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:
- Picture Mode: Professional
- Brightness: 100
- Contrast: 90
- Color Temperature: Expert 2
- Peak Luminance: High
- Gamma: 0
The Sony A95L has a QD-OLED panel, which is a type of OLED panel, and it has a near-infinite contrast ratio. This allows it to display perfect blacks even immediately next to the brightest highlights.
Since OLEDs don't have lighting zones and instead have individual pixels that can be lit up to their maximum brightness next to pixels that are turned off, there's no blooming when bright elements are surrounded by deep blacks.
As with other OLED TVs, this TV doesn't have a backlight, but its self-emissive pixels give it 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 A95L has perfect black uniformity, with no cloudiness at all.
The Sony A95L has outstanding SDR color volume, and its coverage of the DCI-P3 color space is essentially perfect. It doesn't cover the entire range of colors in the wider BT.2020 color space, but its coverage is still impressive. However, it does struggle a bit more with blues, cyans, and greens within the BT.2020 color space.
| Volume ΔE³ | DCI-P3 Coverage | BT.2020 Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| L10 | 99.89% | 84.90% |
| L20 | 99.90% | 84.62% |
| L30 | 99.87% | 84.83% |
| L40 | 99.82% | 86.54% |
| L50 | 99.77% | 87.37% |
| L60 | 99.68% | 87.32% |
| L70 | 99.84% | 86.63% |
| L80 | 99.82% | 83.66% |
| L90 | 99.61% | 84.00% |
| L100 | 99.05% | 95.89% |
| Total | 99.75% | 86.16% |
The color volume of this TV is fantastic. Thanks to its nearly infinite contrast ratio, it displays dark saturated colors perfectly, and the QD-OLED panel delivers much brighter color details than WOLED TVs, even with MLA technology like the LG G4 OLED or the Panasonic Z95A OLED.
With just a few quick settings changes out of the box, the Sony Bravia A95L has exceptional SDR accuracy. There are no noticeable issues in the white balance or overall color accuracy, and the color temperature is very close to the ideal target. Gamma is nearly perfect, but bright scenes are slightly darker than they should be.
Although this TV doesn't need to be calibrated, the calibration system is easy to use if you choose to do so. On our specific unit, we had to adjust the 2-point white balance and then the 10-point, at which point colors didn't need any further tuning. Any minor inaccuracies before calibration are gone.
See our full calibration settings.
The Sony A95L QD-OLED has great accuracy before calibration. There's too much blue in most shades of gray, which gives the TV a cooler color temperature than 6500K. Color accuracy is solid overall, but there are some mapping errors across its entire range of colors.
After calibration, the TV has superb HDR accuracy. Its white balance is much better, and its color temperature is now almost exactly at 6500K. Color accuracy is greatly improved, with only minor mapping errors that aren't noticeable.
The PQ EOTF tracking of this TV with HDR10 content is nearly flawless. There are a few minor bumps along the way, but most scenes are displayed at exactly the brightness level the content creator intended. There's an extremely sharp cutoff at the TV's peak brightness, which doesn't matter for content mastered at 600 and 1000 nits, but it does mean you lose some detail in specular highlights in content mastered at 4000 nits.
The Sony A95L has great low-quality content processing. It's very effective at smoothing out macro-blocking and pixelization when streaming content, with almost no loss of fine details.
The Sony A95L 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 gradient handling in HDR is nearly perfect, with almost no noticeable banding in any color. There's some very slight banding in shades of gray, but it's hardly noticeable.
The Sony A95L has low input lag, ensuring a smooth and responsive gaming experience. It's a bit higher than most other high-end TVs, like the LG G4 OLED and the Samsung S95D OLED, but it's still low enough for most gamers.
The Sony A95L supports most common resolutions up to 4k @ 120Hz. While there are some text clarity issues due to its subpixel layout (see the Panel Technology section for more information), it still displays chroma 4:4:4 properly with all supported resolutions. Only HDMI ports 3 and 4 support full HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and the full range of supported modes. HDMI ports 1 and 2 are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth and don't support certain signals like 4k @ 120Hz @ 4:4:4.
The Sony A95L OLED TV supports variable refresh rate (VRR) to reduce screen tearing from consoles and PCs. Unfortunately, it doesn't support FreeSync, which limits its compatibility with older AMD graphics cards.
The TV's CAD at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz is outstanding. Pixels transition to their target RGB level almost instantly, so fast motion is incredibly sharp.
The TV's CAD at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz is outstanding. Pixels transition to their target RGB level almost instantly, so fast motion is incredibly sharp.
The TV's CAD at 60Hz is fantastic. Transitions from one RGB level to another are nearly instantaneous, but there's still some noticeable persistence blur due to the nature of a 60Hz refresh rate.
The TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, like 4k @ 120Hz and HDMI Forum VRR. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag. It doesn't support 1440p @ 120Hz.
The Sony A95L is almost fully compatible with everything the Xbox Series X|S offers, including 4k @ 120Hz, HDMI Forum VRR, FreeSync Premium Pro, and Dolby Vision gaming. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag. It doesn't support 1440p @ 120Hz.
Unfortunately, due to the TV's nearly instantaneous pixel response time, there's stutter with low frame rate content, which is most noticeable during slow panning shots. You can smooth out stutter using motion interpolation, but if you set it too high, you'll introduce noticeable artifacts.
This TV removes 24p judder from any source, including those that output content in 60Hz. It helps with the appearance of motion in movies. When you enable the BFI feature, it removes judder from 24p sources, but not with 60p/i sources, like a cable box.
Like all OLED displays, this TV has a nearly instantaneous response time, resulting in incredibly clear motion behind fast-moving objects. There's some overshoot in shadow details, but it's minor and not noticeable when watching content.
The Sony A95L OLED isn't technically flicker-free because there's a slight dip in brightness every 8 ms, which coincides with the refresh rate. However, it isn't the same as pulse width modulation on LED TVs because it isn't a full on and off, and it's not noticeable.
The TV has an optional black frame insertion feature to reduce persistence blur. It only flickers at 60Hz, which isn't ideal for 120 fps games.
This TV offers an optional motion interpolation feature to improve the appearance of motion. Like most TVs, it struggles with fast-paced content with everything at max, resulting in noticeable artifacts and loss of details. These issues are noticeable even with lower settings, but it's not as bad.
The TV does a great job reducing the intensity of direct reflections, so you aren't overly distracted if you have a lamp or window opposite your screen.
The TV does a disappointing job of displaying deep blacks in a bright room. Blacks look increasingly gray as your room becomes brighter, so the image looks washed out, and you lose the impactful picture quality this OLED has in a dark room.
If you wish this OLED did a better job retaining its black levels in a bright room, take a look at the LG G5 OLED.
The TV does an exceptional job with total reflected light. Its glossy screen finish significantly reduces the intensity of indirect reflections. However, due to the lack of a polarizer, the TV has a purple tint to it when exposed to light.
The TV has very good color saturation in a bright room. The perceived color volume of low-luminance colors does drop quite a bit in a room with ambient lighting, but mid-luminance and high-luminance colors retain their saturation very well. Although the TV’s perceived color volume does decrease noticeably in a bright room, you still get incredibly saturated colors, since its color volume is so impressive to begin with.
The TV has an incredibly wide viewing angle. You won't have any issues using it in a wide seating area as people viewing it from the side see the same image as in front.
This TV's gray uniformity is amazing. Bright scenes with uniform colors look incredible, with very little dirty screen effect in the center. Dim scenes look great, but in near-black scenes, there's noticeable vertical banding. Although faint vertical bands are a common issue with all OLED displays, it's a bit worse on this model, and other owners have reported the exact same issue.
The QD-OLED panel on the Sony A95L uses a unique subpixel structure. Unlike most TVs, the pixels aren't in a row; instead, they form a triangular shape, with the green pixel on top and the red and blue pixels on the bottom. It results in some color fringing when displaying content with black bars on the top and bottom, as you'll see a thin green line at the top and a thin red line at the bottom. The subpixel structure isn't ideal for PC use as it causes some issues with the text clarity, which you can learn more about in the Dell Alienware AW3423DW review. Windows ClearType can't correct it, but there are workarounds like using third-party software to improve text clarity or increase the scaling.
The TV uses quantum dots to achieve high color peaks with excellent separation between blues, greens, and reds. This gives the TV great color purity and allows it to display an incredibly wide range of colors.
This TV supports HDR10 and the more advanced Dolby Vision HDR format. As of November 2024, all bugs related to Dolby Vision have been fixed, so there's no longer any green or pink tint with Dolby Vision content. The user interface still slows down considerably when anything starts playing in Dolby Vision, but it goes back to normal after 10-15 seconds.
This TV supports eARC, allowing you to pass high-quality, uncompressed audio to a compatible receiver through an HDMI cable. However, because the eARC port is also one of the HDMI 2.1 ports, you can only connect one other HDMI 2.1 device if you connect a soundbar or receiver that doesn't support HDMI 2.1 passthrough. You can also connect a compatible Sony soundbar to the S-Center speaker input and use the TV's speakers as a center channel or use the speaker terminals to achieve the same thing with any home theater receiver.
The overall design of the TV is very impressive. With incredibly thin bezels and a nearly frameless design, it looks great in any room.
Sony has abandoned the odd stand design on the Sony A95K OLED, instead opting for a more traditional design, with two feet set at opposite ends of the TV. The 55-inch and 65-inch models support either Standard or Soundbar positions, both of which require a large cabinet if you're not planning on wall-mounting it. The 77-inch model also offers a Narrow position, which requires about 23" of space.
Footprint of the 65-inch TV:
- Standard position: 56.8" x 13.3" x 0.4"
- Soundbar Position: 56.8" x 13.3" x 3.0"
The back of the TV features textured plastic with a checkerboard pattern that's typical of Sony TVs. The inputs are close to the side of the TV and easy to reach if you wall-mount it. The back includes covers for cable management, giving you a very clean setup overall.
The TV leans back about 1.5°, but this isn't at all noticeable when watching TV.
The Sony Bravia XR A95L has fantastic build quality. It feels very premium and is built with solid materials. The stand supports the TV well, with minimal wobble. There's some flex to the back panel, but this is very common on any TV and doesn't cause any issues.
The Google TV interface is user-friendly and feature-packed, but there are a few bugs. The menu is very slow when the TV is first powered on, and it slows down for a little while after changing inputs or changing settings from a connected device. There are also some audio-sync issues.
Unfortunately, like most TVs, there are ads throughout the interface. You can opt out of personalized ads; however, you'll get non-targeted ads instead.
The Sony Bravia XR A95L has a premium remote with a brushed silver finish. The buttons are backlit and turn on automatically when you pick up the remote. A mic's also built into the TV for hands-free voice control or to help find your remote.
The TV comes with a BRAVIA webcam, which you can attach on top. It provides a few extra features like Auto Power Saving Mode that darkens the screen when you walk away. It also supports Gesture Control and Proximity Alert.
There's a single button above the side inputs to turn the TV on/off, change channels, adjust the volume, switch inputs, or use the Find Remote feature. There's a switch to turn the built-in mic in the TV off if you're concerned about privacy, and you can also shut the camera when you aren't actively using it.
The frequency response is just decent. Like most TVs, there's no thump or rumble and very little bass response overall. Above the low-frequency extension (LFE), the frequency response at moderate volume levels is very well-balanced, and dialogue is clear and easy to understand. Unfortunately, there's a moderate amount of compression, and the treble range falls off sharply at max volume.
