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.
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Perfect blacks with no blooming around bright highlights.
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Incredibly wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
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Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
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Does a great job lessening the intensity of direct reflections.
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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.
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Perfect blacks with no blooming around bright highlights.
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Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
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Does an outstanding job upscaling and a great job cleaning up low-quality content.
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Impressive HDR peak brightness means highlights really pop.
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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.
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Colors stay vibrant in a room with ambient lighting.
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Does a great job lessening the intensity of direct reflections.
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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.
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Incredibly wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
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Nearly instantaneous pixel transitions for no noticeable blur behind fast motion.
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Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
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Does an outstanding job upscaling and a great job cleaning up low-quality content.
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Does a great job lessening the intensity of direct reflections.
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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.
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Nearly instantaneous pixel transitions for no noticeable blur behind fast motion.
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Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
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Impressive HDR peak brightness means highlights really pop.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Does an outstanding job upscaling and a great job cleaning up low-quality content.
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Fantastic HDR brightness accuracy.
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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.
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Nearly instantaneous pixel transitions for no noticeable blur behind fast motion.
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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.
- 8.7 Mixed Usage
- 8.9 Home Theater
- 7.7 Bright Room
- 8.2 Sports
- 8.8 Gaming
Performance Usages
- 8.0 Brightness
- 10 Black Level
- 9.0 Color
- 8.9 Processing (In Development)
- 8.9 Game Mode Responsiveness
- 7.8 Motion Handling (Broken)
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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.
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Updated Nov 13, 2024:
We retested the TV's Dolby Vision performance after firmware 112.627.030.1NAA and confirmed that it now works as intended.
- Updated Oct 16, 2024: Mentioned the newly-reviewed Panasonic Z95A OLED in the Color Volume section of the review.
- Updated Jun 14, 2024: Mentioned the newly-reviewed Sony BRAVIA 9 QLED in the HDR Brightness section of this review.
- Updated Dec 20, 2023: Mentioned the newly reviewed Samsung S89C OLED in the HDR Brightness In Game Mode section of this review.
- Updated Nov 08, 2023: Review published.
- Updated Nov 03, 2023: Early access published.
- Updated Oct 25, 2023: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Oct 23, 2023: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Oct 03, 2023: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
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 Sony A95L OLED and the LG G4 OLED are both incredible TVs, but there are some differences. The LG gets a bit brighter overall, so highlights stand out a bit more in HDR content, and it overcomes a bit more glare when watching SDR content in a bright room. The LG also maintains its brightness better in Game Mode, so you don't have to trade in brightness for performance. The LG is better for gaming overall due to its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four ports, up to 4k @ 144Hz, and lower input lag. On the other hand, the Sony can display more vibrant, lifelike, and brighter colors due to its wider color gamut and better color volume, and there is less banding in most colors.
The Sony A95L OLED is better than the LG C4 OLED. The Sony is brighter in HDR and SDR and is more colorful than the LG, so all content pops more on it. While the LG is a bit better for gaming, especially for competitive gamers, due to its 4k @ 144Hz support on four HDMI ports and its lower input lag, the Sony TV's brightness and color advantage means all games will look better on it. The Sony is just as accurate as the LG, has slightly better image processing, and has a wider viewing angle, so it's the better option in almost any context.
The Sony A95L OLED and the Samsung S90D/S90DD OLED are very similar TVs. The Sony gets brighter in SDR, so it overcomes more glare in a bright room. The Sony also has better processing for low-quality and low-resolution content, so lower-quality streams or DVDs look better on it. However, the Samsung has less banding in colors. When it comes to gaming, the Samsung has lower input lag for a more responsive experience, and it supports up to 4k @ 144Hz for PC gamers with high-end graphics cards.
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.
In most ways, the Sony A95L OLED is better than the Sony BRAVIA 9 QLED. The A95L has a much wider viewing angle, so it’s better if you regularly watch TV with a group. The A95L also delivers fast motion with less blur due to its faster response time. Regarding accuracy, the A95L has the BRAVIA 9 beat due to its better SDR pre-calibration accuracy and PQ EOTF tracking. However, the BRAVIA 9 is still excellent in that regard. As impressive as the contrast is on the BRAVIA 9, the A95L's is better, so it delivers deeper blacks in a dark room with no blooming whatsoever. On the other hand, the BRAVIA 9 is the brighter TV in both SDR and HDR, so highlights pop out more in HDR content, and it overcomes more glare in a bright room.
The Sony A95L OLED is a bit of an improvement over its predecessor, the Sony A95K OLED. The A95L is a lot brighter in both SDR and HDR, so bright highlights stand out better, even in very bright scenes. The A95L is also a bit better for gamers, as it supports Dolby Vision gaming at up to 4k @ 120Hz.
The Sony A95L OLED is significantly better than the Sony A80L/A80CL OLED. The A95L delivers a much more impactful HDR experience thanks to its much higher peak brightness and better image processing, resulting in smoother gradients in HDR and less banding. Colors are also far more vibrant and impressive on the A95L thanks to its QD-OLED panel. The A95L is also a bit better for gamers, as it supports Dolby Vision gaming at up to 4k @ 120Hz.
The Sony A95L OLED is slightly better than the LG G3 OLED. The Sony has much better image processing, resulting in smoother gradients in HDR and better upscaling. The Sony also delivers much better color volume, as colors are brighter and more vibrant. The LG is a bit more versatile, especially for gamers, as it has four high-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, whereas the Sony only has two.
The Sony A95L OLED is a bit better than the LG C3 OLED. The Sony has much better image processing, resulting in smoother gradients in HDR and better upscaling. The Sony is also brighter, especially when displaying bright saturated colors, resulting in much better color volume overall. The LG is a bit more versatile, especially for gamers, as it has four high-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, whereas the Sony only has two.
The Sony A95L OLED is slightly better than the Panasonic Z95A OLED, but you can't go wrong with either one. The Sony has better processing, resulting in smoother gradients in HDR with less banding, and it smooths out low-quality content better. The Sony also delivers better color volume, and colors aren't as washed out in bright scenes.
The Sony A95L OLED is a bit better than the Samsung S95C OLED. The Sony TV has much better image processing when dealing with low-quality or low-resolution content, so cable TV channels and streaming movies look much better, with less macro-blocking and pixelization. The Samsung is a bit more versatile, especially for gamers, as it has four high-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports for gaming up to 4k @ 144Hz, whereas the Sony only has two HDMI 2.1 ports capable of 4k @ 120Hz.
The Sony A95L OLED is much better than the Sony X95L. The A95L delivers a much better dark room experience, with perfect inky blacks and no blooming at all around bright highlights. The A95L also has a much wider viewing angle, so if you're using it in a wide room, you can move around and still enjoy a consistent image from the sides. On the other hand, the X95L is significantly brighter, so if you only ever watch TV in a very bright room, the benefits of the A95L aren't as noticeable, so you can save some money and get the X95L instead.
The Sony A95L OLED is superior to the Sony A90J OLED. The A95L delivers a much more impactful HDR experience thanks to its significantly better color volume, as bright colors are more vibrant and realistic. There's also less banding in gradients, and it gets brighter, so bright highlights stand out better. Finally, the A95L supports Dolby Vision in up to 4k @ 120Hz, making it a bit better for Xbox gamers.
The Sony A95L OLED is a bit better than the Samsung S90C OLED. The Sony TV has significantly better image processing when dealing with low-quality or low-resolution content, so cable TV channels and streaming movies look much better, with less macro-blocking and pixelization. The Samsung is a bit more versatile, especially for gamers, as it has four high-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, whereas the Sony only has two.
The Sony A95L OLED is a bit better than the LG C2 OLED. The Sony has much better image processing, resulting in smoother gradients in HDR and better upscaling. The Sony is also brighter, especially when displaying bright saturated colors, resulting in much better color volume overall. The LG is a bit more versatile, especially for gamers, as it has four high-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, whereas the Sony only has two.
The Sony A95L OLED is better than the Samsung S89C OLED. The Sony TV has significantly better image processing when dealing with low-quality or low-resolution content, so cable TV channels and streaming movies look much better, with less macro-blocking and pixelization. The Samsung is more versatile, especially for gamers, as it has four high-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, whereas the Sony only has two.
Video
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 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.
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.
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Sony A95L OLED: Main Discussion
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- 21010
I wonder if anyone else is experiencing the same issues I have with the A95L.
If I listen to movies using a headset connected to the TV via bluetooth, some movies from my Google library play in a foreign language, or with audio description enabled. Manually changing the audio to English doesn’t fix it.
Movies that support Dolby Vision don’t play in Dolby Vision when playing from the Google TV home page.
Movie trailers don’t play properly, they just get stuck after a few seconds.
This TV produces an incredible picture, but just seems to be full of software bugs?
Update: 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.
- 43230
AUDIO Passthrough : eARC: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Yes @rtings Ben Trudeau Are you sure about this yes? Beucase Sony support, Vimu Player and Kodi dev said nope. Because is a limitation from Sony API.. I cant make to works Dolby TRUEHD with a Samsung HW 990QC (which support this format)
Our audio passthrough test is for external devices and isn’t applicable to the built-in apps. The vast majority of TVs don’t support TrueHD from their internal apps. Sorry for the confusion.
- 21010
AUDIO Passthrough : eARC: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Yes @rtings Ben Trudeau
Are you sure about this yes? Beucase Sony support, Vimu Player and Kodi dev said nope. Because is a limitation from Sony API.. I cant make to works Dolby TRUEHD with a Samsung HW 990QC (which support this format)
- 21010
You mentioned above that if this TV has a production date of April 2024 or later, you won’t have the TCON problem. Before I buy this TV, is there a way to check the production date of the unit I would be getting or do I have to wait until I get the box and then check, and return it if the production date is before April 2024?
The production date of April 2024 or later is just something I’ve seen reported online, it’s not something we can confirm or deny 100%. Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing the production date unless you’re able to see the box before you purchase it. Whether or not you should return it based on the production date is really up to you. It might be worth it if it gives you peace of mind. I think it’s likely you get one with a production date after April 2024 being that we’re close to a year away from that already.
- 21010
We don’t do in-depth tests specifically for Dolby Vision, so it’s really hard to say exactly how the G4 and A95L compare to each other in DV. However, the QD-OLED panel on the A95L does provide a wider color gamut and better color volume with less banding than the G4, so some HDR/DV content will look more vibrant on the A95L. The two TVs’ implementation of DV should be very similar, especially now that the tint issue has been resolved on the A95L. However, the A95L’s QD-OLED panel does give you slightly better picture quality overall. As for the TCON issue, it’s hard to say. Our A95L is still going strong, but I’ve seen the reports online that some people have run into the TCON error. This issue seems to only affect a small amount of units, and based on my understanding, if you get a model that has a production date of April 2024 or later, you won’t have that problem at all. Sometimes it can be hard to judge just how widespread issues with specific models are, since you can Google pretty much any TV (including the G4) and you’ll see people having issue with their units.
You mentioned above that if this TV has a production date of April 2024 or later, you won’t have the TCON problem. Before I buy this TV, is there a way to check the production date of the unit I would be getting or do I have to wait until I get the box and then check, and return it if the production date is before April 2024?
Edited 1 month ago: Removed Best Buy info - 32120
now that the A95L Dolby Vision issues have been fixed how does the overall Dolby Vision quality compare to LG OLED’s DV implementation in Filmmaker Mode (G4)?…are they comparable or does LG still have the slight edge due to Dolby and LG having a closer partnership? are the TCON hardware/software issues a legitimate concern?…I don’t want my TV to suddenly not turn on after a few months or year
We don’t do in-depth tests specifically for Dolby Vision, so it’s really hard to say exactly how the G4 and A95L compare to each other in DV. However, the QD-OLED panel on the A95L does provide a wider color gamut and better color volume with less banding than the G4, so some HDR/DV content will look more vibrant on the A95L. The two TVs’ implementation of DV should be very similar, especially now that the tint issue has been resolved on the A95L. However, the A95L’s QD-OLED panel does give you slightly better picture quality overall.
As for the TCON issue, it’s hard to say. Our A95L is still going strong, but I’ve seen the reports online that some people have run into the TCON error. This issue seems to only affect a small amount of units, and based on my understanding, if you get a model that has a production date of April 2024 or later, you won’t have that problem at all. Sometimes it can be hard to judge just how widespread issues with specific models are, since you can Google pretty much any TV (including the G4) and you’ll see people having issue with their units.