Sony A9S OLED  TV Review

The Sony XBR48A9S has a simple and minimalist design that looks almost identical to the Sony A9G OLED. The borders are thin on all sides, and it has a center-mounted stand that sits very low, which might be a problem if you have a soundbar placed in front.

The Sony A9S has a center-mounted stand that lets the TV sit very close to the table, which means that part of the screen might be obstructed if you place a soundbar in front.

Footprint of the 48" stand: 18.3" x 10.1"

The back of the TV is plain except for a few airflow vents. The bottom panel is removable, allowing you to guide all the cables towards a small cutout in the stand for cable management.

The borders are thin and aren't distracting.

The panel itself is very thin, but the components' housing is quite thick, so it sticks out a bit when wall-mounted.

The build quality is exceptional, almost identical to the Sony A8H OLED. It's made of a mix of plastic and metal, feels very sturdy, and there are no obvious gaps. There's a little bit of flex on the back panel near the sides, but nothing that should cause concern.

Like all OLEDs, the Sony XBR48A9S can turn off individual pixels, resulting in a nearly infinite contrast ratio and perfect blacks.

The Sony A9S has a mediocre SDR peak brightness. It varies a lot depending on the scene due to its aggressive Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL), and it gets dimmer as larger areas of the screen light up. Visibility shouldn't be an issue in most lighting conditions, but it might not be bright enough to overcome intense glare. Similar to the Sony A8H OLED, the brightness ramps up and drops back down once it reaches its peak in the 2% and 10% windows, although not by much.

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

If you don't mind losing image accuracy, you can get a brighter image in the 'Vivid' Picture Mode with all other settings at their default value. We achieved a peak of 668 cd/m² with these settings.

Update 08/04/2021: Added the real content local dimming videos.

The Sony A9S can turn individual pixels on/off and doesn't require a backlight, just like all OLEDs. This means it can reach perfect black levels without any blooming around bright objects.

Update 08/04/2021: Added the real content local dimming videos.

The HDR peak brightness is okay, almost identical to the Sony A8H OLED. Just like in SDR, the ABL causes the brightness to vary significantly depending on the content. It's bright enough to bring out some highlights, especially in darker scenes. Again, the brightness in the 2% and 10% windows drops slightly after reaching its peak.

We measured the HDR peak brightness before calibration in the 'Custom' Picture Mode with Brightness set to max, Contrast at '90', and Color Temperature set to 'Expert 1'.

If you don't mind losing accuracy, you can get a brighter image in the 'Vivid' Picture Mode with Peak Brightness set to 'High', Contrast Enhancer set to 'Off', and the remaining settings at their default value. We can achieve a peak of 836 cd/m² with these settings; however, it takes between 30 to 60 seconds to ramp up the brightness from 760 cd/m² to 836 cd/m².

Gray uniformity is excellent. There's almost no noticeable dirty screen effect, which is great for sports fans. Uniformity in dark scenes is better, and we didn't see any faint horizontal or vertical lines, although this can happen with more extensive use. Note that gray uniformity varies between individual units.

Like all OLEDs, the Sony A9S can turn off individual pixels to achieve perfect black uniformity.

This TV has excellent viewing angles. Images remain accurate when viewed from the side, which is ideal for large rooms with wide seating areas.

The Sony A9S has exceptional reflection handling. It does a fantastic job of reducing the intensity of bright reflections, so you shouldn't have any visibility issues in most viewing conditions.

Update 04/29/2021: We uploaded new photos because the old white balance photo was incorrect. The picture showed 20-point white balance when it's in fact 10-point. This doesn't change the results.

The accuracy is great out of the box; however, this can vary between units. Most colors and white balance are only slightly off. Gamma is nearly perfect, so most scenes appear at the correct brightness. The color temperature is much colder than our 6500k target, resulting in a blueish tint.

Accuracy is exceptional after calibration. Most colors and white balance are nearly perfect, and the color temperature is much closer to our 6500k target. Gamma is still excellent, but some scenes are slightly too bright.

You can see our recommended settings here.

The Sony A9S displays 480p content like DVDs well without any upscaling artifacts.

720p content, such as from a cable box, is upscaled well and without any artifacts.

Upscaling of 1080p content such as from Blu-rays looks good, and there are no artifacts.

4k content is displayed perfectly.

The Sony A9S can't display an 8k signal.

Like all OLEDs, the Sony A9S uses an RGBW sub-pixel structure. They're never all on at the same time; you can see the green sub-pixel in this photo.

The Sony A9S has an excellent color gamut. It has near full coverage of the DCI P3 color space used in most HDR content and decent coverage of the wider Rec. 2020. The EOTF follows the PQ curve perfectly until its roll-off, and it's almost identical in Game mode. If you find HDR content too dim, you can get a brighter image by setting Advanced Contrast Enhancer and Peak Brightness to 'High', with Brightness and Contrast at max. These settings result in a much brighter image, as you can see in this EOTF.

This TV has a decent color volume. It mostly has trouble displaying very bright colors, particularly blue.

The Sony A9S has outstanding gradient handling. There's a tiny amount of banding in most colors, and it's most visible in the grays and greens. Setting Smooth Gradation to 'Low' doesn't seem to do much. The 'Medium' and 'High' settings do a good job of removing most banding but might cause a loss of fine details in some scenes.

There's some image retention right after exposing a high-contrast image for 10 minutes; however, it dissipates within a few minutes. Note that image retention can vary between individual units.

Like all OLEDs, the Sony A9S is susceptible to permanent burn-in, which happens when static elements stay on the screen for an extended period, like a channel logo or a desktop user interface. However, we don't expect it to be an issue for most people who watch varied content, and there are also features built-in to minimize the risks, such as Pixel Shift and Panel Refresh. You can read more about it here.

The Sony A9S has superb response time. It's nearly instantaneous, resulting in clear motion and almost no blur trail behind fast-moving objects.

The Sony A9S doesn't use PWM because there's no backlight, but it isn't flicker-free. The slight dip in brightness every 8ms is due to the TV's 120Hz refresh rate.

Update 01/11/2021: We've retested the BFI and can confirm that the backlight flickers at 96Hz in 24p content when the Clearness slider is set to '1' or '2', and 48Hz when it's set to '3'. This is the same behavior that we noticed on the Sony A8H OLED and Sony A9G OLED.

The Sony A9S has an optional Black Frame Insertion feature that can further reduce motion blur. To use BFI, enable MotionFlow, then set Clearness to '3' for 60fps content, and '1' or '2' for 120fps content. Using BFI improves image clarity, but it results in a noticeably dimmer image.

The Sony A9S can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120fps to make motion look smoother, also known as the 'Soap Opera' effect. It performs well for the most part, but there are some artifacts in busier scenes. To use it, set Cinemotion to 'Auto' and Smoothness to max.

Due to the Sony A9S' near-instantaneous response time, lower frame rate content can appear to stutter. If it bothers you, enabling motion interpolation can help.

The Sony A9S can remove judder from all sources. You don't need to change any settings for 24p content, but it's better to set Cinemotion to 'Auto' as leaving it at 'Off' causes a few frames to be out of place. To remove judder from 24p content via native apps and 60i/p content, set Cinemotion to 'Auto' and Motionflow to 'Custom', but leave the Smoothness setting at '0'.

The Sony A9S doesn't support any variable refresh rate technology to reduce screen tearing when gaming.

Update 01/11/2021: We've retested the Auto Picture Mode setting. When enabled, it recognizes the PS5 as a gaming console and switches to 'Game' mode automatically. However, it doesn't work at all with the Xbox One X or Xbox Series X. This means that the Auto Picture Mode only works with compatible devices, same as with the universal remote feature.

The Sony A9S' input lag is great, almost identical to the Sony A8H OLED. It's slightly higher than most recent high-end 4k TVs, but it should be low enough for casual gaming and desktop use. To get the lowest latency, you can use either the 'Game' or 'Graphics' Picture Mode.

The Sony A9S supports most common resolutions. However, 1440p @ 60Hz only works if you set the screen setting to 'Wide' and 1440p @ 120Hz skips frames. Unfortunately, it can't display a 4k @ 120Hz signal. It can display proper chroma 4:4:4 at all supported resolutions for optimal text clarity when using the TV as a PC monitor. To display chroma 4:4:4, set the HDMI Signal Format to 'Enhanced format' for the input in use, and you have to be either in the 'Game' or 'Graphics' Picture Mode. For signals that require the full HDMI 2.0's bandwidth, you also need to set the HDMI Signal Format to 'Enhanced format' for the input in use.

The Sony A9S OLED can't take full advantage of the PS5 or Xbox Series S|X, as its HDMI ports lack the bandwidth necessary for 4k @ 120Hz gaming. The replacement model, the Sony A90K OLED, supports HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two of its HDMI ports, and it has much better compatibility with both consoles.

The Sony A9S supports eARC even though it doesn't have an HDMI 2.1 port. This allows the TV to pass high-quality audio such as Dolby Atmos via TrueHD to an external device over an HDMI connection. To use it, set eARC to 'Auto', Digital Audio Out to 'Auto 1', and Passthrough to 'Auto'.

The Sony A9S has a good frequency response. It's well-balanced, but there's a lack of low-bass, so it can't produce a deep, rumbling sound. It gets pretty loud without adding much compression artifacts, great for large or noisy environments.

The distortion performance is mediocre. There's minimal distortion at moderate volume levels, but it increases significantly as the volume nears max. That said, it depends on the content, and most people might not hear it.

The Sony A9S runs on Android TV. It's relatively easy to use and runs very smoothly. We didn't experience any bugs during testing.

There are ads and suggested content on the home screen. You can opt-out of suggested content using the Customize Channels Menu option, but there's no way to opt-out of ads.

The Android TV platform gives you access to the Google Play Store. There's a large selection of apps, and they run very smoothly for the most part.

The remote control is the same as the Sony A8H OLED's but in a silver color with a brushed finish. There are quick-access buttons to Google Play and Netflix, and there's a dedicated button to summon the Google Assistant. You can use voice control to search for content and get information such as the current weather and time. You can change things like the volume and input source using voice control, but not settings such as the brightness.

There's a single button located on the left side of the TV. It lets you power the TV On/Off, change the channel, the input, and adjust the volume. A short press allows you to navigate to the next item in the settings menu, and a long press selects the highlighted item.

• Documentation
• Remote Control
• 2x AAA batteries