The Sony X90L/X90CL is a mid-range 4k TV released in 2023. It replaces the Sony X90K/X90CK and sits above entry-level models like the Sony X85L and the Sony X77L/X77CL. Unlike the higher-end Sony X93L/X93CL, it doesn't feature a Mini LED backlight but does have a full array local dimming feature. It offers a great selection of features typically found on higher-end Sony TVs, including hands-free voice control, an S-Center speaker input, and an ATSC 3.0 tuner for up to 4k broadcast support. It's powered by Sony's Cognitive Processor XR, designed to improve overall image processing and upscaling. It also has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and variable refresh rate (VRR) support for gamers, so you can take full advantage of the latest consoles. We bought and tested the 65-inch model, but it's available in sizes ranging from 55 inches to a massive 98-inch model, so there's something for everyone.
Our Verdict
The Sony X90L is good for mixed usage. It looks very good in a bright room due to its amazing SDR brightness, but you do want to avoid placing lights opposite the screen since it struggles with direct reflections. Despite having only adequate black levels, the TV also looks great in a room with the lights off thanks to its impressive colors, excellent accuracy, and good HDR brightness capabilities. You also get top-tier image processing that makes DVDs, cable broadcasts, and compressed streams look good, so it's a good TV for a home theater where you watch content with varying levels of image quality. It's a decent TV for gaming, mainly due to its image quality and gaming features, but its input lag is higher than similar models and its slow pixel transitions lead to blurry motion. It has a wide enough viewing angle for watching content with a small group, but the image degrades from more aggressive angles, so it's not good for large seating arrangements.
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Good HDR brightness for impactful highlights.
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Amazing SDR brightness helps it overcome glare from indirect lighting.
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Exceptional upscaling and very good low-quality content smoothing.
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Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
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Struggles with reflections from direct sources of light.
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Slow pixel transitions in Game Mode leads to blurry motion.
The Sony X90L is good for a home theater. Blacks are deep during dim and dark scenes, with minimal blooming around bright highlights and subtitles, so the TV looks solid in a dark room during most scenes. Unfortunately, blacks do become a bit raised during brighter scenes. However, the TV displays impressively vibrant colors that really stand out. Those colors are also very accurate in both SDR and HDR, and the brightness of HDR content is accurate too, so this is a TV that respects the filmmaker's intent. Highlights in HDR content pop out thanks to the TV's good HDR peak brightness, delivering an impactful viewing experience. You also get outstanding upscaling and great low-quality content smoothing, which ensures the image looks clean when watching low-resolution and low bitrate content.
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Good HDR brightness for impactful highlights.
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Exceptional upscaling and very good low-quality content smoothing.
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Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
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Great PQ EOTF tracking means HDR content has mostly accurate brightness.
The Sony X90L is very good for bright rooms. It has amazing SDR brightness, so it easily overcomes glare from indirect light sources. However, it struggles a lot with direct reflections; if you have a lamp or window opposite the screen, it's very noticeable and distracting. On the other hand, colors remain nice and saturated, and blacks stay deep in a room with ambient lighting, so you don't lose very much picture quality when you use the TV in a bright room, which is great.
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Amazing SDR brightness helps it overcome glare from indirect lighting.
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Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
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Blacks stay deep in a bright room.
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Struggles with reflections from direct sources of light.
The Sony X90L is very good for watching sports. It has amazing SDR brightness, so it overcomes glare from indirect sources of light. However, it really struggles with direct light sources, so you are distracted by windows or lamps placed opposite the screen. It also has mediocre gray uniformity, so you do see some dirty screen effect towards the middle of the screen when large areas of uniform colors are present. It has a mediocre viewing angle, and the image holds up from a slight angle, but it quickly degrades from more aggressive angles, so it's not the best option for larger group settings. On the other hand, this TV has vibrant and accurate colors that really pop out. You also get top-notch image processing, so low-resolution and highly compressed streams and broadcasts look clean and sharp. Finally, it has a decent response time, so fast motion is mostly free from blur in most sports.
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Amazing SDR brightness helps it overcome glare from indirect lighting.
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Exceptional upscaling and very good low-quality content smoothing.
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Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
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Struggles with reflections from direct sources of light.
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Some noticeable dirty screen effect towards the center of the screen.
The Sony X90L is decent for gaming. It has good enough black levels that it looks good in a dark room, the image really pops thanks to its vibrant and accurate colors, and HDR games are impactful due to the TV's good HDR brightness. It supports 4k @ 120Hz with VRR, so it has the modern gaming features needed for the PS5 and Series X|S. However, pixels transition are quite slow on this model, so fast motion in games is blurry and lacks some clarity. The TV has low enough input lag for a responsive gaming experience, but it's higher than most other similar models, so you might want to look elsewhere if you're a competitive gamer looking for the best performance possible.
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Good HDR brightness for impactful highlights.
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HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, up to 4k @ 120Hz, and VRR support.
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Colors are vibrant, lifelike, bright, and accurate.
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Higher input lag than competing models.
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Slow pixel transitions in Game Mode leads to blurry motion.
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Only two HDMI 2.1 ports, one of which is also the eARC port.
The Sony X90L has very good brightness. It has amazing SDR brightness, so it easily overcomes glare from indirect sources of light. You also get good HDR brightness, so highlights stand out well in HDR content.
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Good HDR brightness for impactful highlights.
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Amazing SDR brightness helps it overcome glare from indirect lighting.
The Sony X90L has adequate black levels. Its local dimming feature provides deep blacks in a dark room, but those blacks do become a bit raised when bright elements are also on screen. The precision of lighting zones is good overall, but there's some subtle blooming around smaller highlights, and the blooming around subtitles is quite noticeable.
The Sony X90L has impressive colors overall. It has great HDR color volume and good SDR color volume, so you get bright and vivid colors regardless of the content. Furthermore, the accuracy of colors is excellent in SDR and outstanding in HDR, so colors stay true to the content creator's intent without needing calibration.
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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 X90L has great image processing overall. It upscales low-resolution content very well, and it does a very good job removing artifacts from low-bitrate content. Furthermore, there's very little banding in most color gradients, and the brightness of HDR content is very accurate except for blacks being a bit brighter than intended.
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Exceptional upscaling and very good low-quality content smoothing.
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Great PQ EOTF tracking means HDR content has mostly accurate brightness.
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Only minor banding in some color gradients.
The Sony X90L has just okay responsiveness in Game Mode. It supports VRR for a nearly tear-free gaming experience, but its input lag is higher than competing models, so it's not the best option for PVP games. Unfortunately, the TV's pixel transitions are quite slow, so there noticeable blur behind fast motion.
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HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, up to 4k @ 120Hz, and VRR support.
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Higher input lag than competing models.
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Slow pixel transitions in Game Mode leads to blurry motion.
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Only two HDMI 2.1 ports, one of which is also the eARC port.
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.
- 7.6 Mixed Usage
- 7.6 Home Theater
- 8.1 Bright Room
- 8.1 Sports
- 7.2 Gaming
Performance Usages
- 7.9 Brightness
- 6.8 Black Level
- 8.3 Color
- 8.4 Processing (In Development)
- 6.7 Game Mode Responsiveness
- 7.1 Motion Handling (Broken)
Changelog
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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 11, 2024:
We went over the text in the review, with minor adjustments for clarity, to ensure it's up to date.
- Updated Apr 03, 2024: Added a link to our Best Soundbars recommendation article in the Compared To Other TVs section of this review.
- Updated Aug 28, 2023: We bought and tested the Sony X77L/X77CL and added a few relevant comparisons below.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the 65-inch Sony X90L, and these results are also valid for the 55-inch, 75-inch, 85-inch, and 98-inch models. The larger sizes have more dimming zones and slightly better local dimming, so black levels should be a bit better as you go up in size.
There's also a warehouse variant of this TV, the Sony X90CL, available in 55-, 65- and 75-inch sizes. It performs the same but has a backlit remote and a longer warranty. The European versions of this TV perform the same, but you can also place the stand in a narrow position, which isn't available on the U.S. model.
| Size | Model Number | Costco Model |
|---|---|---|
| 55" | XR-55X90L | XR-55X90CL |
| 65" | XR-65X90L | XR-65X90CL |
| 75" | XR-75X90L | XR-75X90CL |
| 85" | XR-85X90L | XR-85X90CL |
| 98" | XR-98X90L | - |
Our unit was manufactured in July 2023, as you can see on the label.
Compared To Other TVs
The Sony X90L is a good TV overall. It's very bright, has Sony's top-tier image processing, and stays true to the content creator's intent in both SDR and HDR, making it an enticing option for a home theater. Despite being a normal LED model, it provides deep enough blacks for an impactful viewing experience, with only some minor blooming. However, there's Mini LED models like the Hisense U8/U8N and the TCL QM8/QM851G QLED that display deeper blacks, are brighter, and offer better overall image quality, albeit with worse accuracy and image processing. You also get better overall gaming performance on those TVs, mostly due to their lower input lag and faster pixel transitions. Still, if you need a solid TV for your home theater or living room, the X90L is a safe bet.
See our recommendations for the best TVs for watching movies, the best smart TVs, and the best 65-inch TVs. If you'd like a new soundbar to go with a new TV, check out our picks for the best soundbars.
The Sony X90L/X90CL is much better than the Sony BRAVIA 3. The X90L has a local dimming feature to improve its contrast, so blacks are much deeper and stay deep when highlights are also on screen. It's also the brighter TV overall, meaning it overcomes more glare in a bright room and provides a more impactful HDR experience. The X90L is also much better for gaming due to its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, up to 4k @ 120Hz, VRR feature, and faster response time.
The Sony X95L is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. Outside of its slightly more accurate SDR and HDR image and better HDR native gradient handling, the X90L gets outpaced in every facet: the X95L is brighter with much better reflection handling, has a wider viewing angle, superior gray and black uniformity, and has the better contrast ratio. Otherwise, they have the same feature set.
The Sony BRAVIA 7 QLED is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. The BRAVIA 7 has better contrast with an improved local dimming solution. The BRAVIA 7 is also noticeably brighter than the X90L, especially in HDR, providing more impactful highlights overall. The X90L does have a wider viewing angle, although both TVs are disappointing in that department. Still, overall, the BRAVIA 7 is the better product in almost every category.
The Sony X93L/X93CL is much better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. The X93L has much better reflection handling, so it's a better choice for a bright living room. The biggest difference is the X93L's Mini LED backlight, which delivers much deeper blacks, significantly less blooming around bright objects, and significantly improved zone transitions with no flicker as bright objects move across the screen.
The TCL QM8/QM851G QLED is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. The TCL has better contrast, with better blooming performance and superior lighting zone transitions. It's also significantly brighter than the Sony in HDR, with a wider color gamut. The TCL is also a bit brighter in SDR but has far better reflection handling, making it the superior choice in bright rooms. The Sony does have better PQ EOTF Tracking and upscaling, but otherwise, it's outperformed in most ways by the TCL.
The LG B4 OLED is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. The Sony's contrast is excellent, but the LG's OLED panel gives it perfect blacks, easily giving it the edge over the Sony. When it comes to brightness, the Sony is the slightly brighter product of the two, especially in SDR, giving it the edge in brighter rooms even though the LG has better reflection handling. If you like to host large viewing parties, it's hard to beat an OLED like the LG B4, as its viewing angle is vastly wider than the Sony's; the image stays mostly uniform even when watched from extreme angles. The LG is also the better choice if you're a gamer due to its nearly instantaneous response time and lower input lag than the Sony. The Sony does have better image processing overall, but it doesn't offset the LG's image quality advantage.
The Sony X90L/X90CL and the Hisense U8/U8N are both great mid-range TVs, but the Hisense has a better contrast ratio and more effective local dimming feature, allowing it to produce deeper blacks with less blooming. It also gets significantly brighter, especially for HDR content. That said, the Sony has better image processing and a slightly wider viewing angle.
The Sony X90L/X90CL and TCL QM7/QM751G QLED are both good mid-range options. The TCL is the punchier TV of the two due to its better black levels and higher peak brightness. The Sony, however, is far more accurate in SDR and HDR, and has better image processing. Meanwhile, the TCL is a touch better for gaming, with 1440p support and slightly better input lag and response times. Ultimately, the TCL is better for most people, but the Sony has the edge for home theater purists.
The Sony X90L/X90CL and Samsung QN85D are equally as good, with a few differences between them. The Samsung has the better contrast of the two, with far better black uniformity, so it's the clear winner for dark room content. Alternatively, the Sony has far superior image processing, so it's better than the Samsung when watching low-resolution or low-bitrate content.
The Samsung QN90D/QN90DD QLED is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. The Samsung has noticeably deeper contrast and is the brighter TV of the two in most HDR content. It is, however, a bit dimmer than the Sony is in their respective Game Modes, as the Samsung loses a lot of its brightness in that mode. If you care about accuracy, then the Sony model has the edge there and has the better image processing of the two, so it's the better product if you care about the content creator's intent. The Sony also supports Dolby Vision and passes through DTS audio formats, making it the better choice for home theater purists. Gamers, however, will appreciate the Samsung model's four 4k @ 144Hz HDMI ports, while the Sony is limited to two 4k @ 120Hz ports, which is a bit tight if you have multiple HDMI 2.1 devices.
The LG C4 OLED is much better than the Sony X90L/X90CL, making the LG the better choice for almost anyone. The Sony does have the edge in a few ways; it's brighter than the LG in SDR, and while both TVs perform similarly in HDR when watching actual content, the Sony maintains its HDR brightness in Game Mode, while the LG is noticeably dimmer. Still, the LG has vastly better contrast, leading to a much more impact viewing experience in dark rooms. Plus, its far superior reflection handling means it compensates for its lower brightness numbers in Game Mode and SDR content by handling reflections better than Sony. Finally, the LG has a better viewing angle, making it better for hosting large viewing parties.
The Hisense U7N is a bit better than the Sony X90L/X90CL, but it's close. The Hisense has slightly better contrast and is somewhat brighter in HDR and SDR than the Sony. The former also has significantly better reflection handling, giving it the edge when watched in brighter rooms. The Sony has better image processing, especially regarding upscaling and HDR native gradient handling, so it cleans up content better than the Hisense does. For gamers, the Hisense is the superior option, as it has two HDMI 2.1 ports capable of gaming at 4k @ 144Hz, while the Sony is limited to two 4k @ 120Hz ports.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 OLED is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. Still, the X90L is noticeably brighter in HDR and even more so in SDR, so it has the edge in brighter rooms even though the BRAVIA 8 has significantly better reflection handling. However, the BRAVIA 8's OLED panel gives it perfect blacks, making it look far better in darker rooms, even though the X90L's contrast is solid overall. The BRAVIA 8 is also better for wide seating arrangements due to its vastly superior viewing angle. If you're a gamer, the OLED is also a better choice due to its nearly instantaneous response time.
The Sony X90L/X90CL is a noticeable improvement over its predecessor, the Sony X90K/X90CK. The X90L gets a lot brighter, especially in HDR, so bright specular highlights stand out better. The X90L also has a much better local dimming feature, resulting in significantly less blooming around bright areas of the screen, deeper blacks, and smoother (but still not great) zone transitions.
The Sony X90L/X90CL is slightly better than the TCL Q7/Q750G QLED. While the TCL has better contrast and much better black uniformity, the Sony is the brighter and more accurate TV of the two in HDR and SDR. The Sony is also a bit more colorful and has better image processing, so it looks better than the TCL in most contexts.
The Sony X90L/X90CL is an incremental upgrade over the Sony X90J. The X90L has a better local dimming solution, giving it better contrast with local dimming enabled. It's also noticeably brighter in HDR and SDR than the older X90J and has a much wider color gamut. The X90J has slightly better image accuracy, but that's likely due to panel variance.
The Sony X90L/X90CL and the Sony A80L/A80CL OLED are good for different uses. The Sony A80L has better contrast and perfect black uniformity, delivering inky blacks when viewed in a dark room. The A80L also has a faster response time for less blur behind quick motion, and its wider viewing angle makes it the better choice for watching TV with friends. However, the X90L is the brighter TV that overcomes more glare, so it's better if you regularly watch TV in a bright room.
The LG C3 OLED is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. The LG has inky blacks thanks to its nearly infinite contrast ratio and perfect black uniformity, and it has more lifelike colors thanks to its wider color gamut. The image on the LG barely degrades from the sides due to its wider viewing angle, so it's the better option for watching TV with friends. When it comes to gaming, the LG is also better due to its faster response time, lower input lag, and HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four ports.
The Sony X90L/X90CL is a bit better than the LG QNED85. The Sony is the brightest of the two TVs, so it pops more when watched in bright rooms. It also has much better image processing than the LG, so if you watch low-bitrate content or low-resolution content from DVDs, the Sony TV has you covered. The LG does have a vastly wider viewing angle, so it's the better model for large viewing parties.
The Sony X90L/X90CL is better than the Sony X85K. The X90L has much better contrast due to its local dimming feature, so blacks are deeper when viewed in a dark room. The X90L is also brighter, so highlights pop more in HDR, and this TV overcomes more glare in a bright room when watching SDR content. Low-resolution and low-quality content look better on the X90L due to its better processing, and its wider color gamut and better color volume deliver more vibrant and lifelike colors.
The Hisense U8/U8K is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. The Hisense is brighter than the Sony with much better reflection handling, so it looks better in a bright room. It also has better contrast, black uniformity, and local dimming feature, so the Hisense looks better in a dark room. The Sony has the edge in response time, upscaling, and HDR gradient handling, although the Hisense also has good image processing. However, the Sony is the more stable TV overall, as the Hisense is a bit buggy.
In most ways, the Samsung QN90C/QN90CD QLED is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. The Samsung has better reflection handling and SDR brightness, so it's better suited for a bright room. It gets brighter in HDR, so highlights pop more in HDR content. The Samsung TV also has lower input lag, so it's the better option for gamers looking for the most responsive gaming experience. However, the Sony model has the edge in image processing, so low-quality and low-resolution content looks better on it.
In most ways, the Sony X90L/X90CL is better than the Samsung Q80C QLED. The Sony has much better contrast and black uniformity, so blacks are deeper when viewed in a dark room, with less blooming around bright objects. HDR content is more impactful on the Sony TV due to its better HDR brightness, wider color gamut, and better color volume. However, the Samsung has a wider viewing angle, making it the better option for watching TV with friends, and its lower input lag provides a slightly more responsive gaming experience.
The Samsung QN85C and the Sony X90L/X90CL are similar TVs, each with strengths. The Samsung has a wider viewing angle, so it's better suited for watching TV with friends. The Samsung is also slightly better for gamers due to its lower input lag and HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four ports. On the other hand, the Sony has a faster response time, so there is less blur behind quick motion. The Sony also has better processing, so low-resolution and low-quality content looks better.
The Sony X90L/X90CL is better than the Sony X80K/X80CK. The X90L has a wider color gamut and better color volume that delivers more vibrant and lifelike colors, and it's a much brighter TV, so highlights stand out more in HDR content, and it can handle a lot more glare in a bright room while watching SDR content. Blacks are significantly deeper on the X90L due to its much higher contrast ratio and local dimming feature, and its faster response time means there is less blur behind quick motion. Finally, the X90L is better for gamers due to its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth for up to 4k @ 120Hz and VRR support.
The Samsung S90C OLED is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. The Samsung has a nearly infinite contrast ratio, so it displays deep and inky blacks with no blooming. HDR content has more impactful highlights and more vibrant and lifelike colors on the Samsung due to its better HDR brightness, wider color gamut, and better color volume. The Samsung also has a much wider viewing angle, so it’s better suited for watching TV with friends, and its nearly instantaneous response time delivers fast motion with no noticeable blur. Both TVs have modern gaming features, but the Samsung supports up to 4k @ 144Hz (versus 4k @ 120Hz on the Sony), has lower input lag, and it has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on all four ports.
The Sony A80J OLED and the Sony X90L/X90CL are different types of TVs due to their different panel types. If you often watch content in a dark room, the A80J is the better choice as its OLED panel delivers deeper blacks. However, if you want to use it in a well-lit room, the LED panel of the X90K gets much brighter in both SDR and HDR, so it fights off glare better.
The LG B3 OLED and the Sony X90L/X90CL are better than each other in different ways. If you typically watch content in a dark room and want inky blacks, the LG is better due to its nearly infinite contrast ratio and perfect black uniformity. The LG is also the better option for watching TV as a group due to its much wider viewing angle, and its faster response time means there is less blur behind quick motion. However, the Sony is much brighter, so it's better suited for a bright room.
The Sony X90L/X90CL and Hisense U7K are similar TVs, with the Hisense having a slight edge overall. The Sony is the slightly brighter TV in HDR and is noticeably brighter in SDR. However, the Hisense compensates for it by having superior reflection handling, making it a bit better for bright room viewing. The Hisense also looks better in dark rooms due to its slightly better contrast and vastly superior black uniformity. Unfortunately, the Sony TV is less interesting for gamers due to its higher input lag, and two HDMI 2.1 ports are capped at 4k @ 120Hz. The Hisense also has only two HDMI 2.1 ports, but they're both capable of 4k @ 144Hz. Plus, the Sony's eARC port is one of its HDMI 2.1 ports, so you lose one of them when a soundbar is connected, while the Hisense's eARC port is one of its HDMI 2.0 ports.
The Sony X95K is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL. The X95K has significantly better reflection handling, so it's a better choice for a bright living room as there's less glare from bright lights or windows. The biggest difference is the X95K's Mini LED backlight, which delivers much deeper blacks, significantly less blooming around bright objects, and significantly improved zone transitions with no flickering as bright objects move across the screen.
In some ways, the TCL QM8/QM850G QLED is better than the Sony X90L/X90CL, but the Sony delivers a better experience overall. The TCL gets much brighter in both SDR and HDR and has better reflection handling. The TCL has a Mini LED backlight with a far greater number of dimming zones, resulting in less blooming around bright objects. On the other hand, the Sony delivers a more polished experience overall, with a more accurate picture that better respects the content creator's intent, and better motion and picture processing, especially when dealing with low-resolution content.
The Sony X90L/X90CL and the Panasonic W95A are similar TVs and excel in different ways. The Sony has a slight edge regarding SDR brightness and reflection handling, so it overcomes a bit more glare in a bright room. The Sony is also the more accurate TV in both SDR and HDR, meaning it stays closer to the content creator's intent. On the other hand, the Panasonic has lower input lag, supports 144Hz, and displays slightly more vibrant colors. However, you can't use VRR and local dimming simultaneously on the Panasonic, so you must trade in a lot of contrast for a tear-free gaming experience, which is a major drawback.
The Sony X90L/X90CL is better than the Hisense QD7N QLED in almost every way. The Sony gets much brighter in SDR, meaning it fights more glare in a bright room, and it looks better in a dark room too, as it has much better contrast that delivers deeper blacks. HDR content looks better on the Sony due to its better HDR brightness, colors, and accuracy. Both TVs have HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and support VRR, but the Hisense has 144Hz support, whereas the Sony is limited to 120Hz. This makes the Hisense a slightly better option for PC gamers looking to game in a higher frame rate.
The Sharp AQUOS XLED FV1 and the Sony X90L/X90CL are similar TVs, each with their own strengths. The Sharp has better contrast and black uniformity, so it looks better in a dark room, and highlights in HDR content stand out a bit more on it due to its better HDR peak brightness. However, the Sony TV has better processing, so it upscales low-resolution content much better, has less banding in HDR content, and has lower input lag. The Sony also has much better pre-calibration accuracy, so you don't have to get it calibrated if you care about color accuracy.
Video
Test Results
The Sony X90L has good brightness in HDR, a significant improvement over the Sony X90K/X90CK. Bright highlights stand out well, and real scenes are bright and vivid. Small highlights are almost as bright as the higher-end Sony X93L, but with most real content, the X93L is brighter.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: Custom
- Brightness: Max
- Contrast: 90
- Color Temperature: Expert 2
- HDR Tone Mapping: Gradation Preferred
- Peak Luminance: High
- Auto Local Dimming: High
Switching to Game Mode in HDR results in roughly the same peak brightness in HDR.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: Game
- Brightness: Max
- Contrast: 90
- Color Temperature: Expert 2
- HDR Tone Mapping: Gradation Preferred
- Peak Luminance: High
- Auto Local Dimming: High
The Sony X90L has amazing peak brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to easily overcome glare even in a very bright room.
These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:
- Picture Mode: Custom
- Brightness: Max
- Contrast: 90
- Color Temperature: Expert 1
- Peak Luminance: High
- Auto Local Dimming: High
The Sony X90L has okay contrast, resulting in deep blacks during most scenes. However, black levels do raise a bit when very bright highlights are on the screen. Unlike the Sony X93L, this model doesn't have a wide viewing angle filter, so the native contrast is much higher. The full array local dimming feature is extremely effective at boosting contrast, but it isn't as good as the Mini LED backlight on the X93L.
The lighting zone precision of this TV is good overall. There's some noticeable blooming around subtitles and bright lights in otherwise dark scenes, but it's surprisingly good considering the relatively large size of each dimming zone.
Although the algorithms do a good job averaging out bright highlights to reduce blooming, they're not very fast and struggle to keep up with fast-moving objects. It causes the leading edge to appear dark, as the lighting zones aren't turning on quickly enough, and a longer bloom trail behind them. With slower highlights, there's noticeable flicker as they move across the screen.
There's no difference in dark scene performance in Game Mode.
The black uniformity of this TV is mediocre. With local dimming disabled, the entire screen is bluish, but there are no noticeable hot spots or backlight bleed. With local dimming enabled, black areas of the screen are much deeper, but due to the relatively large size of the dimming zones and the way the algorithms spread highlights out, there's some noticeable blooming.
The TV's SDR color volume is good overall. It has great coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, only struggling a bit with some lighter shades of color. The TV’s coverage of the wider BT.2020 color space is noticeably worse, and it struggles a lot more with all colors.
| Volume ΔE³ | DCI-P3 Coverage | BT.2020 Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| L10 | 93.04% | 65.09% |
| L20 | 93.89% | 67.99% |
| L30 | 92.87% | 67.27% |
| L40 | 91.70% | 68.91% |
| L50 | 90.46% | 70.05% |
| L60 | 89.11% | 69.88% |
| L70 | 88.50% | 70.84% |
| L80 | 87.58% | 67.94% |
| L90 | 86.79% | 66.56% |
| L100 | 88.73% | 82.34% |
| Total | 89.46% | 69.38% |
The TV's HDR color volume is great. Dark, saturated colors look great thanks to the high contrast ratio, and bright colors are vibrant and stand out well.
With just a few settings changes out of the box, the Sony X90L has impressive SDR accuracy. There are a few slight issues with the white balance, but it's decent overall, and the colors are excellent, with no noticeable issues. The color temperature is essentially perfect, and gamma is very close to the 2.2 target used for a moderately lit room.
The TV is very easy to calibrate, and the results after calibrating it to a D65 white point are nearly perfect.
See our full calibration settings.
The Sony BRAVIA X90L has exceptional accuracy in HDR before calibration. There's some minor inaccuracies with white balance in some shades of gray, which makes the TV's color temperature a touch too cool, but it's still very close to 6500K. Color accuracy is outstanding overall, with only some very slight inaccuracies that most people won't notice. This is a TV that's incredibly accurate out-of-the-box, so calibration isn't necessary.
After calibration, the TV is a bit more accurate in HDR. White balance is a bit better now, which brings its color temperature even closer to 6500K. Color accuracy is mostly unchanged, but some of the minor mapping errors have been reduced.
This TV has impressive PQ EOTF tracking, ensuring that most HDR content is displayed at or close to the brightness level intended by the content creator. Near-black scenes are slightly raised, so some shadow details look a bit washed out.
The Sony X90L does a great job smoothing out low-quality content, but it's slightly worse than most comparable Sony TVs like the Sony X93L. Still, macro-blocking and pixelization issues are smoothed out well, and there's very little loss of fine detail.
The TV has superb sharpness processing capabilities. Low-resolution content is upscaled well, and lines are sharp with very little over-sharpening. Fine details in busy scenes are easy to make out, and hardcoded text looks great.
These results are with the following processing settings:
- Sharpness: 60
- Reality Creation: Auto
This TV has great gradient handling in HDR. There's some light banding in bright shades of blue and green, but everything else looks excellent.
This TV has very low input lag in Game Mode, ensuring a smooth and responsive gaming experience. It's worth noting that despite the TV having low enough input lag that you don't feel any major delay with your inputs while gaming, it's a bit higher than most similar models from other manufacturers.
Like the Sony X93L, this TV supports all common formats up to 120Hz. All supported formats also display chroma 4:4:4 or RGB signals properly, ensuring text is clear and easy to read when using it as a PC monitor. HDMI ports 1 and 2 are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth, so they don't support 4k @ 120Hz.
The TV supports most variable refresh rate technologies, aside from FreeSync, to reduce screen tearing in games.
The TV has subpar pixel transitions at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. There's no overshoot, so you don't see inverse ghosting. However, its response time is very slow in Game Mode, so fast motion is blurry.
The TV has subpar pixel transitions at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. There's no overshoot, so you don't see inverse ghosting. However, its response time is very slow in Game Mode, so fast motion is blurry.
The Sony BRAVIA X90L has disappointing pixel transitions at 60Hz while in Game Mode. There's a lot more overshoot at 60Hz than at 120Hz, so fast motion is blurry and has some inverse ghosting.
With the exception of 1440p, the TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, like 4k @ 120Hz, as well as HDMI Forum VRR. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to manually switch to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.
With the exception of 1440p, the TV is fully compatible with everything the Xbox Series X|S offers, including 4k @ 120Hz, HDMI Forum VRR, and FreeSync Premium Pro. It supports Dolby Vision gaming, but only at 60Hz. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to manually switch to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.
This TV's response time is slow enough that there's just a bit of stutter. It's still noticeable when watching slow panning shots, but it's decent overall.
This TV removes judder automatically from 24p sources, like a Blu-ray player or an external streaming device with a 'Match Frame Rate' feature. For 60Hz sources, like a cable box or the TV's built-in apps, Motionflow has to be enabled, with CineMotion set to 'High' and both sliders at 'Min' for judder-free playback. This combination of settings removes judder without adding any soap opera effect.
The TV has a very good response time in the 'Custom' picture mode. Fast motion in most movies and sports has minimal motion blur behind it. However, it's slower when coming out of dark states, so there's some black smearing in dark scene transitions.
This TV uses pulse width modulation (PWM) at all backlight levels. It always flickers at 720Hz, which is high enough that it'll only bother you if you're extremely sensitive to flicker.
There's an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI), which you can enable to improve the appearance of motion. This TV can only flicker at 120Hz, which causes image duplication with 60 fps content. The backlight flicker pattern is very unusual, flickering at both 120Hz and an underlying 720Hz pattern, similar to the Sony X90K/X90CK.
This TV can interpolate lower-frame-rate content up to 120 fps. Sony's motion processing is generally pretty good, but like most TVs with motion interpolation at max, there are noticeable halos and artifacts around fast-moving objects.
The Sony X90L has poor direct reflection handling. It barely reduces the intensity of lamps, wall lights, or windows opposite the screen when watching content or playing video games, which is distracting.
The TV has exceptional black levels in a bright room. Black levels are barely raised in a room with ambient lighting, and they remain deep and punchy.
The total reflected light of this TV is sub-par. You do see reflections on your screen during dark scenes when viewed in a bright room, and there's some obvious light banding present.
The Sony X90CL has very good color saturation in ambient lighting. Colors shown at all levels of luminance are still vibrant and saturated in a bright room, even after they lose some saturation from ambient sources of light.
The TV has an acceptable viewing angle. The image looks mostly consistent from a slight angle, but there's gamma shifting, the black levels raise, and there's color washout that worsens the further you move off-center. The image is noticeably degraded at an aggressive angle, so the TV isn't a very good choice for a large group setting.
Unfortunately, the gray uniformity is unremarkable on this TV. The corners are slightly darker than the center, but this isn't noticeable with most real content. The bigger issue is the noticeable dirty screen effect in the center, and there are dark vertical columns across the entire screen, which can be especially noticeable in content with large bright areas. The uniformity in near-dark scenes is much better and looks good overall.
This TV uses a BGR subpixel layout. It doesn't affect picture quality but can cause issues with text clarity in some applications when using it as a PC monitor.
The TV uses a KSF phosphor coating to produce red light, and has high peaks on reds and blues. This model does have good separation between colors, giving it solid color purity and a wide color gamut.
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 an HDMI 2.1 and eARC port, you lose an HDMI 2.1 slot if you connect a receiver, so you can only use HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on multiple devices simultaneously if the receiver also supports it. Also, the tuner supports ATSC 3.0, allowing you to stream over-the-air channels at up to a 4k resolution.
The TV supports eARC, which lets you 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 Sony X90L has a premium design that looks great in any room. The bezels are thin and aren't distracting at all, and the minimalist design of the feet looks great and doesn't take up much space.
The Sony BRAVIA XR X90L has diamond-shaped metal feet that hold the TV very well. The feet can be mounted either in the normal position shown above or in a raised position to leave room for a soundbar. In Europe, there's a third option to mount the feet in a narrow position, but the U.S. models don't have this option. Confusingly, the back of the TV still has arrows to indicate the narrow position, but the bottom of the TV lacks the necessary mounting points.
Footprint of the 65-inch model: 47.2" x 13.6"
With the feet mounted in the normal position, there's about 1.8" between the table and the first row of pixels. Mounting it in the raised position increases this to about 3.3", so most soundbars fit without blocking any portion of the screen.
The back of the TV is entirely plastic and has a checkerboard pattern similar to that of other Sony TVs of this generation, like the Sony X93L. One difference between the Sony X90L and higher-end models is that this model doesn't include covers to hide the inputs, and there's nothing for cable management.
Sony TVs are usually well-built, and the Sony Bravia XR X90L is no exception. There's some flex on the back panel, but this is pretty common and doesn't cause any issues. It's a well-built TV made of premium materials.
The Sony BRAVIA XR X90L runs version 10 of the Google TV smart platform, similar to past Sony models like the Sony X95K.
Unfortunately, like most TVs on the market, there are ads throughout the entire Google TV interface. You can opt out of personalized ads, but this doesn't change the number of ads you'll see; they just won't be personalized to match your search and viewing history.
The included remote is small, as it doesn't have a numpad. There are mics in the remote and built into the TV, and they let you ask it to search for content, change settings, and open apps. The remote included with the Sony X90L doesn't have a backlight, but the Costco variant Sony X90CL does.
There's a single button on the bottom of the TV near the center and a switch to enable or disable the mic. With the main button, you can power it on or off, change channels, adjust the volume, or switch inputs.
The Sony X90CL's frequency response is decent. Like most TVs, it lacks deep bass or rumble, but the sound profile is well-balanced at moderate listening levels, and dialogue sounds good. It also gets loud enough even in a moderately noisy environment.
The stand position impacts the overall sound profile, and lifting it to the raised position reduces the bass response of the TV. The low-frequency extension (LFE) in the raised position is at 119.87Hz.
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Sony X90L/X90CL: Main Discussion
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Update: We haven’t tested any new Sony soundbars. However, the Sony HT-S200F is no longer widely available, so we’ve replaced it with the Sony HT-S400.
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