The Sony A95K is the world’s first TV built with the all-new QD OLED display technology. Until now, the hype we’ve made around this TV has been based mainly on brief glimpses of QD OLED technology at CES, details in a scientific white paper, and a handful of interviews we have conducted on the subject. We predicted that QD OLED technology alone is so advanced that it will change the television world in 2022.
Knowing that Sony has developed a TV with this technology, I’m confident that the A95K will be one of the most powerful TVs of the year, if not the hottest TV of 2022. To find out if our predictions were accurate, we flew to San Diego and paid Sony an exclusive visit at their US headquarters. We spent many hours with the A95K, both at Sony headquarters and at an off-site location. We spent about 12 hours with the Sony TV, taking objective measurements and watching as much content as possible to properly evaluate the TV.
We look forward to spending more time with the Sony A95K and will compare it to other high-performance TVs from competing brands in the coming weeks. However, we could conclude that the A95K and QD OLED technology in general is everything we hoped for and then some. It is an innovation that combines all the advantages of OLED technology while making up for its only obvious shortcoming, the lack of brightness.
More than that, it’s an innovation from Samsung, the company that swore it would never do anything with OLED TVs. In fact, Samsung is currently the only manufacturer of this panel technology, but just like LG, which dominates the OLED panel market, Samsung is willing to sell QD OLED panels if the price is right. And so it is Sony rather than Samsung that will be launching a 65-inch QD OLED TV.
Design
Sony pioneered a mild but undeniably individual design language for it’s premium TVs some time ago, and it’s not abandoned now. So the A95K is almost entirely full-screen from the front. The left, right, and top bezels are a decent 7mm, while the bottom one is just a little chunkier housing (streaming) microphones, an IR receiver for the remote, and very minimal branding.
Viewed in profile, there is little of the OLED thinness that was a big part of the technology’s appeal when it first hit the market. At 43 mm deep, it looks unimpressive. However, the grid pattern that covers the back is appealing and allows Sony to hide the “pop-on/pop-off” panels that cover the selection of inputs on the screen more easily than some other designs.
The A95K can of course be wall mounted, but if you prefer to stand it on a surface there are a few stand mounting options. The stand itself is pretty chunky, but when you position it behind the screen it’s not visible at all and the screen itself reclines just a little, as Sony established with the A1 OLED (2017) back in the day. Alternatively, you can attach it to the front of the screen and it can again be slid close to a wall the screen stands upright when arranged this way.
Display
The Sony A95K is the world’s first TV built with brand new QD OLED display technology. So far, the hype we have created around this TV has been mostly based on glimpses of QD-OLED technology at CES 2022, details in a scientific white paper, and a handful of interviews we’ve conducted on the subject. It was our prediction that QD-OLED technology alone would be so groundbreaking that it would change the television game. The A95K uses a new type of OLED panel that combines OLED and quantum dots, hence the name: QD-OLED.
Both the Samsung S95B and Sony A95K use the exact same panel and share all the pros and cons. Briefly, these are the following. QD-OLED offers an almost perfect contrast, but combines this with better brightness and, above all, with colors that retain their intensity at very high brightness levels. The pixels have a very fast response time. The construction of the panel guarantees a very wide viewing angle, but on the other hand it can suffer from strong ambient light, which dilutes the black display a bit.
Features
The key feature here is, of course, the A95K’s QD-OLED panel. QD-OLED was developed by Samsung and is intended to remedy the one alleged shortcoming of OLED TV technology: brightness. And while Samsung is currently the only brand making QD OLED panels, experience with regular OLED has shown us that the panel is just the beginning. It’s processing that an OLED TV stands or falls on, and it seems unlikely that QD OLED will be any different. Sony has equipped the A95K with the uncompromising “Cognitive Processor XR”.
It was first unveiled last year, but some tweaks have been made for this implementation most notably to it’s “Flexible Color Contrast Control” to take advantage of the increased brightness of this new panel. Control is possible via either of the two remote controls that the A95K comes with. As is the fashion these days, one is a small, beautifully crafted control that covers most of the main functions and includes hotkeys for Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and Sony’s own Bravia Core streaming service.
The other is a small, normally finished alternative with too many buttons and not enough space between them. Whatever you choose, you’re in control of a smart Google TV interface. It’s also a decent UI that’s not too obscure when it comes to making recommendations and is easy to read. It’s Google-centric, of course, but the Apple TV apps and Netflix apps aren’t too far behind and with the exception of Disney+, the streaming and catch-up TV services available here are the best versions of themselves.
Ports
If we take a closer look at the I/O ports, we find the obligatory four HDMI ports, two of which are HDMI 2.1 4K120 and VRR compatible. Unfortunately, one of them also serves as an eARC port, so you have to decide whether you want to connect an external sound system/soundbar or an HDMI 2.1 game console or accept restrictions for the game console. The TV has several bezels that hide cables and connections for a sleeker look when the back of the TV is visible in your living area. There is not much space behind the individual bezels, so it is not possible to accommodate an external USB hard drive or media player, only a USB stick.
Sound Quality
Sony is a fan of actuators, so Acoustic Surface Audio+ is a feature of all its OLED TVs. Simply put, the screen itself is vibrated to such an extent that it acts as an audio speaker. And this is where Sony has refined the system for this particular QD OLED panel. Two actuators are combined with two rear-facing subwoofers.
And judging by the standards of TVs that don’t charge much extra for their integrated Bowers & Wilkins or Technics audio systems, the A95K sounds more than acceptable. It manages to add the right amount of weight and depth to the low frequencies without sounding strained or emphasized. It produces a big, well-defined sound that seems slightly larger than the screen it comes from.
Control is good, detail is good, and it can get almost uncomfortably loud before the serenity leaves it. Usually, the standard audio system of even the most expensive and powerful TVs can be improved if you spend just a few hundred euros on a proper soundbar. However, in the case of the Sony XR-55A95K, you’ll have to spend a bit more if you want to take your audio experience to the next level.
Video Quality
Sony promises that the Bravia CAM will eventually feature a range of features, such as preventing children from standing or sitting too close to the TV) and automatic power saving mode (which detects when you leave the room and dims the screen). At launch, however, it will only offer video chat capabilities, initially via Google Duo, but other services may be added in the future. Like last year, Sony is using the Google TV operating system for most of its 2022 TVs, including the A95K.
Overall, this is a very good platform, used in a fairly snappy manner here, with an emphasis on increasingly smarter personalized recommendations so you can find something new to check out or come back to very quickly. Unfortunately, the vast majority of recommendations presented (at the time of writing) are from Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, with just a few Apple TV titles and a single My5 TV show. Netflix’s absence from the recommendation engine is clearly an issue, but it’s not one that’s unique to Google TV or Sony.
Of course, there is a Netflix app on the TV, complete with the Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support. The aforementioned Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and the Apple TV are all present and largely correct (Disney+ lacks Atmos support), as are all the major music streaming services. You also get Now and BT Sport in the UK, and all the major catch-up services are available both as individual apps and as part of the YouView TV platform. There is also a Freesat tuner for those who want or need to receive their live TV service via satellite.
Configuration Option
The 55-inch A95K we tested (XR-55A95K, to give it its full name) will cost £2699 / $3000 (about AU$4800) at launch. That make it significantly more expensive than Samsung’s 55-inch S95B model (£2399 / $2200 / about AU$4250), with which it shares a panel. Incidentally, Samsung’s display division is currently the only manufacturer of QD OLED TV panels, just as LG Display makes all the panels used in standard OLED TVs.
LG won’t give up without a fight, either. LG Display is making brighter and brighter OLED panels. The most advanced is the OLED.EX, which is sold to a number of TV manufacturers, including LG Electronics. The TV against which the Sony A95K (and Samsung S95B) will primarily be measured is the excellent LG G2, which is a marked improvement over earlier OLED TVs and retails as a 55-inch TV for £2399 / $2100 / AU$4076.
Conclusion
We hope you like this article on Sony XR-55A95K Review. While the Sony A95K isn’t the new departure in TV technology that some had expected, it does show that QD-OLED offers some improvements over standard OLED, most notably improved detail and color reproduction in the brightest areas of the picture.
In less discerning hands, the added color brilliance of QD-OLED’s Quantum Dots could lead to exaggerated brilliance, but Sony’s careful, authentic approach means the A95K is balanced and natural, retaining the fine detail, sharpness, and three-dimensionality of 2021’s flagship OLEDs. In short, for movies and the TV shows, in the SDR and HDR, and at all resolutions, the Sony A95K is exceptional. Xbox Series X and high-end PC gamers are still better served with an LG G2, but for everyone else, this is the new gold standard, albeit by a relatively small margin.
