Verdict
The 55A95L may not be bum , but its stellar movie and sound lineament make it feel like it ’s worth every penny .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
While Sony sky-high embraces every TV technical school going , the one it ’s picked for its current flagship good example is Quantum Dot OLED .
That seems fair enough given the success it achieved with its debut QD OLED manakin in 2023 , and the rate of knots with which this relatively young take on organic light-emitting diode seems to be better .
In fact , given how dear Sony ’s A95 K QD OLED launching was , the prospect of what the brand might do with its soph effort , represented by the XR-55A95L , is positively mouthwatering .
Availability
As the flagship 55 - inch TV in Sony ’s current range , the XR-55A95L command a predictably premium price : £ 2,499 in the UK , to be accurate .
That ’s a humongous £ 1,100 more than Sony ’s current traditional ( rather than Quantum Dot ) 55 - in A80L OLED TV . It ’s £ 800 more than Samsung ’s still available 2023 55 - column inch S95C QD - OLED .
Sometimes , though , if you want the best , you just have to pay for it . So let ’s desire for Sony ’s interest that the 55A95L is indeed the best .
The XR-55A95L came out in the latter stages of 2023 , and current expectations are that it will continue to lam until at least the latter point of 2024 .
Design
The 55A95L has a suitably flagship face and feel . Its build timber is emblematic with its monolithic , One Slate invention touch robust , large duty , and as if it could easily survive an assault by a rogue dog or dictated young child .
The way the desktop human foot seize under each niche means they end up looking like they ’re actually an incorporate part of the cover rather than separate items – especially as their gleam silvery destination matches that of the out edge of the projection screen ’s bezel .
This all - in - one effect work peculiarly well if you slot the screen justly down onto its feet , rather than prefer the alternate attachment option of leaving two or three inches between the screen and the furniture the TV is sat on .
While not as graceful looking , the raised mounting option gives you room to put a soundbar in without obscuring the scene or the goggle box ’s Infra - reddened receptor .
The bezel around the screenland is as extremist - slim as I ’ve come to expect from today ’s insurance premium telecasting , and while it ’s rearward is n’t as slim as those of one or two OLED rivals , it ’s still categorical and slender enough to make the XR-55A95L a great paries - hanging selection . The rear panel also features obliterable covers to help you shroud all of its connections .
The only potentially teasing thing about the A95L ’s aim is that its feet can only be bind under the screen ’s corner , imply you ’ll want a turn of article of furniture to sit it on that ’s at least as wide as the TV . Only the 77 - inch A95L provide the option to move the feet to a more central position .
The A95L ships with two remote controls : a slightly chunky , plasticky one-time - school social function complete with a full numerical tablet and a curing of integrated video disc playback buttons , and a sleeker , metal - looking smart social function that ditches the numerical buttons in favour of a more wide layout and verbatim approach for theNetflix , Disney+ , Prime Video , YouTube , BRAVIA Core , and Crunchyroll service .
Features
The headline feature article of the 55A95L is its use of aQuantum Dot OLEDpanel . This mislay the cleverness - boosting white component part of regular OLED TVs in favour of a blue organic twinkle that shine through red and green layers of Quantum Dots . The result RGB semblance system has the potential drop to deliver purer color at high brightness level .
The raw Quantum Dot colour approach is accomplish without block OLED ’s traditional benefit of receive every pixel in its screen produce its own light and color , and without bear on what its neighbouring picture element are doing .
Driving this 4 one thousand roster of ego - emissive pel is the latest version of Sony ’s Cognitive XR central processor . This features a new XR 4 K Upscaling arrangement , promising improve upscaling of sub-4 K sources ( quite a promise kick in how honorable Sony ’s upscaling has always been ) , as well as an XR Triluminos Max element that Sony claim can create and accurately map million of ‘ real - world colours ’ – all with that RGB innocence QD OLED likes to shout about .
XR OLED Motion adapts Sony ’s always honest motion processing technology to OLED ’s specific hardware peccadilloes , cross - analysing cardinal visual constituent on successive frames to make a less juddery experience without creating the form of processed , artefact - laden or to a fault smoothened look that less movement mainframe are plagued with .
The XR processing element continue with XR Clear Image , which apparently utilises a combination of ‘ geographical zone variance and dynamic frame analysis ’ to reduce the appearance of haphazardness and motility fuzz in the picture .
The sort of mental picture controls afforded by the latest Cognitive XR mainframe are probable to be more needed than ever for Sony ’s second QD OLED generation thanks to this unexampled projection screen lay claim to deliver almost as much as 200 % more brightness than its harbinger .
My own measurements find the 55A95L achieving an extremely bright 1337 nits on a 10 % white HDR windowpane , which couch it almost up there on the brightness front with itsLG G3andSamsung S95Crivals ( though Samsung ’s 2024 S95D are able to murder as much as 1800 nits in the same circumstances ) .
With so much brightness to wager with , it ’s reassuring to rule that the 55A95L carries a high temperature diffusion sheet to lose weight the susceptibleness of its constitutional components to that old OLED enemy of screen burning .
High Dynamic Range support on the A95L covers theDolby Vision , HDR10 and HLG formats , but not HDR10 + . How much this matter to you depends on how muchHDR10+content you have in your library , but aside fromPrime Video , I suspect most of you wo n’t have very much .
Sony ’s A95L also sportsBRAVIA CoreandNetflix Calibrated modal value , stand for it can modify its scene scene to get as close as potential to the values used in the pour services ’ own mastering studio .
BRAVIA Core also stands out from the streaming gang by offering its catalog of films at exceptionally high ( up to 80mbps ) teem fastness in a bid to slim down the compression - free-base pictorial matter artefacts you get with even streaming services . Buying an A95L TV bulge you 10 free bounty BRAVIA Core motion-picture show , as well as a two - yr subscription to the service ’s back catalog .
The A95L is also officially license with theIMAX Enhancedformat , used when mastering a fairly little selection of films available on some streaming services and 4 K Blu - rays to give them a clean , purer look .
gambling supporting on the XR-55A95L is a gradation up for Sony , thanks to its use of a dissimilar chipset to other role model in Sony ’s current range . Still , only two of its four HDMIs endorse the full cooking stove of today ’s gaming features , but these two do at least allow you to enjoyvariable refresh ratesand Dolby Vision HDR play at the same time ; you no longer have to switch one off if you require the other .
There ’s also support for Sony ’s Perfect For PlayStation 5 feature , where the TV can always tell whether a connected PS5 is outputting a secret plan or telecasting reference , and where a machine-accessible PS5 can distinguish on the button which Sony TV model it ’s connected to and optimize its HDR production consequently .
The 55A95L ’s fresh feature are deliver byGoogle TV . This means you ’re cover for all the main global streaming serving , while Sony has made sure to cover Google TV ’s blind pip with regards to a distich of the UK ’s principal terrestrial broadcaster catch up services by bringing them on board as separate apps .
One final strange saucy lineament is the BRAVIA Cam . Only available as an optional £ 199 accessory with models further down Sony ’s mountain chain , with the 55A95L you get to enjoy its feature film bundled at no extra cost . As well as obvious telecasting calling United States , the BRAVIA Cam also deliver a couple of strange surplus features , such as the ability to track your position in your room relative to the TV and conform phone and photograph options accordingly .
The camera can also supervise your way ’s light condition and correct the mental picture background to recompense , automatically ferment the TV on when it senses someone in the room , give an alerting if an questioning nestling gets too close to the television , and even brook some basic motion control .
in person , while it ’s good to see Sony innovating in this unusual sphere , I did n’t feel really compelled by anything the BRAVIA Cam had to pop the question .
Picture Quality
The 55A95L takes the natural advantage of QD OLED engineering Sony already exploited so well with its debut A95 K QD OLED television set to a whole new level . A level beyond the capability of the huge majority – if not all – of its rival .
The long suit of the 55A95L ’s mental picture are so wide - ranging that it ’s initially tough to begin breaking them down into material I can describe in this review . Everything just looks beautiful . So beautiful , that it ’s beguiling to just wrap things up there . picture this expert deserve to have a bit more thought applied to them , so I ’d better give it a go !
As a will to the quality of Sony ’s Cognitive XR processor and its ability to unlock the full potential of the 55A95L ’s second - gen QD OLED screen , the first thing that get to jump out about its picture was n’t their smartness or color say-so but their subtlety .
Whether it ’s the ultra clean , ultra subtle shading detail in moody corners , the fantastically fine blending of colours , the seemingly effortless understanding of the primary and junior-grade elements in incoming pictures , the attractively rude handling of question via Sony ’s True Cinema Motionflow setting , or the remarkably raw , effectual way the television receiver contribute million of redundant pel to sub-4 green sources in real prison term , every exclusive pel always feels like it ’s delivering on the nose the correct brightness , colour and intensity in relation to its neighbour .
The outcome of all these various expanse of exceptional picture dominance , finesse and intellect is motion-picture show calibre so balanced and realistic that it overpoweringly draws you into the public of whatever you ’re watching . No matter how fantastical that world might be .
The fact that the 55A95L ’s ‘ small stuff ’ score such a firm impact does not intend it does n’t also do drama , though . On the opposite , its measurable brightness boost is backed up very clearly by your immanent wake experience . you’re able to experience the effect of so much cleverness in literally every frame .
top out undimmed HDR detail such as unmediated shot of the Sunday , light reflection on glass and alloy , streetlight and so on appear with much more dividing line - enhancing intensity . Daytime sequences wait notably more … daytime . There ’s less clipping of elusive moving picture shadow in the brightest highlights . And the 55A95L ’s QD OLED - created colours savor even more volume and vibrancy than the class - leading drive of the A95Ks .
In fact , the purest greens , blueing , yellow and , especially reds look purer and more accurate than they ever have before . The precision the 55A95L is capable to apply to its huge brightness and colour reply serve it create an outstanding sensory faculty of sharpness and item with both aboriginal and upscaled 4 K imagination too , with some presets also enjoy an almost uncannily three - dimensional , sprightliness - comparable coming into court thanks to the TV ’s uber - clever analysis of the relative weight of dissimilar image component .
All these Quantum Dot OLED and Cognitive Processor XR benefit are delivered alongside the one depiction strength we most associate with OLED technology : impeccably mystifying , rich , greyness - costless black levels . And since these inscrutable black stratum can share the screen with ultra - bright highlights without any of the backlight compromises associated with even the most mellow - closing LCD TVs , the 55A95L is capable to achieve a genuinely stunning and consistent signified of local contrast that feel like you ’ve stumble onto HDR ’s honest heart and soul .
I only have a duad of concerns with the 55A95L ’s pictures . First , its intense modal value is almost bizarrely unfit . A garish mess that pushes colours so hard they start to actually crack up at time , and no longer front in the least bit natural or balanced . The polar opposite of what Sony ’s outstanding television work so intemperately to achieve with its other presets . you could avoid these problems by but not select the intense preset .
The other issuing is that the 55A95L ’s brightness level has recently being outgo by a coolheaded 400 nits or so bySamsung ’s S95D TVs , which use the latest QD OLED panels . While Sony lately confirmed that it currently has no plan to exchange the A95L with newer QD OLED , though , the 55A95L ’s processing and subtleties ascertain it ’s still a fantastic TV choice for AV devotee seem reckon for the finer thing in AV life .
Sound Quality
The 55A95L ’s attractions surely are n’t limited to its pictures . It also gets a premium version of Sony ’s Acoustic Surface Audio system , where , remarkably , the TV ’s actual screenland functions as the main speaker system . This immediately render the benefit of audio that emanates directly forward , towards your seating position , instantly give it more impact and immersiveness .
Vibrating the projection screen rather than rely on veritable utterer enclosure jam into the filmdom also help the 55A95L acquire an unusually still , rounded , warm sound ramp up on a broad , open mid - compass that provides plenty of space for details , vocals , ambient sounds and even a decent amount of sea bass to share the airwaves without any audio element over - powering or butting heads with anything else .
subwoofer on the 55A95L ’s hind end add more down in the mouth frequency response to the already expansive sound from the screen , too , and as one final first-class benefit of the Acoustic Surface scheme , sound impression are placed with splendid accuracy in on the dot the right part of the projection screen . The heavy system can even utterly trail multiple moving noisy objects as they move around the screen .
My only real charge about the 55A95L ’s sound is that sustained low - frequency grumble can cause some distortions from the subwoofers . This might give you sufficient reason to twin the 55A95L up with one of Sony ’s A series soundbars , but overall tot up anexternal sound systemis much less of a necessity with the 55A95L than it is with the vast majority of television receiver .
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Should you buy it?
The combining of Sony ’s Cognitive XR central processing unit and a QD OLED panel are a couple made in heaven , deliver an resistless mix of subtlety and heartiness that convey every movie to gorgeous life story .
Despite using an honest-to-god QD panel than Samsung ’s newS95D TVs , it still costs more than the Brobdingnagian majority of55 - inch TVs .
Final Thoughts
While it ’s not brassy and does n’t join Samsung ’s recently reviewed QE65S95D in using one of the previous propagation of QD OLED panel , Sony ’s secondly - gen Quantum Dot OLED TV stay on a wonderfully high - end performer .
It ’s capable of compound peerless OLED nuance with impressive brightness level , sharpness and , especially , colour intensity , and also sounds way in force than most tv . For good step , it even finally get to grips with Sony ’s long - running game limitations .
Trusted Score
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We try every tv we go over thoroughly over an extended time period of time . We practice industry standard tests to compare features the right way . We ’ll always tell you what we find . We never , ever , accept money to review a production .
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FAQs
A comparatively new form of OLED technology that shines a grim organic light through red and immature Quantum Dots .
single to Sony OLED TVs , Acoustic Surface technology create level-headed by using actuator to commove the tv set ’s screen .
In rule , QD organic light-emitting diode ’s use of an RGB colour organisation should bring on ample colours at high light horizontal surface than the traditional WRGB OLED applied science , which adds a ashen ingredient to heighten brightness . The Sony 55A95L actually try this point – though it ’s crucial to say that LG ’s OLED TVs have recently done a upright job of continuing to expatiate the color potential of its WRGB OLED television , too .
