**A Mixed Bag: The Sony X90J TV Review**

As I sat down to review the Sony X90J TV, I couldn't help but feel a sense of trepidation. The TV's design and construction seemed sturdy enough, but damage to the back of the TV had raised some concerns about its performance. I decided to give it another try and see if the measurements would tell the whole story.

**Black Levels**

One of my primary concerns was black levels. While the TV did manage to produce deep blacks, they didn't feel entirely uniform. In certain scenes, I noticed a "milky" effect that made me wonder if local dimming performance was at fault. It's as if the TV was trying to balance contrast and brightness, but wasn't quite succeeding. To make matters worse, I felt like some detail in shots I've seen many times before was getting lost due to crushing. This was a major disappointment, especially considering the X90J's price point.

**Color Accuracy**

I also noticed that color accuracy seemed off, particularly when it came to saturation. While Sony is known for its excellent color reproduction, this TV seemed to be lacking in some areas. I couldn't shake the feeling that damage to the back of the TV was affecting my perception of color. I wanted to give the X90J another chance to prove itself, so I decided to wait until I got a review sample with minimal cosmetic damage.

**Screen Uniformity**

Speaking of which, I hesitated to evaluate screen uniformity. The damage to the back of the TV could potentially affect the display's performance, and I didn't want to risk skewing my results. It pains me to say it, but I think Sony might have compromised on some areas to make the TV more affordable.

**Motion**

Moving on to motion, I found that 24p film content looked great – no judder or stutter. However, with 30 and 60 fps content, I started to notice some issues. While tweaking the motion settings helped alleviate these problems, I was surprised by the TV's inability to produce smooth motion without flicker or picture dimming. This is where the X90J's XR processor came into play, which seemed to clean up the motion without too much effort.

**Gaming**

For gaming, I found that the X90J performed well, with reasonably low input lag and support for HDR gaming at 4K 120 through two of its HDMI ports. However, I couldn't help but feel like I was missing out on some features that would make this TV truly great for gamers. Specifically, VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) is a major omission, which could be a deal-breaker for those who value fast and responsive gameplay.

**Gaming vs. Non-Gaming Content**

While the X90J handled 24p film content with ease, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was somehow less impressive than the X900H, Sony's previous model. For most casual gamers, this TV will likely be fine, but enthusiasts and early adopters of next-gen consoles might find themselves looking elsewhere.

**Final Thoughts**

After weighing all my concerns, I'm still hesitant to recommend the Sony X90J TV. While it has its strengths, something feels off, and I'm not excited about the prospect of owning this TV. That's not to say that there aren't better options available in this price range; for now, I think I'll have to wait until I get another review sample with minimal cosmetic damage to make a final call.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ensometimes tv reviews go according to plan and sometimes well they just don't unforeseen circumstances are just part of the process and i accepted that a long time ago but doesn't make it any less frustrating welcome back everyone i'm caleb dennison and today we're going to mostly review the sony x90j 4k hdr led lcd tv why does it sound like i'm hedging my bets already i'll explain that in a moment the good news i have been able to come down with some firm observations on this tv's performance in some areas the bad news is that there are some areas which may have to remain a mystery for at least a little while one thing is for sure though if you've shortlisted this tv and been waiting to hear what the pros think you are definitely going to want to stay tuned before i get into it everyone i just wanted to say thanks for all the great comments you've been putting down over the last few videos i have definitely seen them and appreciated them whether they're actually about the tv or not please keep them coming and along those lines let me know in the comments on this video do you consider yourself a hardcore gamer or not how important is vrr to you for instance let me know so we can talk about it and while you're at it please consider clicking the like button on this video but definitely smash subscribe because you'll want to see the follow-up to this review and you know i'm gunning for a million subs by the end of the year and i need your help to do it i will run a giveaway of some sort as a celebration so get in on that action now thanks as always you know i love you now let's get on with this review so let's set the stage here sony has always charged a premium price for its tvs and i've always felt like the company justified it because it delivered a premium product for that price the premium can come in the form of looks the user experience the processing the picture quality reliability longevity all of those are important considerations to be clear sony is still a premium brand charging a premium price but it is no doubt feeling the competition from relative newcomers like tcl and hisense both of which have very competitive tvs to the x90j here and for a little less money the question comes down to is sony earning their premium usually the answer is yes but i'm not sure that's the case here why let's dig into it first thing i have to acknowledge this tv was damaged in shipping on its way to me i noted that in the unboxing video there it is and at the time i saw no effect on the picture quality however since i've dug deep into evaluating this tv it seems pretty clear that a small section of the screen just below the very center there appears to be dirty screen effect that i am almost certain coincides with the damage at the back now the good news is the rest of the screen seems unaffected and there's no indication that the processing took any kind of hit so we can still determine a lot about what this tv does well and what it does not do well that includes measurements which i'm going to get into shortly i was able to measure the center of the screen above where it was damaged so i've got good readings to share but before we go there let's take a look at the tv as a whole it's an attractive tv and it runs google tv those two elements carry some way for me not enough to sell me on the tv but they could be tipping points if i was having a hard time making a decision also sony has a long track record of quality control and longevity meaning it's unlikely that you'll have to replace or repair this tv in just a few years like you might with other brands there's another reason sony is a safe buy now i'm going to talk about picture quality and gaming aspects here in a moment but one last touch point i want to discuss and that's sound quality sony has been making some of the best sounding tvs i've ever heard lately most of them in their top tier has any of that sweet sonic goodness trickle down to the x90j here sadly the answer is no i do not like the way this tv sounds which is unfortunate because it even has an audio calibration feature which i ran and it did not help and it has two speaker ports at the top of the back of the tv to help with surround effects and height and while it does pull off some fun surround effects and has more presence or less directional sound the fidelity is not good there's a lack of bass but worse there's a lack of lower mids which leaves you with upper mids and treble being way out front and the result is to use a common non-audio file term tinney bummer because sony knows good audio and it just isn't outfitted to this tv okay now let's dig into picture quality and before i start painting the broad strokes let's go ahead and geek out on some measurements first i didn't expect this tv to offer out of box accuracy anywhere close to what the aadj oled did but i was still pleasantly surprised in the custom and cinema modes the two point white balance was not terrible as it usually is on competing tvs in fact without adjustment it is better than some tvs after they've been adjusted now after i calibrated to d65 white point bam we're talking about imperceptible errors much lower than i typically see on tvs that cost a lot more than the x90j so from a color accuracy standpoint in both sdr and hdr this tv can be adjusted to be a top performer as for brightness i got about 620 nits in sdr with the peak luminance setting maxed out you can go lower than that if you watch in a dark room and in hdr it maxed out at about 830 nits now for an led lcd tv frankly i was hoping for better i'd like to see 1000 nits peak for hdr as a standard for a tv that cost this much now normally i would depend on sony processing to punch above that in all the right places for hdr but as i'll explain shortly i'm not really seeing that in subjective viewing outside of pure brightness we have to talk about the local dimming effectiveness which again i'm not all that impressed by sony usually uses fewer dimming zones than the competition that's normal but they also usually pull off some cool tricks which make the tv's light control surprisingly good that's one of the reasons i found the x900h so impressive but i'm less impressed here i see blooming and halos all the time and that's in normal viewing so here i am again wishing for better especially since tvs like the u8g from hisense pull off the deep blacks and punchy brights so convincingly then there's the matter of black levels in general when they aren't milky due to local dimming performance it appears there's some crushing going on i'm missing some detail in shots i've seen many times before and no matter how i adjust the picture i'm not able to recover that detail this to me is pretty confusing seems like either we would have some slightly elevated blacks across the board or we would have deep blacks and some black crush but somehow i'm seeing a hybrid of the least desirable aspects of those two outcomes as for color accuracy yes absolutely saturation though i'm not getting that here now i want to stop short of making a final call on color because this is an area which i think may have been impacted by the damage to the tv at least in some parts of the screen i know i'm being generous but that's one of the reasons i'm asking for another review sample so i can take another stab at this model and make sure i get this right speaking of hedging bets i'm steering away from a screen uniformity evaluation too because again the damage to the back of the tv could be coming into play and i'm not confident i'm getting what i'm supposed to from this sample now onto motion the motion for me is a bit of a mixed bag 24p film content looks great no judder and minimum stutter but with 30 and 60 fps content i'm seeing some staggered motion now i can get rid of that by adjusting some of the motion settings and i would highly recommend doing that for games and sports anyway sony's black frame insertion or they call it clearness implementation cleans up the motion without too much flicker or picture dimming if you use the minimum amount but i'm surprised because this tv does have the xr processor which has worked miracles on the a80j and a90j tvs and by all rights should be doing the same here even without the enhancements i would expect a smoother look again tweak the motion settings and it looks great and 24p film content off of blu-rays and 4k blu-rays looks awesome so it's not the end of the world if you get the settings right now taking a step back and just watching content i know inside and out i do feel like i'm missing some pop i was really impressed by the x900h last year and i can't help but feel like the x90j is somehow a bit of a step backward like if you asked me if you should get the x900h from last year or the x90j here right now i would have to say the x900h is the better call even the x950h would be a good call both also less expensive i'm missing something from the hdr presentation here that i think is really important for tvs in this price category it pains me to say it because i'm generally a big fan of sony tvs but i mean this is what i'm seeing right now as for gaming i want to slow down and put some things into perspective i think for the vast majority of people playing on game consoles the x90j and its gaming support is going to be just fine great even it's got reasonably low input lag supports hdr gaming at 4k 120 through just two of its hdmi ports it lacks a true auto game mode but it jives well with playstation consoles so for most folks this tv is gonna be fine for gaming with that said i think missing vrr is a big deal for anyone who spent big money on a next-gen console like the ps5 or xbox series s or x vrr really does make a meaningful difference and the fact that it's mia on sony tvs is a bit of a disappointment especially considering sony makes the ps5 so enthusiasts and early adopters of the new game consoles to you i say yes there are better tvs for gaming but for most of you casual gamers you do just fine with this tv so ultimately what's the takeaway here well i'm going to give another x90j review sample a shot if anything was compromised by damage to the plastic case of the tv i'll know it right away and we'll make the final final call but based on what i know so far i'm not leaning toward a recommendation and that's really hard to say having been so high on the x900h but i'm just not excited and i think that counts for a lot because as i've said before the measurements don't tell the whole story there's something to be said for being really excited or impressed by a tv and sadly i'm just not getting that here thanks as always for watching everyone what do you think surprised by what i had to say think i'm missing something am i just bonkers tell me all about it in the comments and don't forget to like and subscribe and here's two other videos i think you'll likesometimes tv reviews go according to plan and sometimes well they just don't unforeseen circumstances are just part of the process and i accepted that a long time ago but doesn't make it any less frustrating welcome back everyone i'm caleb dennison and today we're going to mostly review the sony x90j 4k hdr led lcd tv why does it sound like i'm hedging my bets already i'll explain that in a moment the good news i have been able to come down with some firm observations on this tv's performance in some areas the bad news is that there are some areas which may have to remain a mystery for at least a little while one thing is for sure though if you've shortlisted this tv and been waiting to hear what the pros think you are definitely going to want to stay tuned before i get into it everyone i just wanted to say thanks for all the great comments you've been putting down over the last few videos i have definitely seen them and appreciated them whether they're actually about the tv or not please keep them coming and along those lines let me know in the comments on this video do you consider yourself a hardcore gamer or not how important is vrr to you for instance let me know so we can talk about it and while you're at it please consider clicking the like button on this video but definitely smash subscribe because you'll want to see the follow-up to this review and you know i'm gunning for a million subs by the end of the year and i need your help to do it i will run a giveaway of some sort as a celebration so get in on that action now thanks as always you know i love you now let's get on with this review so let's set the stage here sony has always charged a premium price for its tvs and i've always felt like the company justified it because it delivered a premium product for that price the premium can come in the form of looks the user experience the processing the picture quality reliability longevity all of those are important considerations to be clear sony is still a premium brand charging a premium price but it is no doubt feeling the competition from relative newcomers like tcl and hisense both of which have very competitive tvs to the x90j here and for a little less money the question comes down to is sony earning their premium usually the answer is yes but i'm not sure that's the case here why let's dig into it first thing i have to acknowledge this tv was damaged in shipping on its way to me i noted that in the unboxing video there it is and at the time i saw no effect on the picture quality however since i've dug deep into evaluating this tv it seems pretty clear that a small section of the screen just below the very center there appears to be dirty screen effect that i am almost certain coincides with the damage at the back now the good news is the rest of the screen seems unaffected and there's no indication that the processing took any kind of hit so we can still determine a lot about what this tv does well and what it does not do well that includes measurements which i'm going to get into shortly i was able to measure the center of the screen above where it was damaged so i've got good readings to share but before we go there let's take a look at the tv as a whole it's an attractive tv and it runs google tv those two elements carry some way for me not enough to sell me on the tv but they could be tipping points if i was having a hard time making a decision also sony has a long track record of quality control and longevity meaning it's unlikely that you'll have to replace or repair this tv in just a few years like you might with other brands there's another reason sony is a safe buy now i'm going to talk about picture quality and gaming aspects here in a moment but one last touch point i want to discuss and that's sound quality sony has been making some of the best sounding tvs i've ever heard lately most of them in their top tier has any of that sweet sonic goodness trickle down to the x90j here sadly the answer is no i do not like the way this tv sounds which is unfortunate because it even has an audio calibration feature which i ran and it did not help and it has two speaker ports at the top of the back of the tv to help with surround effects and height and while it does pull off some fun surround effects and has more presence or less directional sound the fidelity is not good there's a lack of bass but worse there's a lack of lower mids which leaves you with upper mids and treble being way out front and the result is to use a common non-audio file term tinney bummer because sony knows good audio and it just isn't outfitted to this tv okay now let's dig into picture quality and before i start painting the broad strokes let's go ahead and geek out on some measurements first i didn't expect this tv to offer out of box accuracy anywhere close to what the aadj oled did but i was still pleasantly surprised in the custom and cinema modes the two point white balance was not terrible as it usually is on competing tvs in fact without adjustment it is better than some tvs after they've been adjusted now after i calibrated to d65 white point bam we're talking about imperceptible errors much lower than i typically see on tvs that cost a lot more than the x90j so from a color accuracy standpoint in both sdr and hdr this tv can be adjusted to be a top performer as for brightness i got about 620 nits in sdr with the peak luminance setting maxed out you can go lower than that if you watch in a dark room and in hdr it maxed out at about 830 nits now for an led lcd tv frankly i was hoping for better i'd like to see 1000 nits peak for hdr as a standard for a tv that cost this much now normally i would depend on sony processing to punch above that in all the right places for hdr but as i'll explain shortly i'm not really seeing that in subjective viewing outside of pure brightness we have to talk about the local dimming effectiveness which again i'm not all that impressed by sony usually uses fewer dimming zones than the competition that's normal but they also usually pull off some cool tricks which make the tv's light control surprisingly good that's one of the reasons i found the x900h so impressive but i'm less impressed here i see blooming and halos all the time and that's in normal viewing so here i am again wishing for better especially since tvs like the u8g from hisense pull off the deep blacks and punchy brights so convincingly then there's the matter of black levels in general when they aren't milky due to local dimming performance it appears there's some crushing going on i'm missing some detail in shots i've seen many times before and no matter how i adjust the picture i'm not able to recover that detail this to me is pretty confusing seems like either we would have some slightly elevated blacks across the board or we would have deep blacks and some black crush but somehow i'm seeing a hybrid of the least desirable aspects of those two outcomes as for color accuracy yes absolutely saturation though i'm not getting that here now i want to stop short of making a final call on color because this is an area which i think may have been impacted by the damage to the tv at least in some parts of the screen i know i'm being generous but that's one of the reasons i'm asking for another review sample so i can take another stab at this model and make sure i get this right speaking of hedging bets i'm steering away from a screen uniformity evaluation too because again the damage to the back of the tv could be coming into play and i'm not confident i'm getting what i'm supposed to from this sample now onto motion the motion for me is a bit of a mixed bag 24p film content looks great no judder and minimum stutter but with 30 and 60 fps content i'm seeing some staggered motion now i can get rid of that by adjusting some of the motion settings and i would highly recommend doing that for games and sports anyway sony's black frame insertion or they call it clearness implementation cleans up the motion without too much flicker or picture dimming if you use the minimum amount but i'm surprised because this tv does have the xr processor which has worked miracles on the a80j and a90j tvs and by all rights should be doing the same here even without the enhancements i would expect a smoother look again tweak the motion settings and it looks great and 24p film content off of blu-rays and 4k blu-rays looks awesome so it's not the end of the world if you get the settings right now taking a step back and just watching content i know inside and out i do feel like i'm missing some pop i was really impressed by the x900h last year and i can't help but feel like the x90j is somehow a bit of a step backward like if you asked me if you should get the x900h from last year or the x90j here right now i would have to say the x900h is the better call even the x950h would be a good call both also less expensive i'm missing something from the hdr presentation here that i think is really important for tvs in this price category it pains me to say it because i'm generally a big fan of sony tvs but i mean this is what i'm seeing right now as for gaming i want to slow down and put some things into perspective i think for the vast majority of people playing on game consoles the x90j and its gaming support is going to be just fine great even it's got reasonably low input lag supports hdr gaming at 4k 120 through just two of its hdmi ports it lacks a true auto game mode but it jives well with playstation consoles so for most folks this tv is gonna be fine for gaming with that said i think missing vrr is a big deal for anyone who spent big money on a next-gen console like the ps5 or xbox series s or x vrr really does make a meaningful difference and the fact that it's mia on sony tvs is a bit of a disappointment especially considering sony makes the ps5 so enthusiasts and early adopters of the new game consoles to you i say yes there are better tvs for gaming but for most of you casual gamers you do just fine with this tv so ultimately what's the takeaway here well i'm going to give another x90j review sample a shot if anything was compromised by damage to the plastic case of the tv i'll know it right away and we'll make the final final call but based on what i know so far i'm not leaning toward a recommendation and that's really hard to say having been so high on the x900h but i'm just not excited and i think that counts for a lot because as i've said before the measurements don't tell the whole story there's something to be said for being really excited or impressed by a tv and sadly i'm just not getting that here thanks as always for watching everyone what do you think surprised by what i had to say think i'm missing something am i just bonkers tell me all about it in the comments and don't forget to like and subscribe and here's two other videos i think you'll like\n"