Review: Sony Bravia XR-55A95K

For reasons that will become clear soon enough, we need to start this review of a shiny new Sony television by talking briefly about Samsung.

For all of its many successes, Samsung has often been defined as much by what it opposes as by what it’s good at. Take OLED television technology, for example. Samsung never rated it and could hardly bear to let the word pass its lips. And so its great local rival in television panel tech, LG, cornered the market on OLED. Any manufacturer who wants to build an OLED TV has to buy its OLED panel from LG, the only company building them. And because every manufacturer wants to, they all do. Well, everyone except Samsung, which has instead persevered with its own OLED alternative, the very capable yet somehow relatively unsexy QLED.

In fact, about the only way for Samsung to get in on the OLED action without losing face has been to significantly advance the technology. And so it has developed QD-OLED. It’s a technology designed to retain all the inherent OLED strengths—excellent black levels, wide viewing angles, pixel-level contrast control, and spookily slim physical dimensions—while using QLED technology to address OLED’s one significant shortcoming: brightness, or the lack thereof.  

Like LG with its OLED panel monopoly, Samsung is currently the only company building QD-OLED panels. It’s more than happy to sell them in their raw state, of course, if the price is right. And so the first QD-OLED set to hit the market isn’t a Samsung—it’s this Sony Bravia XR-55A95K.  

Even a brief acquaintance with a few different OLED TVs will tell you the panel is just the start of it. Picture processing and overall panel management are what turn a raw panel into a watchable television. Given that Sony has long been recognized as one of the front-runners in picture processing technology, it follows that the A95K has every chance of impressing. (The “55” in front of the model name indicates the screen size in inches, so I’ll drop it from here on out. The set also comes in a 65-inch version.)

Photograph: Sony

What’s most immediately noticeable is how un-slim this Sony is. There’s a brief section of OLED-style thinness toward the top of the screen, but seen in profile its 43-mm depth is more reminiscent of an LED model with standard backlighting. Far better to view it head on; it’s basically all screen, surrounded by vanishingly slim bezels. 

If you attach its considerable stand to the rear of the TV, the stand itself is practically invisible. It’s like looking at a wall-mounted TV, except it’s standing on a surface. The stand can also be deployed at the front of the screen, which allows the Sony to be backed virtually flush to the wall behind it.

Glance through the spec sheet, and the A95K looks just as promising on paper as it does in situ. Ultimate responsibility for picture quality is given to Sony’s top-of-the-shop “Cognitive Processor XR,” which was introduced toward the middle of last year but has been fettled for this application, mostly in an effort to exploit the additional brightness the QD-OLED is capable of generating. 

The A95K is compatible with HLG, HDR10, and Dolby Vision HDR standards, and it can also deal with Dolby Atmos soundtracks. It’s not attempting to give an impression of spatial audio, but its audio arrangement of two rear-firing subwoofers supporting a pair of actuators that turn the screen itself into a speaker is certainly promising. 

Sony’s been “exciting” the screens of its OLED TVs for a few years now, and it’s previously proven the technique to be very effective at delivering sound with a point-source identical to that of images. Sony’s so pleased with the A95K’s audio system that it has fitted speaker binding posts to the TV set in case you want this screen to be the center channel of your surround-sound system.

There are quite a few options when it comes to getting content on board. The A95K has twin TV tuners, a couple of USB sockets, dual-band Wi-Fi (plus an Ethernet port), Bluetooth, and support for both Chromecast and Apple AirPlay. Most importantly, the Sony has four HDMI sockets—two of which are gaming-centric, thanks to their 2.1-standard specification, which covers 4.8 Gbps, 4K at 120 Hz, auto tone-mapping, and eARC. All HDMI sockets support auto low-latency mode and variable refresh rates.

Google TV is the smart interface here; it’s simple to navigate and adept at making recommendations, providing you accept that they’re heavily Google-centric. App availability is broad, and with the exception of Disney+ (which is not available with Dolby Atmos, for some reason), all the catch-up and streaming service apps are the top-end versions.

Navigation is via either of the two remote controls included in the box. As is the way of these things lately, one handset feels good, looks quite nice, and features a minimal selection of buttons that operate with real positivity. The other looks and feels a bit cheap and has too many buttons that feel spongy and vague. You’ll probably only need the lesser remote for the initial setup.

Photograph: Sony

Aside from one of the two remotes being a bit disappointing, the only false note is the appearance of the Bravia Cam. This little camera clips magnetically to the rear of the TV’s chassis and peeps Chad-like from the center-top of the screen. Sony intends it to be useful for gesture control, on-the-fly analysis of ambient lighting conditions, and other stuff at some point in the future. But for now it’s only good for making Google Duo video calls. How much did this add to the hefty asking price of the XR-5A95K? “Too much” is my guess.

Setup is as straightforward or involved as you want it to be. Sony’s given a fair degree of autonomy to the end user, but getting an impressive image out of the A95K doesn’t require too much fiddling. And once the screen has been set up to your satisfaction, it’s an enjoyable-to-engrossing watch.

Before you get entranced by all the things the Sony is good at, though, you’ll have to get beyond the fact that this “brighter than the brightest OLED TV” technology isn’t really all that much brighter. Where it scores, though, is in the amount of detail, variation, and insight it’s capable of revealing in the brightest scenes.

A viewing of The Midnight Sky makes the point in fine style. It’s a confused movie, but its Dolby Vision HDR picture and Dolby Atmos soundtrack are ideal for showcasing the A95K’s strengths, which are numerous and considerable.

As befits a film set mostly in space, black tones abound, and in the long-established OLED manner, they’re lustrous, deep, and varied. When brightness intrudes, rather than bleaching out and becoming uniform, the Sony retains the detail within them and offers very nice gradations of brightness. This is not in any way typical of “traditional” OLED TVs, and it makes the Sony feel more convincing off the bat.

Between these extremes, the color balance manages to agreeably combine vibrancy and naturalism. Skin tones, in particular, are always believable, and the A95K has no problem differentiating a healthy complexion from an unwell one. 

Where the other broad disciplines of picture-making are concerned (edge definition, depth of field, pattern stability) the A95K proves utterly assured. Its pictures are smooth and refined, yet packed with detail and variation.

Switching to a UHD sports broadcast allows the Sony to showcase its excellent motion control. It’s challenging enough when onscreen objects are moving unpredictably and often in opposition to the movement of the camera that’s televising—doubly so when this is happening on a big area of uniform color. But the A95K grips motion with complete authority. 

If you don’t exist on an exclusive diet of 4K content, the Sony’s an effective upscaler, although it has its limitations. High-definition content looks great, not as nuanced as native 4K stuff, naturally, and not entirely immune from picture noise when the going gets complex, but the A95K is a match for the best of its nominal rivals. Only when you step down to real poverty-level content does the Sony throw in the towel somewhat. Older programming can somehow look coarse and soft at the same time.

Gamers of all kinds will enjoy the A95K but, unsurprisingly, it gets on particularly well with Sony’s PlayStation 5. All of the best features of the next-gen console can be exploited by this TV, and while input lag of around 21 milliseconds is nothing special, the delay is only going to be perceptible to the most demanding gamers. (And they tend to have dedicated monitors on which to do their thing, anyway.) The rest of us can enjoy the extraordinary picture fidelity and wide-ranging color palette, and especially the way the A95K handles lighting effects. 

Some TV manufacturers have entered into alliances with audio companies in order to beef up the sound of their screens. Bowers & Wilkins’ collaboration with Philips on some of its high-end OLED TVs springs to mind. Sony is a well-regarded audio company in its own right, and considering there’s no visible audio system whatsoever attached to the A95K, it’s a very impressive-sounding television.

Low frequencies are gratifyingly low and have real body to them, as well as good control. Detail levels are high throughout, dialog projects well, and the Sony can get oppressively loud before it starts to lose its composure. 

The sound stage it creates is both wider and taller than the screen it derives from, and the presentation is passably dynamic. So unless you’re resolved to spend more money, an audio upgrade in the form of a soundbar is probably not necessary.

In the final analysis, the QD-OLED Sony Bravia XR-55A95K doesn’t tear up the OLED TV rulebook. It undeniably advances the game, but it doesn’t change it. What it does do is add to the list of exceptionally capable Sony televisions that have always been priced to match. 

This sort of money for a 55-inch TV is significant (and the 65-incher costs $500 more), even for a TV that hides a very effective audio system inside its chassis, makes good on the latent promise of your next-gen games console, and is a straightforward pleasure to watch. But the price is justified. Probably. Just about.