ZDNET’s key takeaways
- What the Sony Bravia X90L lacks in eye-popping specs, it greater than makes up for in real-world image efficiency and Sony upscaling expertise, which delivers nice video for films, sports activities, cable, and streaming.
- Relating to the options you will love for every day use, the X90L has a superb distant that feels premium, is simply the precise dimension, contains backlighting, and has stability of simply the precise variety of buttons
- The X90L additionally has Google TV built-in.
- The closest rivals to the Bravia X90L are the TCL QM8 and the Hisense U8 Sequence, each of which price rather less than the Sony and have spectacular specs.
extra shopping for selections
The Sony Bravia X90L is at the moment $300 off at Finest Purchase and Amazon for the 65-inch mannequin ($899), for a restricted time.
The Sony Bravia X90L is certainly one of our picks for the very best Sony TVs you should buy, and for good motive. Its shade accuracy, precision brightness, 120Hz easy movement, and 4K picture processing make it certainly one of our most beneficial TVs you should buy. I additionally take into account it one of the underrated TVs obtainable. And with the 2025 TVs hitting the market, it can save you on nearly each dimension of this glorious 2023 mannequin.
I’ve seen a number of the very best and newest TVs from Sony, Samsung LG, TCL, Hisense, and a number of other others. Once I needed to exchange an 8-year-old 55-inch TCL TV that died, I selected a 65-inch Sony X90L as a result of I believe it has the very best image for the cash proper now and boasts some further benefits.
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Whereas the Sony Bravia XR X90L does not blow you away on the spec sheet — it is an LED TV with a full-array backlight — the real-world efficiency and usefulness make it probably the greatest buys in the marketplace, based mostly on ZDNET’s testing. This Sony TV is technically in the identical class as two of its fashionable rivals: the TCL QM8 and Hisense U8K.
Nonetheless, whereas these are Mini LED TVs and appear to be they need to be higher TVs on paper, the Bravia X90L has higher shade accuracy, loads of brightness, and a nicer distant than both the TCL or Hisense TVs (though current fashions are beginning to emulate the Sony distant). It goes with out saying that the Sony show is the very best amongst these three fashions.
Since Sony has had an extended partnership with Google, the X90L additionally has a superb implementation of Google TV. This makes the X90L’s software program interface a lot friendlier to make use of than Samsung’s Tizen and LG’s webOS, which will be overly sophisticated and irritating to navigate.
With the X90L, you additionally get Sony’s glorious image processing to upscale content material to 4K, which is very useful in the event you’re watching older content material or YouTube movies, and it is stronger than something provided by Hisense and TCL. And in the event you’re on the lookout for a TV to look at films, the X90L practically rivals costly OLED and high-end QLED TVs that price virtually twice as a lot. In the event you improve from a TV that’s at the very least 4-5 years outdated, you can be blown away by the image high quality of X90L — and it’ll require so much much less tuning out-of-the-box than different TVs.
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Sony has probably the most superior image processing of all 5 main TV manufacturers. Which means it does not oversaturate and overbrighten the picture like Samsung, LG, TCL, and Hisense fashions typically do. Once more, meaning Sony TVs typically have a greater image than higher-spec rivals from funds TV makers (Hisense and TCL) and might typically compete with dearer fashions from premium distributors just like the aforementioned Samsung and LG.
For avid gamers, this TV has a devoted sport mode, HDMI 2.1, VRR, and Auto HDR Tone Mapping when linked to the Sony PS5. It additionally has a sport menu to fine-tune the settings to your preferences.
The Sony X90L is not as vivid as its Mini LED rivals from TCL and Hisense — and even its 2024 successor, the Sony Bravia 7 — however it nonetheless takes benefit of Sony’s superior backlight system to brighten particular elements of the picture. It additionally does a superb job of showing the main points within the shadows of darkish films and exhibits. I am utilizing the X90L in a vivid room and have by no means had an occasion the place I wanted the image was brighter.
Additionally: We noticed Sony’s deluge of 2025 Bravia TVs, and the flagship OLED might offer you sticker shock
Remember the fact that Sony’s merchandise typically carry a ten% to twenty% worth premium due to the Sony model title, so it is necessary to search for gross sales and offers like those we have highlighted from Amazon.
When you’ve got a bit extra to spend, I might advocate upgrading to an OLED. The Sony A80L, the Samsung S90C and the LG C3 are all 2023 OLED screens which are additionally on sale. The most cost effective amongst these is the 42-inch LG C3, which begins at $890.
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This story was first revealed on Might 31, 2024, and was up to date on July 3, 2025.
