ZDNET’s key takeaways
- What the Sony Bravia X90L lacks in eye-popping specs, it greater than makes up for in actual-world image efficiency and Sony upscaling know-how, which delivers nice video for films, sports activities, cable, and streaming.
- Relating to the options you will love for each day use, the X90L has a wonderful distant that feels premium, is simply the proper measurement, contains backlighting, and has a good stability of simply the proper variety of buttons
- The X90L additionally has Google TV constructed-in.
- The closest rivals to the Bravia X90L are the TCL QM8 and the Hisense U8 Sequence, each of which value a little lower than the Sony and have spectacular specs.
extra shopping for selections
The Sony Bravia X90L is presently $300 off at Best Buy and Amazon for the 65-inch mannequin ($899), for a restricted time.
The Sony Bravia X90L is one among our picks for the best Sony TVs you should purchase, and for good cause. Its coloration accuracy, precision brightness, 120Hz clean movement, and 4K picture processing make it one among our most beneficial TVs you should purchase. I additionally contemplate it one among the most underrated TVs out there. And with the 2025 TVs hitting the market, it can save you on nearly each measurement of this wonderful 2023 mannequin.
I’ve seen a lot of the best and newest TVs from Sony, Samsung LG, TCL, Hisense, and a number of others. Once I needed to change an 8-12 months-previous 55-inch TCL TV that died, I selected a 65-inch Sony X90L as a result of I believe it has the best image for the money 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’s an LED TV with a full-array backlight — the actual-world efficiency and usability make it one among the best buys on the market, primarily based on ZDNET’s testing. This Sony TV is technically in the identical class as two of its common rivals: the TCL QM8 and Hisense U8K.
Nevertheless, whereas these are Mini LED TVs and seem like they need to be higher TVs on paper, the Bravia X90L has higher coloration accuracy, loads of brightness, and a nicer distant than both the TCL or Hisense TVs (though latest fashions are beginning to emulate the Sony distant). It goes with out saying that the Sony show is the best amongst these three fashions.
Since Sony has had a lengthy partnership with Google, the X90L additionally has a wonderful 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 might be overly sophisticated and irritating to navigate.
With the X90L, you additionally get Sony’s wonderful image processing to upscale content material to 4K, which is particularly useful if you happen to’re watching older content material or YouTube movies, and it’s stronger than something supplied by Hisense and TCL. And if you happen to’re wanting for a TV to observe films, the X90L almost rivals costly OLED and excessive-finish QLED TVs that value nearly twice as a lot. In case you improve from a TV that is no less than 4-5 years previous, you can be blown away by the image high quality of X90L — and it would require a lot much less tuning out-of-the-box than different TVs.
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Sony has the most superior image processing of all 5 main TV manufacturers. Meaning it does not oversaturate and overbrighten the picture like Samsung, LG, TCL, and Hisense fashions generally do. Once more, which means Sony TVs usually have a higher image than greater-spec rivals from funds TV makers (Hisense and TCL) and can usually compete with dearer fashions from premium distributors like the aforementioned Samsung and LG.
For players, 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 wonderful-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 wonderful job of showing the particulars in 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 could offer you sticker shock
Remember the fact that Sony’s merchandise usually carry a 10% to twenty% price premium due to the Sony model identify, so it’s necessary to look for gross sales and offers like the ones we have highlighted from Amazon.
If in case you have a little extra to spend, I would suggest upgrading to an OLED. The Sony A80L, the Samsung S90C and the LG C3 are all 2023 OLED screens which might be additionally on sale. The most affordable 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.