Today we're taking a closer look at Sony's 42 inch A90K and seeing if this OLED TV could be the
perfect TV or monitor for your setup so it comes with most features that you would want and expect
including 4K, 120 hertz and VRR which is perfect for the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X but
it is lacking a few features it could put you off wanting to buy one nothing major but still worth
mentioning now I have been using this daily over the last five weeks on my desk literally every
single day so today's review should give you a good idea on how it performs as well as how
it compares to the 42 inch LG C2 I'll cover it all including gaming productivity and movies but
any questions you've got along the way please drop them below and I will answer those in the comments
okay let's start with the picture quality and there's no denying that this OLED TV looks great
it's one of the most impressive OLED TVs that you can buy throw in some generic wallpapers and
4K video content on shows how Vivid and sharp the picture looks now the picture quality is certainly
helped by the fact that there's an OLED so you're going to be getting those perfect black levels
in contrast and that's due to the self lighting pixels and from my experience there's little to no
black cross and the contrast and the dark areas of a scene in movies and gaming look great but it's
how sharp and clear the image is that makes this screen really stand out anything 4K generally does
look good even the dashboard on the PlayStation 5 shows how sharp the text in the images are and the
fact that they support a story Vision also means if you're paying for a streaming service or disk
that has Dolby Vision you're going to be getting an incredible picture quality the highlights and
shadows are well balanced and there's obviously no blooming as it's an OLED TV so I have been using
this as a monitor in my setup but let's not forget that this is a TV and because of that we get all
the benefits of a TV as well this includes an aerial and satellite port on the rear and the
inbuilt App Store now you could of course use your PC or games console to play and stream your movies
but the native apps on here make it so much easier I will talk more about the overall UI a little bit
later but the fact that you can jump between the different apps without needing to power on your
console is brilliant and we have all of the usual apps like Netflix Disney and Prime which shows off
how great the screen looks now typically most of the content I watch is either in 4k or 4K HDR but
there are situations where I do need to watch Str content and the way that the a90k handles
that is remarkable and that's down to the XR 4K upscaling that it has built in it's able to take
a 480p 720p and 1080p image and upscale it to a 4K quality which really is an absolute Game Changer
the clarity and Detail in some of the images I've tested blew me away it's obviously never going to
be as good as native 4K but it's likely the best upscaler that I've ever tried so we know that the
screen quality HDR contract and colors look good but what about the brightness well oleds typically
speak in don't get as bright as LCD or LED TV and that's a given but with that said the a90k
just doesn't feel quite bright enough now don't get me wrong join those late night sessions in a
dark room is absolutely fine but during the day or with my lights on in my room it often feels like
it's running a 70 to 80 brightness even though this is maxed out at 100 I think for most users
it will be fine but if you're already unimpressed with the brightness of most other oleds this one
could disappoint you there are settings that you can toggle on and off to ensure that you're not
using the automatic energy saving or ambient modes which of course I disabled immediately but even
with those Switched Off it's still lacking the punch that I hope to see and comparing that to
the 42 inch LG C2 that I had the C2 is definitely brighter overall now gaming is one of the main
reasons I use this desk setup in fact it's the only reason this setup even exists and that means
over the last five weeks I've put some serious gaming time in this has included Warzone with
my mates and the new Star Wars Jedi Survivor which has had a few performance issues but that's on the
game and not the TV I've also been testing out the usual culprits like Gran Turismo 7 and Ratchet and
Clank and it's going to be no surprise that the a90k looks absolutely awesome with every game that
I've played most of the time I do play with HDR switched on and the brightness is good but it's
the color and the clarity of the games are really worth talking about and I still think Rift apart
is one of the best games to show off on any TV as the vibrancy is just unmatched now I swap between
my monitors and TVs quite regularly and playing on a 42 inch always feels ridiculous at first but
after a few days I get used to it and honestly it just feels so immersive sitting this close to
a screen this size and as this supports 120 hertz and vrr thanks to the HDMI 2.1 ports it will work
perfectly with the PS5 and the Xbox series X and S but it does only only have two HDMI 2.1 ports
I think for most people that's not going to be a huge issue but should you want to plug in a sound
bar via the e-arc you'll only have one other Port available to use on your consoles or PC
it also doesn't have a display port so gaming on a PC will need to be done via HDMI instead and a
quick note when plugging in any device where you want to take advantage of the 120 hertz make sure
you enable this in the HDMI settings on the TV for some strange reason this is not switched on
by default and you'll be left wondering why you cannot get 120 hertz to work now one feature I
really like is the auto HDR tone mapping what this does is when you plug in your PlayStation
5 it takes the frustration and guessing out of those HDR sliders as the TV and the PlayStation
5 will actually do it for you this is a massively underrated feature and something that every PS5
owner would benefit from it also supports a llm or the auto low latency mode and it will detect
when you've Plugged In A Game's console so you'll instantly get the game mode which will reduce the
input lag and response time to near instant and as for the input lag this is a 8.5 five millisecond
TV so it's not as fast as some of the dedicated gaming monitors but it's still one of the fastest
TVs out there playing Warzone for example you're still going to be getting those instant kills with
no trigger lag at all now there are a couple of features that this TV does lack for gaming
one is the exclusion of a gaming Hub or menu so unlike the LG and Samsung TVs Sony have decided
not to include any kind of menu so quickly see or tweak your settings this isn't an issue as
such but it would be nice if Sony implemented this in the future TVs and another one there's
no 1440p support if you wanted to use 1440p on your PC or console unfortunately it won't work
now over the last year or two I've definitely seen a rise in people using 38 40 and 42 inch screens
as their monitors and I think that's why a TV like this could be used as productivity reasons as well
as gaming and movies when it comes to using a TV with a PC laptop or MacBook there are a few things
that you need to look for the first is available Port so the a90k isn't marketed as a monitor so it
doesn't come with a display port or USBC and that means you will need to use an HDMI port
instead and from a size perspective the 42 inches crazy when it comes to productivity at first it
definitely feels daunting if you're coming from a smaller screen but give it a week or two and
it just feels normal my other daily monitor is a 40 inch Ultra wide and I could not go back to
a smaller screen but with that said this isn't an ultra wide so it's a lot taller and it gets
in Far More screen real estate now to manage my dashboard and all the apps I'm actually using I
use an app called magnet and that allows me to snap windows and tabs into any sort of layout
that I would like whether that's moving my windows right into the corner of the screen or having the
app side by side and on the screen this size you can fit so much more on it see my entire timeline
in Final Cut Pro is great and will instantly make me feel far more productive and on top of that the
image is super sharp now one of the questions I got during the unboxing video was what is the
text like well I mean if you press your face right up against the screen you're going to
see some slight artifacts but honestly sitting a couple of feet away as most of you would attacks
looks perfect and it's easily readable I would not have an issue using this as a monitor even
writing documents and scripts every day but if you were using this as a monitor you might be
concerned with abl or the auto brightness limiter and this is where the entire screen dims if you've
got a bright image on screen for too long and from my experience over the last few weeks of
using it it has kicked in from time to time if I've left it on a screen for too long but that
is if I practically do not touch the screen at all for those five minutes during normal use while I'm
scrolling or writing documents I've not seen it at all and it's definitely nowhere near as hard
as we've seen on the LG oleds as for the design of the TV it's a nice looking screen it has thin
bezels across the top and the sides with a thicker chin across the bottom overall it looks premium
and honestly I think this looks great in my setup around the back it has a plastic honeycomb pattern
which covers the entire panel it also comes with some covers it can be used to hide away the ports
on your cables then there's the stand not only does this look and feel premium mainly due to
the fact that it's metal instead of plastic but it can't be fitted in two different ways either
flat on the desk which is how I use it or using the provided spacers it can be heightened to make
it look more like a monitor personally I think it looks far better lower plus it means you cannot
see any of your cables hanging down but the fact you can have it in two different ways is brilliant
so I've talked about how good the picture quality is in both SDR and HDR and you might be wondering
what my picture settings I'm actually using well the good news is this is Straight Out of the Box
all I've done is ensure the gaming mode is enabled while using the PlayStation 5 and
the energy saving mode are switched off and that really is it at no point have I felt the need to
change or mess around with any of the settings and that's a good thing as it means you can buy
this unbox that and use it straight away so most OLED TVs have a reflective or glossy screen and
that's a good thing as it helps with the clarity and the overall picture quality now the a90k has
a glossy finish that is heavily tinted which does a pretty decent job of reducing the reflection in
your room now if you've got a well-lit room or you're near a window this TV isn't going to be
very forgiving and you're going to see everything behind you so my advice would be to make sure this
isn't placed directly opposite a window or any light source as you probably see in the reflection
and here's the remote control that it comes with and it's nice it's metal it has a minimal design
and only has a handful of buttons that you'll actually use and it's also backlit which makes
using it out at night a little bit easier oh and a really cool feature is you can remap the
TV button at the top to any port for me I'll have it mapped to the PS5 HDMI so when I press it it
jumps straight to that Port without needing to select it from the list of inputs as for the UI
and menus where the Sony TV has one of the nicest uis out there it uses Google TV so we get a nice
tiled format for all of the movies TV shows and apps on the home screen it also has all of the
major streaming apps you would expect things like Netflix Apple TV and Prime navigating around feels
fast and snappy and as far as your eyes go this is one of my favorites so most people using a monitor
in their setup will probably be using a set of headphones or external speakers but the fact this
is a TV and not a monitor it means it does come with built-in speakers these are positioned behind
the screen and you're getting two speakers and once up and for a panel this small and thin they
sound okay the clarity for dialogue is good but it lacks any kind of bass but to be honest if you're
using a TV or a monitor on your setup and sound is something that's important to you you're probably
going to use some external speakers anyway but have a listen to this and see what you think
foreign
so you might be wondering how much this TV costs well the a90k comes in two sizes we've got the 42
inch which we've looked at today and the 48 inch I've put both prices on screen to give you an idea
of what you would pay if you bought one today now I mentioned at the start as well as a few times
throughout today's video that the a90k is closely compared to the 42 inch LG C2 or C3 oleds but here
are the price of those TVs as well with the LG being a cheaper like for like product it's hard
to justify the extra money for the Sony although the picture quality on the Sony is stunning
so in summary the Sony a90k OLED really is a brilliant TV unlike with any TV there are
pros and cons which are only relevant to your own personal needs what works for me might not be the
case for you and vice versa but the ultimate question is is it worth buying well the easy
answer is yes of course you're not going to be disappointed with this screen as the picture
quality and gaming features are incredible but if the question is should you buy the LG C2 C3 or
a90k I would probably lean towards the LG there are several reasons for this but the main three
are price brightness and the gaming features those are three pretty strong reasons to pick
the LG over the Sony but that doesn't mean the Sony is bad it's just let down by those three
points if you needed them but let me know what you think there's no wrong answers here but I
would be interested in hearing your thoughts now drop a nice 42 inch OLED in the comments
and I'll give you a thumbs up for staying right till the end and if you did enjoy today's video
check out my Sony a95k video next as I review the 65-inch QD OLED a few months ago thanks for watch
in the please like sub and follow me on Instagram and Twitter until next time