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- Sony's trying something a little new,
it's making its own gaming monitors
and headsets for PC and PS5.
Sony is good at entertaining you
in the living room,
but it usually leaves the PC gaming space
to other companies,
that's changing with its new INZONE lineup
of gaming monitors and headsets for PC
and PS5 launching this summer.
Yes, the name is goofy,
but I think the gadgets are pretty cool.
I've gotten to spend a little bit
of time with Sony's high end INZONE M9 monitor,
it's an $899, 27 inch 4K model.
And it has the features
that the most discerning gamers
want in a monitor,
a fast 144 hertz refresh rate,
one millisecond response time,
variable refresh rate,
along with DisplayPort,
and HDMI 2.1 ports
to take full advantage of the PS5
and PC's potential in terms of graphics.
It also has a bunch of USB-A ports
for connecting accessories,
plus a USB-C port with video support,
so you won't have to use an adapter
to plug in a Mac.
The M9 kind of checks a lot of boxes.
A dedicated gaming display is
both the most obvious move
that Sony could make at this point in time
and an unexpected one.
Other display manufacturers like ASUS,
a Acer, LG and Samsung
have all but cornered the monitor market.
But Sony's INZONE M9 comes
with a couple extra unique features
that may justify it's $899 price
compared to other options,
which is good because $899 is a lot of money.
So, okay,
what are you actually getting for that price?
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The M9 features full-array local dimming,
with 96 zones for finer control
over the back lighting.
That means you'll see more impressive contrast
and a lot less haloing
around bright objects in dark fields.
Full-array local dimming is super common
in high-end TVs,
like the ones that Sony makes,
but you'd be surprised how uncommon it is
in gaming monitors.
Most other gaming monitors
in this price range are edge lit
and typically use vertical dimming zones
which just aren't as pleasant to look at.
It also supports DisplayHDR 600,
reaching a peak brightness of 600 nits.
That's lower than where most high end TVs are at
but it's brighter than most monitors.
The finer control of dimming zones
and the HDR working in tandem,
makes games like "Returnal" and "Uncharted"
even more punchy with contrast rich landscapes.
Brights are brighter
and darks are darker.
So a scary game feels just a little scarier
when you're playing it alone in a dark room.
But those aren't the only cool TV features Sony is
bringing to this gaming monitor.
It's got auto HDR tone mapping for the PS5,
and theoretically that should just make
the HDR perform better.
The monitor will recognize the PS5
when it's plugged into the console
and HDR settings will automatically be optimized,
but we'll have to do more testing to see
if this feature is actually worth the hype,
and whether you can manually tweak the display
if the automatic results aren't to your liking.
Another cool PS5 exclusive feature
is auto genre picture mode,
which automatically applies cinema mode
when you switch from playing a game
to either using a streaming service
or watching Blu-ray.
It's great that you won't have to switch
between gaming and movie mode,
and then back to gaming mode,
and then back to movie mode
by yourself on the monitor,
because navigating menus on monitors
is usually so annoying.
In my short time with the M9,
playing PS5 games looked fantastic.
I cycled through a few games,
each one showing off a better looking picture
than I'd seen before
while using a PS5 with any other gaming monitor.
"Returnal" looked incredibly spooky
with its brilliant use of lighting
and neon bullet effects.
Later this winter,
Sony will bring a 27 inch 1080p version
of this monitor to the market.
It's called the M3
and it'll cost $529,
and while it's a big step down
in terms of resolution,
it boosts the refresh rate to 240 Hertz
without compromising on too many
of the M9's high-end features.
It still has variable refresh rate,
HDMI 2.1 ports,
NVIDIA G-SYNC compatibility,
along with DisplayHDR 400,
but it lacks full-array local dimming.
You might have already seen it appear
in some of the footage in this video.
It's also right behind me,
but Sony's also announcing
some gaming headsets to coincide
with the monitor launch.
This is great news
because the M9 monitor speakers aren't great.
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At the highest end of the lineup is
the $299, INZONE H9,
which can handle dual wireless connections simultaneously,
one through its USB-A transmitter
and another through Bluetooth.
Sony says that the end zone H9 shares
some common traits with the 1000XM5 headphones,
like the soft pillowy ear pads,
and the stellar noise cancellation.
I've had a little bit more time
with the H9 headset
than I've had with Sony's gaming monitor,
and I really like two things about them.
One they're very comfortable,
the notches of the headband
can extend well beyond what my large noggin requires,
which I love.
Two, they sound just as good,
if not better than my personal Sony XM3 headphones.
I could see these being my go-to headset
for gaming, video calls,
and for listening to music.
One thing that isn't cool though
they look absolutely massive
when they're on my head.
I mean, look at them.
Like almost all headset makers,
Sony is touting spatial audio as being a big deal
with the H9.
With the idea being
that it can help you notice little audio details,
like enemy footsteps
before they get the drop on you,
but it goes a step further than most companies,
because it's trying to tune the feature
to your ear shape.
Sony made a whole mobile app
that takes photos of your ears
to improve how the feature works on PC.
Going this far with the process is optional,
and while it's easy enough
to follow along with the steps,
I couldn't immediately notice the benefit in games,
but I need to test it out some more.
If you understandably don't want to spend $300
on a gaming headset,
Sony has two other options,
in the $229 wireless H7,
and the $99 wired H3.
The H7 ditches the noise cancellation from the H9,
seeing a boost in total battery life as a result.
As for the H3, has a slightly different design
with less premium feeling build materials,
but it's also only a hundred bucks,
and the audio performance is impressive
for that price.
Everyone is trying to be the cheapest,
or the best,
or sometimes even both,
but I think Sony's new models
might just be unique enough to stand out.
I need to spend a little bit more time
with Sony's new gadgets,
but be sure to tune into theverge.com
to check out my final reviews soon.
And shameless plug
but we have a new show on Netflix
called "The Future Of"
and you should check it out.