Thank you to Govee for sponsoring today's video! Hello everyone it's SpawnPoiint and this is Sony's
smallest OLED TV the 42 inch A90K it's a 4K screen with VRR, 120hz and Dolby Vision support it's
packing some great features for both movies and gaming but today I'll be unboxing setting up and
using it on my gaming setup I'll go over the specs of features and my first impressions and how it
performs on the PlayStation 5 then over the next couple of weeks I will be using this exclusively
on my setup so I can follow it up with a full review I might even compare this to the LG C2
the 42 inch version as this is the most likely competitor at this size now this a90k is a 2022
model but with the current discounts available this is still a great buy okay so here's the
box with the plain packaging that we're used to seeing now along with the dimensions in case you
fancied picking this up from a store but let's get this opened up and see what we get inside
we have a pack of manuals and safety information two brackets that connect to the TV stand two
spacers which can be used to heighten the TV two packets of screws two remote controls a couple
of plastic covers some batteries for the remote controls and they stand itself which is made from
metal so it's pretty heavy and when it comes to setting this up it's really easy as it's the 42
inch version you could do this on your own as it's light enough and small enough but it's definitely
easier to have someone else help you out now there are two ways you can install the stand either
flush to your desk with almost no clearance at all or heightened by a few inches using the spacers
this comes down to a personal preference as the footprint of the stand is exactly the same I quite
like the lowered look as it means you cannot see the cables behind your TV but it does give you
less room for placing items in front or underneath it things like a sound bar whereas this is how
it looks with these spacers fitted so as you can see it heightens the stands by a couple of inches
either way you attach the bracket or the spacers to the stand first using the provided screws and
then you slide the TV on top which will hold it in place then simply fit the remaining screws and
were good to go before we flip this around let's take a quick look at the rear so the a90k has
the same rear design as the a95k that I reviewed last year so this plastic honeycomb pattern covers
almost the entire panel it's quite chunky too but this does house all of the internals although the
frame itself or the edge of the TV is very thin and it's made from metal we've got the vessel
holes in the middle here which measure 200 by 200 so if you wanted to wall mount it or attach it to
an arm you can use these screws and here are the dimensions of the TV which might help you decide
if it will fit in your setup and for reference my desk is 160 centimeters by 80 centimeters to
give you an idea of the overall size on the left side we've got the power cable which is fitted
you could remove it if you wanted to unscrew the panel first but it's not a removable power cable
as such then on the right side we've got all of the available ports there are four HDMI ports
two of these rhdmi 2.0 and two or HDMI 2.1 all of these are actually used for e-arcs although that
great if you've got a sound bar or an AVR it does take up one of the two 4K 120 hertz ports then we
have a lan Port Optical out aerial port and a USB port there's another USB port on the side as well
as a center channel speaker port and that allows you to use your TV as the center channel in your
setup and those plastic covers I mentioned earlier can now be fitted to hide all of your cables and
keep the rear looking a little bit tidier let's get this flipped around and power it on running
through the on-screen prompts and messages only takes you a few minutes and as this uses
the Google TV operating system you can just log straight in using a QR code if you already have
a Google account then the first thing I would recommend doing is check in for any available
updates just to make sure you're on the latest version okay so here it is this is the 42 inch
a90k and on First Impressions this looks nice the screen is clear and vibrant which isn't a surprise
with it being an OLED but it's also got the ultra thin bezels around the screen which immediately
gives it that premium look now although the back of the TV is plastic the thin frame and the stand
are actually metal which fills and looks a lot nicer than it being plastic and as mentioned
you can have these stand either high or low and I think the low looks so much nicer overall I
know it means it's going to eat into your space on your desk but realistically I don't think you're
going to fit much under here anyway so yeah from a design point of view this looks nice and it's
awesome that it sits almost completely straight unlike the a95k which leans back quite a lot and
before we take a look at the gaming features on this let me quickly talk about today's sponsor
Govee over the last year I've been slowly adding more of their lights to my setups including bulbs
strips and lamps but the latest one is this the TV backlight T2 kit the kit completely transforms any
TV between 55 and 85 inches into this awesome RGB Vibe but these aren't static solid colors the sync
with the image on screen to the LEDs behind the TV so I fitted the larger kit to my 77 inch OLED
and the color matching response and immersion is just Next Level it uses a camera that you simply
fit on top of your TV using the gravity mechanism and it will sync to whatever you're showing on
your screen this will work with movies including Netflix or Amazon Prime and it will of course work
with gaming as well so playing on the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox series X looks crazy immersive
especially at night and if you have other Govee lamps or lights you can sync those two creating
a whole vibe in your room so if you like RGB in your setup check out the link below to this kit
and now for the picture quality so this is a 4K OLED screen which means not only is the
image super clear when displaying any 4K content the black levels and contrast are near perfect
now like with a lot of OLED the screen is glossy rather than matte which gives us better contrast
and image Clarity but it does mean there's risk of Reflections especially in those dark areas
on a bright day in my room I can control the lighting but even in here I can still see my
other lights in the room or the desk set up behind me it's not really a huge concern but it's always
worth bearing in mind so this is an OLED panel rather than the newer QD OLED which means it's
not going to get quite as bright as those but if you are in a room where you can manage the
light and it's not near a window this is plenty bright enough in fact I've actually reduced the
brightness of the TV today very slightly just so I could record this without it looking blown out and
I think if you're using this as a monitor like me you won't need to go any brighter for day-to-day
use then we have the clarity and the contrast which is decent but it's the colors that look
incredible Sony uses something called cognitive processor XR which essentially allows the A90K
to reproduce real world colors and this is shown across movers and gaming during my full review I
will cover all of the features in more detail but it supports 4K upscaling super resolution Dolby
Atmos and the big one Dolby Vision this means any HDR content that you watch that offers Dolby
Vision will look amazing on here then there's the gaming features which is what's really impressed
me already it supports 4K and 120hz that means if you're using the PS5 or the Xbox series X like I
do this TV is perfect for those I mean you could say it takes pretty much every box that you need
if you're gaming on those consoles and PC too if you're happy with 120hz this includes the 4K 120
allm or the auto low latency mode vrr which is variable refresh rate and the big one Auto HDR
tone mapping now this is a feature that not many TV supports but it's perfect for the PS5 so what
this does is automatically adjust the HDR settings for the PS5 without needing to mess around with
them yourself this is a small feature that a lot will underestimate the power of but something I'm
really happy to see and as mentioned this does support 4K 120 and that's because you get two
HDMI 2.1 ports I think for a monitor setup this is probably enough for most but as a TV only
having two where one is used for e-arc could be a limitation I'll be using this mainly for the PS5
but it could be hooked up to a PC or a Mac for productivity reasons it doesn't have a USBC or
display port though so you would need to use it with an HDMI cable instead but back to the gaming
Sony reports this has an input lack of just 8.5 milliseconds when using the dedicated gaming mode
which is rapid pair that with the vrr Alm and the auto HDR tone mapping this is looking like
a great TV or monitor for gaming there are really only two features that this TV is actually lacking
I will of course cover these in my full review but one of those is 1440p and the other one is a
dedicated gaming Hub something that we've often seen across the LG as well as the Samsung TVs
taking a quick look at the UI well it uses the Google TV operating system which I've come around
to really like and it's got this nice tile format layout where all of the apps are trending shows
are displayed now you'll either love or hate it but I think this is so much nicer than some of
the other TVs out there if I could actually side load Google TV onto my LG TVs I definitely would
I think it's super clean easy to use and fast I mean navigating around the menus and dash is rapid
and it is never lagged out on me but if you're using a fire stick or an Apple TV or even your
games console to watch TV and various apps the UI on the TV may make no difference to you at all
now depending on where you're based you might get one or two remote controls the first one is what I
would call a traditional TV remote it's got every button you could possibly need but it's not the
nicest looking thing it's certainly not going to win any prizes for best design but then we have
this second remote control which is this nice slim small metal remote with only a handful of buttons
but these are the buttons you will most likely need and use on a day-to-day basis here in the
UK we do get both remote controls but I believe some countries you'll only get this one instead
now although I'll likely be using my headset while gaming it's still great to have use of
the internal speakers these include two speakers and one subwoofer which are positioned behind the
screen Sony have called this acoustic surface Audio Plus where the sound vibrates through
the screen itself given a far more immersive experience and then don't forget you've got
that Center Channel port on the back so if you wanted to you could use this TV with a
5.1 surround sound system and use the TV as the center channel so over the next couple of weeks
I will be using this TV as my gaming setup monitor so anything I play will be done on
here this should give me enough time to really test it out and compare it to the 27 inch LG
OLED that I've been using for the last four months and the 42 inch LG C2 there are some
pros and cons to them all but I will cover that in my full review overall though this is looking
like a great TV or monitor for my setup but any questions you've got about it please drop those
below and I will try to answer those now drop a Sony OLED in the comments and I'll give you
a thumbs up for staying right to the end and if you did enjoy today's video check out my Sony a95k
review video next as it covers one of the best but most expensive TVs I've ever reviewed well
thank you for watching please like sub and follow me over on Instagram and Twitter until next time