A vibrant OLED model with Google TV and Apple AirPlay 2
The Sony A95K is a powerful OLED TV with very wide colors, strong contrast, and excellent features, though its quantum dot layer prevents it from getting as dark as an OLED should.
The OLED TV market is becoming more crowded now that Samsung has stepped into the field with its S95B model, but that hasn’t slowed down Sony. Its latest flagship OLED TV, the Sony Bravia XR A95K ($3,999.99 for the 65-inch version we tested), boasts a quantum dot layer that enables an impressively wide color range; a Google TV interface that supports Apple AirPlay 2, Google Cast, and hands-free Google Assistant; and behind-the-panel actuators that drive powerful, crisp sound. It has the same ambient light sensitivity problem as the S95B, however, and lacks that model’s color precision and accuracy, but the A95K’s interface is richer in features and much less frustrating than Samsung’s smart TV platform. The LG C2, meanwhile, offers both fantastic contrast with visually perfect black levels and nearly ideal color for much less than the A95K ($2,499.99 for the 65-inch C2), which is why it remains our Editors’ Choice winner.
The table stand for the A95K is completely invisible from the front, which is a big departure from the long, thin, flat legs on the corners of the Sony A90J. Instead, the stand is a nearly foot-deep, flat, weighted panel that curves behind the TV and provides plenty of stability. This design means the TV leans a few degrees back, but this tilt is barely noticeable and nowhere near as significant as the one on Sony’s easel-like A1E OLED TV from 2017. The TV also supports standard VESA mounts if you want to hang it on a wall.
The A95K’s panel is just a bit thicker than the quarter-inch OLED TVs we’ve recently tested, such as the LG C2 and Samsung S95B. Including the black plastic casing that covers the entire upper back, the screen measures a half-inch deep. That plastic thickens out to a width of about 1.7 inches for the lower two-thirds of the TV where it houses the necessary electronics and ports. All recent OLED TVs we’ve tested feature this sort of design and, although the thick black plastic means the screen is a bit thicker than typical, the overall depth here is comparable with the LG and Samsung models.
These relatively minor visual distinctions mean nothing compared with the most distinguishing aspect of the A95K: the onboard Bravia Cam. A short black rectangle juts above the top of the screen and shows off a camera lens and two microphone pinholes. This camera enables video chat on the A95K, along with picture optimization based on the lighting and sound conditions of the room. We generally recommend turning this kind of feature off, but it’s available if you want it and appears to be more advanced than the one that accompanies the typical ambient light sensor on other TVs. The lens features a mechanical shutter and you can also fully unplug and remove the unit from the TV for privacy (or just to make the top of the TV look tidy).
All ports face left or down on the left side of the TV's rear panel. The left-facing ports include an HDMI port, USB port, 3.5mm composite video input, 3.5mm remote sensor input, and a set of spring terminals to accept center channel audio from an A/V receiver. The spring terminals are notable if you want to incorporate the A95K into a home theater with existing stereo or surround speakers that get power from a receiver or amp. The connection is rare but the panel-vibrating actuators Sony uses in its OLED TVs are capable of the very crisp, clean sound necessary for the often dialog-focused center channel.
A mic mute switch also sits on the left side, while the rest of the inputs face down just below that section including: three more HDMI ports (one eARC), another USB port, an Ethernet port, an optical audio output, a 3.5mm RS-232C port for control system integration, and an antenna/cable connector.
The remote is a simple, elegant, and rectangular wand with rounded corners and a gray metal plate on the top that lends it a premium tactile feel. A large circular direction pad sits near the top, with a pinhole microphone as well as power, menu, and input buttons above it. Home and Back buttons reside below the pad along with volume and channel rockers, a mute button, and a Google Assistant button. Playback controls and dedicated buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Netflix, and Sony’s Bravia Core service are further down the remote.
Like other Sony TVs, the A95K uses the Google TV smart TV platform. Google TV is a full-featured system that provides access to all the major video streaming services along with a generous number of more niche apps and services. It supports Google Cast for mirroring your Android phone or tablet (or Chrome browser tab) to the TV. Sony also added Apple AirPlay 2 support, a rare sight on a Google TV device, which ensures you can share whatever content is on your phone regardless of whether it runs Android or iOS.
Google TV also enables Google Assistant, which is generally quite forgiving when it comes to syntax. It can search for content, provide general information like weather forecasts and sports scores, and control both your TV and any compatible smart home devices. The TV’s far-field microphone enables hands-free voice commands, though you can also turn off the microphone via the settings or the mechanical switch and access Google Assistant by speaking into the remote, instead.
The Sony A95K is a 4K OLED TV with a 120Hz refresh rate. It supports high dynamic range (HDR) content in HDR10, Dolby Vision, and hybrid log gamma (HLG). It features an ATSC 3.0 tuner for 1080p and 4K over-the-air TV where those are available, too.
We test TVs with a Klein K-80 colorimeter(Opens in a new window) , a Murideo SIX-G signal generator(Opens in a new window) , and Portrait Displays’ Calman software(Opens in a new window) . As an OLED TV, the A95K can produce perfect black levels, but it can’t get particularly bright. With an SDR signal, it shows a peak brightness of 179.219cd/m^2 with a full-screen white field and 342.978cd/m^2 with an 18% white field. When we switched to an HDR signal, that brightness increases considerably to 229.553cd/m^2 with a full-screen white field, 600.341cd/m^2 with an 18% white field, and a quite-bright-for-an-OLED 758.337cd/m^2 with a 10% white field. The panel doesn’t seem to maintain those bright levels for smaller white fields very long, however; after about a minute, the 18% and 10% white fields respectively settled to 412.563cd/m^2 and 525.752cd/m^2.
Samsung’s S95B OLED TV surprised us because its quantum dot layer had the unexpected side effect of making the panel very sensitive to ambient light; as a result, black levels subjectively look lighter than they should. The A95K also uses quantum dots to expand its color range and the light reactivity is there, too, though it didn’t appear quite as apparent to my eye (we were unable to compare the two TVs side-by-side). Still, the bottom line is that both models seem to pick up any nearby light and thus look slightly less than completely dark. And although the A95K doesn’t have the visually perfect black levels and “infinite” contrast of non-QD OLEDs like the LG C2, it still looks very dark compared with most LCD TVs.
The A95K’s colors aren’t nearly as impressive as the C2’s or the S95B’s, though they are wider. The above chart shows the TV’s color levels in Cinema mode, with an SDR signal compared against the Rec.709 broadcast standard color space, and with an HDR signal compared against the DCI-P3 digital cinema color space. The Live Color feature boosts saturation significantly for SDR pictures, though this didn’t affect HDR pictures too much in our tests. For accuracy, we turned it off in both cases.
SDR colors are generally accurate with little drift, but they still run a bit oversaturated and whites are slightly cool. HDR colors are wider and exceed the DCI-P3 color space, though cyans run a little green and yellows run a little red. To sum up, the A95K reaches further than the LG C2 and Samsung S95B in terms of color range, but it isn’t nearly as accurate as either of those TVs.
Unsurprisingly, BBC’s Planet Earth II looks fantastic on the A95K. Although the TV tends to push past ideal saturation levels regardless of the Live Color setting with an HDR signal, the greens and blues of plants and water look vivid and natural, not at all garish or cartoonish. Fine textures of bark and fur look clear and sharp whether they’re in bright sunlight or dark shade. At its best, with this kind of content, the TV looks like a big, bright window into nature.
Deadpool’s red costume looks properly saturated in the cool, overcast opening scenes of Deadpool. Later, in the burning lab fight, the flames appear bright and show a good amount of variation between the different hues of yellows and oranges rather than just indistinct flickering yellow blobs. Shadow details in the same shots are clear; they look very dark and avoid a washed-out, blown-out, or muddy character.
Black suits and hair both show plenty of detail in The Great Gatsby, with textures and contours that look clear and sufficiently dark in most shots. Some jackets appear slightly muddy depending on the frame but, generally, even the cuts of their lapels are visible if you look closely. Skin tones look natural, and white objects like lights and balloons look bright, balanced, and full of highlight detail.
The A95K offers solid gaming features and performance, with a 120Hz refresh rate, an auto low-latency mode (ALLM), and variable refresh rate (VRR). However, it lacks both AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync support.
Testing input lag with an HDFury Diva HDMI matrix(Opens in a new window) , the A95K showed a latency of 9.8 milliseconds in Game mode, squeaking just under the 10ms threshold we use to consider a TV among the best for gaming. Make sure to turn this mode on when you play; in Cinema mode, the input lag jumps to an unacceptable 143.3ms.
The Sony A95K is a striking, vivid OLED TV with plenty of features that benefits from both the Google TV platform and support for Apple AirPlay 2. It offers a wider color range than any previous model in its lineup, though those colors aren’t quite as accurate as on the LG C2 or Samsung S95B. The TV also, unfortunately, shares the S95B’s issue with ambient light due to its quantum dot layer.
The Editors’ Choice-winning LG C2 has perfect black levels and nearly perfect color, plus costs significantly less than either the A95K or the S95B ($2,999.99 for the 65-inch model). The A95K’s crisp, clear sound and speaker connection make it a good choice if you want to integrate your TV into an A/V receiver-powered surround system but, otherwise, we recommend the LG C2 because of its superior picture quality and friendlier price.
The Sony A95K is a powerful OLED TV with very wide colors, strong contrast, and excellent features, though its quantum dot layer prevents it from getting as dark as an OLED should.
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I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand different consumer electronics products including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and a THX-certified home theater professional, and I’m here to help you understand 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and even 8K (and to reassure you that you don’t need to worry about 8K at all for at least a few more years).
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