Sony A9F
TECHNICALLY THE BEST TV ON THE MARKET, BUT PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE.
SONY HAS BEEN in something of a brand wilderness for some years now: it acts like a premium brand, and charges like a premium brand, but its products aren’t quite up to snuff when compared with the best competitors. However, with the A9F Sony has made a big effort to get back in front and it looks to have paid off.
The A9F uses LG’s 4K HDR OLED panel but it’s jam-packed with its own image-enhancing technology and other accoutrements. While it’s easy to get blinded by TV tech marketing terms, it’s worth going over what Sony promises before seeing how it delivers.
First up there’s the new X1 Ultimate image processor which, along with handling the general image processing, promises to automatically identify hundreds of different on-screen objects (using a process called Object-based Super Resolution) so it can ‘automatically-adjust brightness and increase depth and image vibrancy.’ It does this with its Pixel Contrast Booster to ‘enhance colour contrast and luminance.’ A feature that’s more palpable is the Super Bit Mapping 4K HDR which smooths out banding in colourgradients; this, as with previous models, works very well. Next up is Dual Database processing which uses ‘noise reduction and upscaling databases’ to help remove compression artefacts and smooth upscaling. Plus, there’s X-Tended Dynamic Range Pro to add HDR to non-HDR sources. Other features like Triluminos Display (Sony’s wide colour gamut) have been stalwarts on Sony’s TVs for years already. It all sounds impressive but it’s mostly marketing speak.
Like LG, the A9F supports Dolby Vision, which dynamically adjusts HDR according to each scene rather than having one setting for each film or TV show (it doesn’t support the rival HDR10+ standard used by Samsung,
Panasonic and Amazon though). There’s also a ‘Netflix Calibrated Mode’ which automatically adjusts settings to how they appear in the original Netflix masters. However, we found this made content look bit dull and lifeless (and it overwrites Dolby Vision optimisations).
With all that said, the A9F is capable of producing the very best image of any TV. That’s impressive in a crowded market of OLED TVs, which all produce 10/10 images. You do have to work for it a bit though and we frequently changed settings depending on what we were watching. Despite there being many easilyaccessible, image-tinkering options we tended to stick with Standard Mode for regular content but Vivid for Ultra High Definition sources where the vibrant colours weren’t overkill and didn’t introduce too much grain.
Not surprisingly, better content looks best on the A9F. Our HDR-enabled 4K Blu-Rays looked stunning with highlights really popping, colours vibrant, motion slick, gradients smooth, and plenty of detail in dark and bright areas. We also noticed Sony’s enhanced highlights in regular content, they just add an extra veneer of quality than we’ve noticed elsewhere. As with previous Sony models, upscaling is also impressive. While image noise doesn’t get removed completely it’s still the among the best on the market and can even make a decent fist of old 480i-resolution video. It’s worth noting, though, that rival manufacturers have caught up in this area.
But there are other features that make the A9F stand out from the crowd. The styling, as with predecessors, will prove divisive due to the screen resting flat on the surface and propped up (with a slight gradient) using an A-Frame stand at the rear. As such, you can’t have anything in front of the screen like a soundbar, but then you won’t need one with the A9F...
While we’ve been impressed with audio coming from other super-thin OLED TVs, Sony’s is next-level. Three actuators built into the screen (Sony calls this Acoustic Surface Audio+) make the screen itself act as a speaker. When combined with the sub’s built into the stand, you’re left with the best integrated sound of any TV on the market. We found that setting Audio to Cinema Mode got the best out of it. It makes regular TV sound great but enhanced audio (as found in Blu-rays) sounded particularly impressive. You can still make use of the rear-speaker if you wall-mount it by folding the stand in on itself. You can also use the TV as the centre channel of any existing sound system thanks to full-size connectors at the back.
Other connectivity is relatively-standard for a top-end TV, including four HDMI ports, Ethernet, digital out and three USB ports. However, most ports are positioned downwardfacing at the base of the stand meaning that they can be very hard to reach once your TV has been set up.
Another huge win for Sony is that this is the first TV to use the latest Android Oreo operating system. Android has long promised more than it delivered with the vast library of apps hampered by a horribly-laggy user experience. Oreo makes that disappear and this TV is as responsive as you could hope for.
The remote may be less flashy than rivals’ high-concept offerings but it’s responsive, functional and every feature is within easy reach, which makes it a winner to us. Not that you need it: the built-in microphone allows for very accurate voice control. We especially like the ability to search for content and have all streaming services checked to find it (although it didn’t always work). It’s very useful now that the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Stan are all worth having. It also supports Google Home and Alexa voice commands.
So, should you buy it? There’s no better performer on the market: it offers the best picture quality, sound quality and usability of all rivals. It might not be by much, but it’s noticeable. The trouble is the price. At $4,998 ($6,496 for the 65-inch model) it’s extraordinarily expensive. Panasonic’s superb FZ950 costs half as much and still produces stunning images. If you added an Nvidia Shield box (for Android TV) and a top-end sound bar, you’d still have well-over a thousand dollars spare. As such the A9F might technically be the best TV on the market, but it’s only worth buying if money is no object.
THERE’S NO BETTER PERFORMER ON THE MARKET: IT OFFERS THE BEST PICTURE QUALITY, SOUND QUALITY AND USABILITY OF ALL RIVALS.