Sony Bravia XR 55X90K review: punching above its weight

Sony’s latest XR-55X90K quantum dot LED TV is the company’s most feature-rich and priciest LED TV. But is this the LED TV to upset the OLED apple cart? 
Sony Bravia XR 55X90K quantum dot LED TV
Sony Bravia XR 55X90K quantum dot LED TV

It’s 2022, and TV brands have, by and large, settled on the pecking order of TV technologies and convinced most buyers that OLEDs are better (and pricier) than quantum dot LEDs, which are better (and pricier) than plain-Jane LED TVs and so on. Sony’s latest XR-55X90K quantum dot LED TV blurs the lines – not only is it the company’s most feature-rich and priciest LED TV, but it also comes dangerously close to OLED TVs in terms of colours and performance. Is this the LED TV to upset the OLED apple cart? 

Setting up the 55X90K 55-inch variant – there are 65- and 75-inch variants available as well – is easy enough to handle all by oneself but bear in mind the TV isn’t the slimmest one around, and it weighs just under 19 kg with the stand. All three models come with Sony’s Ultra-HD Triluminos LED screens that refresh their 4K displays at up to 120Hz. The front is nice to look at, with an all-black front with very subtle Sony branding and slim bezels keeping the focus on the content and little else. The two-way adjustable table mount lets you install the TV with enough clearance to install a soundbar below it, or you could wall mount the unit. With the thick-ish rear, the TV allows easy access to the ports, even if it's placed right against the wall. The ports themselves are plenty – 4 HDMI ports, of which two are 2.1 ports with 4K 120Hz and variable refresh rate support, two USB-A ports, an Ethernet port, an optical audio-out, component video, antenna input and a 3.5 mm audio-out. Overall, a mixed bag in terms of design – it’s robust and has a reassuring heft to it, but it is bulky nonetheless.

The remote follows the TV’s minimal form with far fewer buttons than some of the Bravias of the past, but there are dedicated keys for YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube Music (but not Hotstar). Setup is easy enough via the Google TV UI, and you get introduced to the sheer wealth of capabilities on the TV, including the Living Décor feature and the built-in Google Chromecast/Apple AirPlay capabilities (the latter of which I used extensively to mirror the iPhone display). The Google TV UI running on Android TV 10 software takes the approach of surfacing tailored content from different streaming services instead of placing apps front and centre. Going from app to app is a smooth experience, with no stutters. And the refinement Sony has brought to the table is particularly impressive if you’re upgrading from a budget smart TV.

Now, onto the main attraction – how well the TV performs and whether it justifies its price. With support for Dolby Vision Vision, HLG and HDR10 formats for high dynamic range content plus Sony’s famed Cognitive Processor XR, the latter is Sony’s tech for analyzing images and making them appear more ‘real’ by adjusting colour, contrast and sharpness, the X90K looked promising on paper. Sony used a high-quality VA panel on this TV with full-array backlighting, and local dimming (which lights up the pixels from behind instead of from around the edges), and boy, those improvements in terms of extra brightness and darker blacks are immediately noticeable! It's only when you place the Sony alongside an OLED in this price segment that you notice the marginal differences in black levels, but even so, colour accuracy levels are excellent, and the brightness levels are impressive. Interestingly, Sony employs an ambient light sensor to adjust the brightness to the amount of available light, which means as bright as it can get in daytime viewing conditions, the panel automatically dims the brightness when you turn off the lights at night.

A TV like this obviously performs best on high-resolution HDR content, and the recent movies and TV shows on streaming services shone on this set, but even lower resolution DTH content was clean and sharp and bereft of judder if you turned the motion interpolation features on. Broadly, I’d still recommend using high-res content playing off streaming services to get the most out of this set or plugging this into a current-generation gaming console for some of that high-refresh-rate gaming goodness. If anything, the 30W speaker system holds the TV back, and as much as I liked Sony’s acoustic calibration tech on the TV, there’s often no replacement for louder speakers. 

So, should you put down good money for this TV or an OLED? While the OLEDs still edge ahead in colours and deep blacks, X90K is no pushover and what it may seem to lack placed alongside an OLED (which not everyone has the luxury of doing, might I add), it more than makes up for it by an exceptionally bright, well-calibrated and full-featured quantum-dot LED experience. 

Sony Bravia XR-55X90K

Pros: Exceptional brightness, good colour accuracy and contrast, refined and full-featured software experience, port selection

Cons: Bulky design, the sound could have been louder, minimalist remote 

Rating: 8/10

Price: Rs. 1,23,490 (55-inch, variant tested), Rs. 170,990 (65-inch), Rs. 285,990 (75-inch)

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