Sony X95L review: A mini-LED TV marvel with boosted brightness and contrast
Sony X95L: Two-minute review
The Sony X95L is on a mission to fix the niggles of its mini-LED predecessor with an improved panel design, pepped up processing and a 10% higher local dimming zone count.
It sets out a pretty premium stall right away with its design, which combines a classic slice of Sony minimalism with an unusual amount of flexibility in the shape of thee different foot mount options.
Smart features are provided by the latest version of Google TV, while the TV’s brains come courtesy of Sony’s latest and most powerful Cognitive XR Processor.
The new backlight system is a revelation. Practically all the light ‘blooms’ seen around bright objects with Sony’s previous mini-LED models, the X95Ks, have gone, leaving a much more consistent and immersive picture that still enjoys outstandingly deep, rich black tones.
Sony has had to modify its previous ‘brightness at all costs’ LCD philosophy a little to achieve this new bloom-free look, mildly toning down very bright image highlights if they appear against a black backdrop. But the pros of this new approach far outweigh the cons, especially as the increased backlight consistency is joined by some of the most refined colours, most polished motion handling and most natural-feeling 4K sharpness we’ve seen.
As if all the picture heroics weren’t enough, the 65X95L also boasts a strikingly clear, detailed and involving sound system.
There’s some seriously tough competition in the mini-LED space this year that might make determining the best TVs of 2024 a very difficult task but the X95L is talented and unique enough to stand tall in any company.
Sony X95L Review: Price and release date
Release date: September 2023
Price starting from ￡1,899 / AU$4,495 and up to $4,499.99
Following a summer 2023 launch, Sony’s current premium 65-inch X95L LCD TV is now available for ￡1,899 in the UK and AU$4,495 in Australia. In the US, only one X95L screen size is available: 85-inches, which is priced at $4,499.99. In the UK, the 85-inch model costs ￡3,499 and the 75-inch is priced at ￡2,699.
For smaller screen sizes, US consumers have to step down to the X93L range (a range that isn’t available in the UK). The X93Ls differ from the UK X95Ls by having fewer dimming zones, reduced contrast, no frame tweeters and no XR Clear Image processing. We’ll cover all these features the X95Ls have that the US X93Ls don’t in the next section if you’re not sure what they all mean.
Sony X95L Review: Features
4K mini-LED TV with local dimming
Cognitive XR processor
HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision HDR
As we’ve now come to expect of flagship LCD TVs from ‘serious’ AV brands like Sony, the 65X95L benefits from a mini LED lighting system backed up by local dimming. Sony claims that this dimming engine has been much improved from its predecessor – improvements that begin by upping the dimming zone count to 480 versus 432 on the previous 65X95K model.
Combined with other improvements to the 65X95L’s processing and panel set up, this local dimming enhancement claims to generate 30% more peak brightness than its predecessor managed. If you’d like to put some actual measured numbers on this, the 65X95L produces a hefty 1560 nits on a 10% white HDR window, 1225 nits on a 2% window and 611 nits on a full-screen HDR window. Note that contrary to what you’d expect to see with OLED screens, the 65X95L’s brightness with the smallest 2% window is lower than the 10% window because of the way local dimming works.
OLED screens can’t currently get quite as bright on a 10% window or nearly as bright on a 100% test window as the 65X95L does. Though on the other side of the coin, of course, even 480 dimming zones can’t deliver the same sort of pixel-level light control you get with self-emissive OLED screens. That said, Sony has previously shown an uncanny talent for getting almost eerily good light control from much lower dimming zone counts than the 65X95L carries.
The improved processing, I mentioned earlier, is the latest version of Sony’s Cognitive Processor XR engine. A processing system predominantly motivated (depending on the presets you choose) by two aims: Making images look more like real life and getting sources to resemble as closely as possible the way they looked when they were created in a professional mastering suite.
In terms of specific new processing enhancements for the 65X95L, the local dimming algorithms have apparently been enhanced, while a new XR Clear Image system claims to deliver even better upscaling of HD and SD sources to the TV’s native 4K resolution than Sony’s already brilliant previous upscaling systems have.
At first glance, the 65X95L’s connections roster of four HDMIs, two USBs, a hybrid composite/S-Centre speaker input, an optical digital audio input, an Ethernet port and inevitable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support looks pretty up to speed for a premium TV. Closer inspection, though, reveals that only two of the HDMIs support the sort of high bandwidths demanded by cutting edge gamers, and even those require you to swallow a compromise or two. We’ll discuss this more in the Gaming section of the review.
As with Sony’s premium sets for a couple of generations now, the 65X95L goes a bundle on third party partnerships and endorsements. There’s a full house of Dolby action, for starters, with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos sound decoding both on the menu. The TV has also been certified by IMAX as capable of getting the best from the IMAX Enhanced home video format. Meanwhile, Netflix has granted it a Netflix Calibrated mode that sets the TV to closely match Netflix’s in-house mastering conditions.
The only notable absentee from the 65X95L’s format support list, really, is HDR10+. LG, too, refuses to adopt this rival for Dolby Vision (while Samsung refuses to adopt Dolby Vision). But there are TVs out there from Philips, Panasonic and TCL that support both formats – and both formats are fairly widely available in the content world now.
The 65X95L’s premium features aren’t limited to its picture quality. A so-called Acoustic Multi-Audio+ sound system uses speakers placed all around the TV’s body, including frame-vibrating tweeters in its sides, to deliver what Sony claims will be a larger and more precisely detailed soundstage.
If you have or are thinking of adding a Sony soundbar to the TV, the S-Centre port I mentioned in passing earlier can enable the TV to do centre channel duties while the soundbar handles the rest.
Features score: 4.5 / 5
Sony X95L review: Picture quality
Excellent backlight control
Bright HDR pictures
Excellent image processing
While Sony’s mini LED debut, 2022’s X95K range, was good, it didn’t quite rise to the level of some of its premium TV rivals. It felt almost as if the twin challenges of handling vast amounts of extra LEDs and a much higher dimming zone count than Sony was used to working with was a step too far for its usually stellar backlight control systems. Happily, the extra year or so Sony’s engineers have had to work on the 65X95L have reaped fantastic dividends.
In particular, where dark scenes on the X95Ks could look rather inconsistent, especially when it came to ‘blooms’ of backlight appearing around stand-out bright objects, on the 65X95L they look brilliantly consistent and, as a result, much more immersive. Blooming around bright objects is hugely reduced in terms of the regularity with which you can see it, the extent of its ‘spread’ and, best of all, the intensity of its greyness on those very rare occasions when it does become faintly visible.
One of the tools Sony has introduced to reduce blooming is to slightly dim down very bright objects if they appear against a very dark backdrop. This is something mini-LED rival Samsung has been doing for years, but Sony has previously avoided. The dimming is very mild, though, compared with the extent that it can happen with Samsung TVs, and so it’s much less likely to be distractingly noticeable. Which means it feels like a pretty reasonable compromise in return for the 65X95L’s greatly improved black level uniformity.
Dark scenes don’t just impress for the much improved evenness of their black colours, either. The sheer inky depths of the 65X95L’s black colours is also remarkable. So much so that it’s often hard to believe that you’re watching an LCD TV rather than an OLED TV. Except, that is, that the 65X95L is routinely capable of hitting levels of brightness OLED TVs can’t compete with. Especially when it comes to bright HDR shots that flood the whole screen area with brightness.
Again I need to qualify this a little by saying that the 65X95L doesn’t get as bright as Samsung’s flagship mini LED TVs do. But as well as Sony’s mini-LED 4K flagship being significantly cheaper than Samsung’s, the way it handles its light is so effective that the brightness on offer feels ample for giving you a spectacular but also consistently believable and natural HDR experience.
The 65X95L’s improved brightness and contrast over the 65X95K feed into an improved colour performance, too. Saturations look more wide-ranging and vivid, and as usual Sony’s slightly mysterious Triluminos colour system does a spell-binding job of using the light available to render tones with outstanding subtlety. Achieving such a rich combination of vibrancy but also finesse is one of those things that really separates the best TVs out from the rest.
The subtlety of the colour handling and light control contributes to an outstanding sense of sharpness, detail and, especially, depth in the 65X95L’s pictures. Objects look genuinely three-dimensional without the need for any 3D goggles, and the image looks extremely ‘4K’ at all times. Even, actually, with HD sources, thanks to the X95L’s remarkably astute and effective new 4K upscaling engine the X95L boasts.
It’s worth adding here that despite the outstandingly deep black colours the 65X95L is capable of delivering, its light control, even at ‘near black’ levels, is good enough to ensure that you never feel as if you’re missing out any subtle shadow details even in the darkest picture corners.
There’s no loss of clarity during motion-filled action scenes, either. Even with no motion processing in play the 65X95L handles judder with 24p film sources with impressive neutrality, but if you do happen to find yourself distracted by judder with a particular (likely very bright) 24p source, then some of the motion processing options Sony provides do an excellent, arguably class leading job of reducing the impact of the judder without leaving the image full of unpleasant processing side effects. So long, anyway, as you only ever use the motion processing options on their lowest power settings.
It’s interesting to note, too, how the outstanding Cognitive Processor XR works, depending on your selected picture preset, on either subtly emphasising key objects in images as your eyes would when perceiving the real world, or recreating the emphasis preferences of original source masters. Both approaches deliver delicious results while catering for slightly different image preferences.
While the 65X95L’s pictures represent a big leap from those of its predecessor and are really never less than a joy to watch, there are a trio of small niggles to report. One I’ve already touched on: That while brighter than OLED, there one or two even brighter mini LED TVs out there. Though the brightness the 65X95L feels optimised to spectacular effect.
The 65X95L’s Vivid picture preset oddly jettisons the sensitivity and subtlety the TV so proudly displays with really all of its other picture modes, with colours in particular becoming blown out and unrealistic. Some presets can cause noticeable clipping (lost shading and detailing) in the brightest bits of HDR pictures too, and while the backlight controls are usually excellent, just occasionally a very aggressively mastered HDR scene containing a particularly dynamic mixture of bright and dark content, such as the party/orgy that dominates the opening section of Babylon on 4K Blu-ray, can feel a touch flat as the TV struggles to reconcile such complex and extreme brightness and contrast variations.
Most of the niggles are avoidable simply by being careful what presets you use, though, and those that aren’t so easily fixed typically only crop up very rarely. Meaning that overall the 65X95L’s pictures can be considered things of surprisingly consistent beauty.
Picture quality score: 5 / 5
Sony XR-65X95L Review: Sound quality
Acoustic Multi-Audio speaker system works well
Punchy, undistorted bass
Wide and well-developed sound stage
Despite not appearing at first glance as if it has the physical room to house any speakers worthy of the name, the 65X95L actually sound excellent by built-in TV audio standards.
Using a wide array of speakers, including ‘frame vibrators’ built into the screen’s sides, helps to both disperse the sound much more widely than a simple stereo or down-firing speaker system would. The frame tweeters also do an at times quite uncanny job of making sound effects appear to be coming from just the right spot on or just off the screen – even tracking the sound of moving objects with startling accuracy.
Dialogue is excellent too, enjoying an artful balance of clarity and context, and again typically sounding like it’s coming from part of the screen where a talker’s head is, rather than from some separate speaker array below or to the side of the onscreen action.
There’s good balance between the various frequency ranges and elements of a busy movie soundtrack too, with nothing tending to sound overly bright or unduly dominant.
Bass is a bit limited in the depths of frequency response it can hit and the weight it can add to an action movie mix. What bass there is, though, does at least avoid buzzing, drop outs and other common TV audio distortions, while the mid-range is wide enough to stop the sound ever appearing thin or brittle. There’s enough power, too, to enable the sound stage to open up nicely as an action or horror scene gathers momentum.
Sound quality score: 4.5 / 5
Sony X95L review: Design
Three different feet position options
Can be raised to accommodate a soundbar
Impressive build quality
The 65X95L’s design offers an appealing combination of minimalist elegance and practicality.
Its black, silver-trimmed frame is slender enough to represent barely any distraction from the pictures you’re watching yet feels very robustly built, while the feet supplied with the TV are so narrow when you’re viewing the TV head on that you barely see them.
You can position the feet in no less than three different configurations too. The most elegant option sees them tucked right under the screen’s bottom corners, so that they almost feel like a horizontal extension of the screen frame. But you can also position them so that they lift the screen up far enough to place a soundbar underneath it, or else you can position them closer together so that the TV can be placed on a narrow piece of furniture. All very thoughtful.
The 65X95L’s rear sticks out a fair bit further than those of most of today’s ultra-slim TVs - but unless you’re wall hanging it you probably won’t notice. This is because the chunkiness is cleverly delivered in two distinct tiers, with the fattest bit sitting towards the centre of the back panel so that you can’t see it unless you’re looking at the TV from an extreme angle.
Design score: 4.5 / 5
SonyX95L review: Smart TV and menus
Google TV support
Voice control support
Menus can feel a little overwhelming
Sony has long been aboard first the Android and then the Google TV train for its TV smart systems – so it’s not surprise to find Google TV in place on the 65X95L too.
Google TV is a substantial improvement over its Android predecessor, with more attractive and intuitive menus. For me, though, it still feels a bit overwhelming for a TV rather than smart device interface, and doesn’t offer as many customisation options as some rival systems. Or, at least, it doesn’t make its customisation options as obvious.
It doesn’t carry by default all the UK’s key terrestrial broadcaster catch up apps, either – though Sony has been able to get these onboard via its own agreements with the various channels involved.
There’s one exclusive to Sony streaming service that’s well worth a mention, too: Bravia Core. The big story behind this is that its large collection of movies (including some recent releases as well as a horde of catalogue stuff) can all be streamed at much higher bandwidths than most video streaming services provide, resulting in better 4K HDR picture quality. You need a broadband speed of at least 80Mbps to get the maximum benefit from Bravia Core – but you’ll be pleased to know that just by buying a 65X95L you’ve gained access to 10 free films to add to your library before you need to start paying for any others.
Voice control is supported via Google Assistant, and there’s one final more unusual smart feature to report in the shape of an optional (￡199) Bravia Cam accessory. This can connect to the top edge of your TV and open up such features as auto sound and picture adjustment based on analysis of your seating position, video calling and even a degree of gesture control. Personally I’m not convinced the Bravia Cam is really worth the extra cash, but it picked up a CES 2022 Innovation Award, so what do I know…
Smart TV and menus score: 4 / 5
Sony X95L review: Gaming
4K / 120Hz VRR support on two HDMIs
No Dolby Vision support for gaming
Perfect for PS5 features
Surprisingly for a brand with such a huge video game presence, Sony has been a little lethargic compared with some of its rivals when it comes to whole-heartedly embracing the latest game graphics features in its TVs. This continues to some extent with the 65X95L.
For starters, only two of its four HDMIs support 4K/120Hz game inputs and variable refresh rates. And one of those two game-friendly HDMIs is also the one you’re supposed to use if you want to take advantage of HDMI’s audio return channel capability.
Also, frustratingly, the TV requires you to choose between either variable refresh rates or Dolby Vision HDR gaming; you can’t have both at the same time. Given that there’s no fast-responding Dolby Vision Game mode either, though, you probably won’t want to game in Dolby Vision on the 65X95L anyway.
There is support for auto low latency mode switching, however, where the TV switches in to its fastest responding Game picture preset when a game rather than video source is detected. Plus, of course, there are the other limited Perfect For PlayStation features Sony rolled out a couple of years ago in a bid to make it look like its TV and console divisions really do talk to each other. This includes the ability to have the PS5 auto-optimise its HDR output to suit whatever Sony TV model it detects that it’s connected to.
Sony now provides a dedicated game onscreen menu too, providing key information on the incoming game feeds and access to a few gaming aids. It’s not quite as advanced as some rival Game menu systems, including the one on Sony’s own A95L flagship OLED model. But it’s much better than having no such menu at all.
The 65X95L manages to get input lag down to a decent if not world-leading 18.8ms when running in its Game picture preset, and actually produces consistently gorgeous gaming imagery, powered in particular by the set’s brightness, bold but also subtle colour management and high degree of sharpness and detail.
Gaming score: 4 / 5
Sony X95L review: Value
Much more expensive than TCL’s 65C845K
Cheaper than premium OLEDs and some rival LCD flagships
Fair value overall for what’s on offer
The 65X95L’s UK price of ￡1,899 is the result of recent discounting, and so represents good value for a TV boasting such a strong feature count and premium level of picture and sound performance. The Australian price of AU$4,495 doesn’t look like quite such good value, working out at around ￡500 more than the UK price based on a simple currency conversion.
Samsung’s flagship 65-inch 4K mini LED model, the 65QN95C, is currently listed at ￡2,199 – though that is itself a big discount from the set’s original ￡3,699 launch price. The 65X95L is much cheaper, though, than Sony’s 65-inch flagship OLED TV, the 65A95L, which is currently available for a hefty ￡3,499.
It’s impossible to do a review of a mini LED TV with lots of dimming zones right now without also mentioning the TCL 65C845K. This delivers more than 2000 nits of brightness and 576 local dimming zones for just ￡1,049. But it doesn’t share the same quality of video processing or general picture precision and accuracy that the 65X95L achieves.
Value score: 4 / 5
Should you buy the Sony X95L?
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Sony X95L review: Also consider
How I tested the Sony X95L
Tested over two weeks
Tested with 4K Blu-rays, multiple streaming platforms and resolutions, Freeview HD broadcasts, and HD Blu-rays
Reviewed in both dark and light dedicated test room conditions, and a regular (corner position) living room set up
While a substantial amount of time was spent testing the Sony 65X95L in a blacked out test room environment to make it as easy as possible to spot potential flaws with its new LCD backlighting system, we also tested it at a series of different light levels using a remote controlled lamp, as well as testing it for a number of days in a completely regular living room set up, complete with changing day and night conditions.
The ‘controlled environment’ testing typically focused on a selection of 4K Blu-rays and streaming sequences that we know from long experience tend to test different aspects of a TV’s picture and sound quality to the limit. Particularly useful for the 65X95L were the 4K Blu-ray of Babylon, the early stages of which present a tough challenge for LCD backlighting and colour controls; It Chapter One on 4K Blu-ray with its often intensely dark black levels and expansive Dolby Atmos soundtrack; and the HD Blu-ray of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2, the many dark and grainy scenes of which pose a tough test for upscaling systems.
A Sky Q box was used to provide both HD and 4K 60Hz content, and we also spun up favourite episodes from shows across all the main streaming services using their built in apps, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and Disney Plus.
First reviewed February 2024
