The Sony A9F was best known for having a great
picture and sound, but a pretty polarizing
pedestal design. Well, the A9Gs here’s now,
and the kickstand’s gone, and we’re gonna
show you what else changed, right now.
Hi, I’m Carl with Abt, and this is the Sony
XBR A9G, the newest OLED in Sony’s Master
Series Lineup. And thankfully they’ve maintained
the best parts of last years set: the picture
and the sound. The design’s actually closer
to the A”8”F with that flat-footed pedestal,
and shallower than the A”9”F by almost
two inches because of it, which is great for
anyone looking to mount this on a wall. Now,
I will say, it still leans back a little on
its pedestal, but it’s not nearly as prominent
as it was with that kickstand on the A9F.
And it’s a lot easier to move if you ever
need to.
Feature-wise, the A9Gs not radically different
than the A9F, but Sony did make some improvements
that are worth noting.
For starters, you can get the A9G in a 77-inch
size. The largest for the A9F was 65 inches
so you do get that larger option for anyone
looking to go bigger.
Next, the remote. Sony’s been including
remotes with their flagship TVs that look
almost identical to their entry-level models
for a long time now. This new one is so much
better. The buttons themselves didn’t really
change all that much, but now you get one
labeled DVR that can access your cable or
satellite recordings on compatible devices
and it loses the wide button. It’s got metal
on the front, it’s super slim, and it just
has a more premium feel.
Another small detail that was changed was
in the speaker connection on the back. The
A9F had screw down connectors for using the
acoustic glass as your center channel. The
A9G uses spring-clip connectors that unfortunately
feel cheaper, but they’re way easier to
use.
Input lag was improved too, albeit only slightly.
From our tests on 1080p at 60 hertz, the A9F,
with game mode turned on, was getting 27.3
milliseconds. On the A9G we were getting a
slightly better time of 26.4. So, yes, technically
an improvement, but still not the best times
we’ve seen in our testings this year.
Finally, the speaker configuration is a little
different. Because the kickstand’s gone
they had to make some adjustments. It still
sounds great, but there’s no more dedicated
center channel. And you still get two subs,
but now it’s 2.2 channels instead of the
3.2 you got with the A9F.
And then there’s the picture. What you get
with the A9G is still phenomenal. You’re
still getting all the best of what Sony has
to offer with a tri-luminous display, the
X1 Ultimate processor, super bit mapping,
and object-based HDR remaster to go along
with HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision compatibility.
And you still get several pre-calibrated modes
to choose from, like Netflix and Dolbyvision
bright and dark.
Motion was still really good too and now there’s
an auto mode that helps determine the best
motion settings for what you’re watching,
which I found to work really well.
Contrast is obviously great with a very impressive
amount of detail in the brights and darks
and no banding to speak of.
Now, is it worth trading in your A9F for?
No. Unfortunately, you’re still not getting
HDMI 2.1, but, you still do get an eARC that
can pass through Atmos. And they didn’t
make any huge improvements to the picture,
although they really didn’t have to. And
this wouldn’t be the first TV I’d recommend
to gamers since:
One, it’s still OLED and carries that slight
risk of burn-in if you’re not careful
And two, the input lag times were not as good
as what we’ve seen on some less expensive
TVs that also have really nice pictures.
But, if you watch a lot of movies or sports,
or just aren’t a big gamer and you don’t
already have the A9F, I’d highly recommend
considering the A9G. The picture quality is
one of the best we’ve seen, it’s got the
updated android Oreo operating system that
works way more smoothly than previous versions,
and the sound’s good enough to use on its
own.
So what do you guys think of the new A9G?
Did Sony make the right changes? Let us know
in the comments. And, if you want to see our
current pricing, the link is in the description
below.
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