Sony: these are our TVs for PlayStation5
By: Kostas Farkonas
Tags: Gaming, Games Tech, Playstation 5, Sony, Television

Game Tech

Sony: these are our TVs for PlayStation5

The company handpicks two specific models from its wide range of sets but… are they really PS5-ready?

The Sony Bravia HX90 (X900H in the US) is the best TV the Japanese company will offer to early PS5 adopters during all of 2020 and Q1 2021 at the very least. Good thing it’s an attractive enough option.

It’s no secret that Sony Interactive Entertainment, the arm of Sony that deals with all PlayStation products and services, is probably its most popular and profitable one — so it’s no wonder that 2020, the year that PlayStation5 launches, would bring some kind of synergy between SIE and other parts of the Japanese company. Bravia television models, for instance, that would work well with the new PlayStation are ideally positioned to take advantage of its new display capabilities. So Sony a few days ago announced just that: two specific TV models, a mid-range one and a high-end one, that are “Ready for PlayStation5” according to the official tagline. But… are they, actually?

The short answer is: no. Strictly speaking they aren’t… yet. Both models, the Sony Bravia HX90 and the Sony Bravia ZH8 will be updated at some point in the future in order to match the capabilities of the PlayStation5’s HDMI 2.1 port. That firmware update will “unlock” their HDMI 2.1 ports, so to speak, in order to offer various game-centric features to their owners. These features include the ability to display 4K content at 120 frames per second, the ability to display 4K content at variable refresh rates (VRR function), the ability to switch to “Game Mode” automatically (ALLM function) and the ability to let PS5 display 8K content at 60 frames per second (on the Bravia ZH8).

The Sony Bravia ZH8 (Z8H in the US) is an 8K set that costs almost three times as much as the HX90 at the same size while offering less game-centric features of interest to PS5 owners. So… yeah.

Excellent! So all we have to do now is wait for the firmware updates to be offered and everyone’s happy, then? Well… it’s complicated. These two, the HX90 and the ZH8 are not comparable models: they use different screens, different chipsets and picture processing so, as a result, they do not offer the same features or even their common features in the same way. Surprisingly it’s the cheaper one, the HX90, that offers the most: the 4K/120 FPS, VRR and ALLM functions that gamers need are all promised by Sony, as well as the lower input lag figure of the two (just 7.2 ms). That’s the case because the HX90 is based on a newer chipset and it is a 4K TV set, not an 8K one. The ZH8, the 8K set, will offer 4K/120 FPS but not VRR or ALLM and a higher input lag figure. What’s more, it will do so on the single HDMI 2.1 port that this model incorporates (the HX90 offers two).

The day this story was published reviews of the Sony Bravia ZH8 (which as an 8K TV is not cheap) were still forthcoming. Detailed reviews of the Sony Bravia HX90 were already published though and they paint a rather favorable picture of the cheaper set: as a mid-ranger it cannot compete with the most expensive, “cinematic” TVs other manufacturers or Sony themselves offer, but as a gaming TV it has the potential to really be a perfect partner to the PlayStation5: no corners seem to have been cut in that department and, assuming Sony delivers on their promise regarding that firmware update, it should satisfy early PS5 adopters. Not a single reviewer of the Sony Bravia HX90 was able to test the aforementioned advanced features, of course, as the necessary update is not even available in beta form yet — let alone the fact that there is not a single content source offering an HDMI 2.1 port right now. Even PC graphics cards that do will be out in September or October.

The PS5 will of course work just as well with certain TVs from manufacturers other than Sony — so the company has to prove that their option is the preferable one by releasing the necessary update in a timely and issue-free manner.

As far as the cost of the HX90 is concerned, depending on the screen size — ranges from 55 to 85 inches — it is quite competitive… for a quality Sony TV of course. In other words it is the model of the two “Ready for PlayStation5” ones that will almost certainly pick the interest of gamers looking for a new TV to accompany their shiny new PS5. Question is: are consumers advised to buy the Bravia HX90 now or wait until that all-important firmware update is released before doing so? Or even until the PS5 is actually available?

Well Sony may have been inconsistent with promised updates’ time frame in the past — but one simply refuses to believe that they have not planned accordingly so as to make the most of the PS5 launch. Buy now and wait, then? For those who can afford to right now, why not?