ZDNET’s key takeaways
- What the Sony Bravia X90L lacks in eye-popping specs, it more than makes up for in real-world picture performance and Sony upscaling technology, which delivers great video for movies, sports, cable, and streaming.
- Regarding the features you’ll love for daily use, the X90L has an excellent remote that feels premium, is just the right size, includes backlighting, and has a good balance of just the right number of buttons
- The X90L also has Google TV built-in.
- The closest rivals to the Bravia X90L are the TCL QM8 and the Hisense U8 Series, both of which cost a little less than the Sony and have impressive specs.
more buying choices
The Sony Bravia X90L is currently $300 off at Best Buy and Amazon for the 65-inch model ($899), for a limited time.
The Sony Bravia X90L is one of our picks for the best Sony TVs you can buy, and for good reason. Its color accuracy, precision brightness, 120Hz smooth motion, and 4K image processing make it one of our most recommended TVs you can buy. I also consider it one of the most underrated TVs available. And with the 2025 TVs hitting the market, you can save on just about every size of this excellent 2023 model.
I’ve seen a lot of the best and latest TVs from Sony, Samsung LG, TCL, Hisense, and several others. When I had to replace an 8-year-old 55-inch TCL TV that died, I chose a 65-inch Sony X90L because I think it has the best picture for the money right now and boasts some extra advantages.
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While the Sony Bravia XR X90L doesn’t blow you away on the spec sheet — it’s an LED TV with a full-array backlight — the real-world performance and usability make it one of the best buys on the market, based on ZDNET’s testing. This Sony TV is technically in the same category as two of its popular rivals: the TCL QM8 and Hisense U8K.
However, while those are Mini LED TVs and look like they should be better TVs on paper, the Bravia X90L has better color accuracy, plenty of brightness, and a nicer remote than either the TCL or Hisense TVs (although recent models are starting to emulate the Sony remote). It goes without saying that the Sony display is the best among these three models.
Since Sony has had a long partnership with Google, the X90L also has an excellent implementation of Google TV. This makes the X90L’s software interface much friendlier to use than Samsung’s Tizen and LG’s webOS, which can be overly complicated and frustrating to navigate.
With the X90L, you also get Sony’s excellent picture processing to upscale content to 4K, which is especially helpful if you’re watching older content or YouTube videos, and it’s stronger than anything offered by Hisense and TCL. And if you’re looking for a TV to watch movies, the X90L nearly rivals expensive OLED and high-end QLED TVs that cost almost twice as much. If you upgrade from a TV that is at least 4-5 years old, you will be blown away by the picture quality of X90L — and it will require a lot less tuning out-of-the-box than other TVs.
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Sony has the most advanced picture processing of all five major TV brands. That means it doesn’t oversaturate and overbrighten the image like Samsung, LG, TCL, and Hisense models sometimes do. Again, that means Sony TVs often have a better picture than higher-spec rivals from budget TV makers (Hisense and TCL) and can often compete with more expensive models from premium vendors like the aforementioned Samsung and LG.
For gamers, this TV has a dedicated game mode, HDMI 2.1, VRR, and Auto HDR Tone Mapping when connected to the Sony PS5. It also has a game menu to fine-tune the settings to your preferences.
Adam Breeden/ZDNET
The Sony X90L isn’t as bright as its Mini LED rivals from TCL and Hisense — or even its 2024 successor, the Sony Bravia 7 — but it still takes advantage of Sony’s advanced backlight system to brighten specific parts of the image. It also does an excellent job of revealing the details in the shadows of dark movies and shows. I’m using the X90L in a bright room and have never had an instance where I wished the picture was brighter.
Also: We saw Sony’s deluge of 2025 Bravia TVs, and the flagship OLED may give you sticker shock
Keep in mind that Sony’s products often carry a 10% to 20% price premium because of the Sony brand name, so it’s important to look for sales and deals like the ones we’ve highlighted from Amazon.
If you have a little more to spend, I’d recommend upgrading to an OLED. The Sony A80L, the Samsung S90C and the LG C3 are all 2023 OLED screens that are also on sale. The cheapest among these is the 42-inch LG C3, which starts at $890.
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This story was first published on May 31, 2024, and was updated on July 3, 2025.
