Sony's InZone gaming monitors and headsets are for more than just PS5 gamers
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Loading... - Aabir Fathi
- 29 Jun 2022
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Sony is attempting to reach out to more than just PS5 gamers with its new InZone brand of gaming monitors and headsets. I got my hands on them in the video embedded above if you’d rather see or hear me talk about these gadgets.
Made for PC but with specs to take full advantage of the PS5, along with Xbox Series X, the $899 InZone M9 is the flagship product of the bunch. It’s a 27-inch 4K IPS gaming monitor built to match the aesthetic of the PS5 while having basically every imaginable spec that gamers may universally want, sans OLED panel, of course. It has a 144Hz refresh rate (that’s not so common to find with a 4K screen), a 1ms response time, variable refresh rate (VRR, both for consoles and with G-Sync compatibility for Nvidia GPUs), plus DisplayPort and HDMI 2.1 ports. It can also display video via USB-C.
Notably, the M9 features full-array local dimming with 96 zones, along with DisplayHDR 600, both of which allow for brighter highlights, darker blacks, and the ability to juggle the two without too much of a haloing effect. Some features that are special to this monitor (and that trickled down from high-end Bravia TVs) include auto HDR tone mapping, which automatically recognizes the M9 when plugged into a PS5 and claims to optimize the display’s HDR output. There’s also an auto genre picture mode that can automatically switch to cinema mode when you launch a video streaming service or a Blu-ray, then go back to a low-latency mode when you begin gaming again.
In a mind-boggling move, Sony doesn’t include any video cables with the $899 M9. Sony spokesperson Chloe Canta shared a statement with The Verge that said the company chose not to because “the required cable type, version, and length are different based on a customer’s use case.” I suppose Sony’s not wrong there, but not including any video cables just isn’t right.
There’s a cheaper $529 M3 monitor coming this winter that makes some omissions to meet the lower price point. It lops off full-array local dimming, drops to 1080p, and bumps the HDR down to 400 nits of peak brightness. Otherwise, the feature set is similar with one exception: the refresh rate goes up to 240Hz.
Moving onto the other product category that Sony’s InZone is launching: headsets. The H9 sits at the top of its new lineup, rocking big over-ear cans, and has the ability to handle both 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth simultaneously. The design is nothing like the Pulse 3D headset that Sony launched alongside the PS5. Instead, it’s more similar to competing gaming headsets, featuring highly adjustable side arms, a flip-to-mute microphone that can offer a healthy dose of sidetone (hearing yourself in the headset), and pillowy ear pads that Sony says borrows build materials from its latest WH-1000XM5.
The H9 claims to offer 32 hours of battery life per charge, and it’s the only model in Sony’s lineup to feature digital noise cancellation. During my hands-on, I tested them against my personal set of Sony WH-1000XM3, and they were comparable in merit, with great comfort, effective noise cancellation (Sony says it’s “inherited” from the 1000X series, but it didn’t seem quite as good as the XM3), and superb sound quality. One downside, however, is that they are simply huge on your head. There’s a shot in the video above that shows how large they look while on my head. Read More...
