Is the monitor really “perfect for PS5”? & More Latest News Here

Sony has recently become a gaming accessories maker. This does not mean the world-famous PlayStation brand, but the new product range from inzone.

I have already tested the Inzone H9 headset and was moderately impressed. While Sony makes excellent headphones, that expertise hasn’t really flowed into the H9.

My expectations of the gaming monitor were accordingly muted Inzone M9 (1,099 euros RRP). Because Sony makes good televisions, but the Japanese company is not known for consumer screens.

In addition, big words are spat. According to the website, the M9 is “perfect for PlayStation 5”, offers a “great gaming experience” and has “features specially developed for PS5 that fully exploit the potential of the M9.” I followed that up and have the M9 with the PS5 tested.

Looks like PS5

Although the M9 is a PC gaming monitor that is also “perfect for PS5”, a certain affinity with Sony’s gaming console cannot be denied. The stand has that white and black sandwich design the PS5. The back is also PS5 white and the LED bar is reminiscent of the LED lighting of the PS5 controller.

The design of the 3-piece stand looks delicate, but it is stable. Design wise it doesn’t quite hit the spot as the center stand has a plastic body but the rear parts are shiny metal. From an aesthetic point of view, the rear part therefore looks like a foreign body.

What is unpleasant is that the front base of the test device available to me is not aligned at the correct angle to the monitor. He’s leaning a tad too far to the left. This does not affect the function, but is annoying for a device that costs 1,099 euros.

ergonomics

The monitor is height and angle adjustable, but cannot be rotated sideways. Since the profile of the stand is only approx 18 cm is deep, but you shouldn’t have a problem turning the M9 including the stand on the desk into the desired position.

If the monitor is in the highest position, the PS5 on the stand will fit underneath in landscape format. But you can’t push it flush under the M9, because it’s on the rear base.

All connections are housed on the back, cables are plugged in from below. They are placed in the housing. Since the monitor only tilts forward very slightly when the angle is adjusted, plugging in the cables is tedious – you either poke around blindly or place the M9 with the screen side on the table to get better access to the connections. Luckily, you probably won’t be messing around all the time, you’ll just connect what’s necessary once.

The connected cables can be pulled through the middle stand. In this way, a cable harness can disappear behind the desk in a controlled manner.

steering

The control buttons for the M9 are on the right rear panel. The power button is comfortably large for a monitor. There is a above 4-way joystick. Press left and right to change volume, press down to mute, press up to unmute.

If you press the joystick in the middle, the monitor menu opens – at least in theory. Because the joystick is wobbly and although I hear the mechanical noise when I press it and feel the impact, the menu does not open. You have to press relatively hard, whereby the M9 wobbles threateningly on the base – but at least it doesn’t move.

It is annoying that no preview is shown for any of the functions in the menu. You always have to confirm the selected setting by pressing the joystick to see a result. If you don’t like the setting, you have to press right again, because always after confirming the M9 jumps back to the previous menu. To see the 4 different settings of the “Black Equalizer” you need at least 12 joystick inputs.

The M9 also shows in the menu no explanation for the settings. If you are not technically savvy, you will not know what “Local Dimming” is and why there are “Off”, “Low” and “High” settings here. It is exemplary that the most important information is always displayed in the menu at the top: input, resolution, Hz, HDR mode and selected picture mode.

The PS5 comes to the image parameter prison

As usual, the PS5 will be HDMI cable tied together. The monitor does not come with an HDMI cable. One should make sure to use an HDMI cable for 2.1 so that the 4K resolution of 3840 x 2160 is available as well VRRallowing refresh rates from 48 to 120 Hz with the PS5.

After that, the HDR brightness is adjusted as usual on the PS5. But that was it with adjustments. The M9 puts the PS5 in the image parameter prison. Almost all Settings are preset and cannot be changed. The image mode is fixed to “Game 1”. In the picture settings, only the local dimming and the aspect ratio can be changed. Brightness, contrast, saturation, etc. are fixed.

This is due to the function “Tone mapping with HDR automatic“. This can be seen as the counterpart to “cinema mode” or “moviemaker mode” on TV sets. The pre-calibrated image settings are what the filmmaker, or in this case the game maker, intended. The only way to adjust image parameters yourself is to disable HDR on the PS5 in the settings. However, this is strongly discouraged, since the display suffers noticeably as a result.

Image Quality: Like a painting

The HDR automatic can be seen as a curse or a blessing. Curse, because the display looks dark and dignified at first glance if you have previously played on a current, large smart TV with game mode. Blessing, because you don’t have to play around with the settings to find something suitable.

Once you have overcome the first “shock”, the M9 reveals its strengths. The 27 inches paired with the 4K resolution allow corresponding games on the PS5 razor sharp appear. In Horizon: Forbidden West, you can stick your nose to the monitor and not see individual pixels. The colors are appropriately strong, but not oversaturated. The dynamic range is good, but the black levels cannot keep up with OLED TVs or monitors for purely technical reasons.

On top of that the monitor wonderfully matt is. Coupled with the extremely sharp and detailed display, games like Forbidden West almost look like paintings or high-quality posters. Especially the close-ups of people in cutscenes or the photo mode look spectacular. But fast-paced action is also very good – especially for games that support VRR, which prevents screen tearing.

In order to experience that, you have to create the right conditions for it. This means darken room and sit as straight as possible in front of the screen. Because even with a slight look from the side, the display becomes a bit darker, which means that details disappear in dark areas of the picture. With a 27-inch monitor, however, you will be sitting close and straight in front of it anyway and not lounging on the sofa several meters away.

But even if you sit perfectly straight in front of it, the display is on the Edges and corners a touch darker than the rest of the picture. But you only notice that if you consciously pay attention to it – or use the monitor for work and look at Excel spreadsheets or Word documents, or applications with large areas of the same color.

Built-in cheats

The picture settings are locked when using the PS5 with HDR, the “game settings‘ are released. So you can get out of 4 crosshairs Choose in 2 colors to cheat in shooters, for example when shooting from the hip does not actually show a crosshair.

With the Black equalizer Dark areas in the image can be brightened to see hidden enemies better – this would also be considered hardware cheating in online versus games.

In addition, the reaction time can be selected between “Standard”, “Fast” and “Faster”. Sony does not reveal in the instructions what the disadvantages are if the response time is reduced. It just says, “Change the screen response time. Set the time according to the speed of the image movements.” Aha. Isn’t a low response time always better? Or shouldn’t the monitor set this automatically when PS5 games are played with VRR and HDR automatic? In any case, Sony should improve this with its explanations.

Built-in speakers: No thanks

The M9 has built in speakers that should only be seen as an emergency option. The sound isn’t worthy of a PS5 – even the speakers on a Nintendo Switch have better sound.

The monitor has one 3.5mm jack plug integrated. If you plug in a headset there, the sound of the PS5 is played back with it. However, the headset microphone is not supported. If you want to use voice chats, you must either plug the headset into the PS5 controller or use the built-in microphone of the PS5 controller.

Conclusion

In isolation, as a gaming monitor you want to plug your PS5 into, the Inzone M9 is excellent. HDR games look incredibly good, especially those where the graphics play a lot with lighting effects and a mix of light and dark environments. The display of the HDR automatic is also not too exaggerated, which is why you can sit and play for a long time at a short distance in front of the monitor – without straining your eyes.

The SDR display is rather average and not what you would expect from a monitor that costs 1,099 euros. That’s why many PC games won’t look particularly exciting. However, PC games that support HDR look much better and, thanks to VRR, up to 144Hz are possible.

As a working device, the M9 is mediocre because of the uneven color and brightness display and the rather meager adjustment ranges for height and angle and the lack of lateral adjustment. The built-in KVM switch is nice, but so do other, cheaper monitors.

If you are looking for a monitor that brings out the best in PS5 and HDR PC gaming, the M9 is the right choice. However, if you only want to play PC games, there are cheaper alternatives with similar specifications that display SDR content better. These are, for example, the LG 27GP950-B (634 euros on Amazon) and the Samsung G7A LS28AG702NU (655 euros on Amazon).

Specifications on the manufacturer’s website