Sony’s InZone brand of gaming monitors launched last year, and its second generation of products is a pair of 27-inchers. The $1,100 M10S is intended for esports players, with some interesting capabilities specific to their needs. The company has also refreshed the M9 with a much-needed redesign of the stand and more.
Like many desktop OLED screens, the electronics and heat dissipation is a big bump on the back of an ultrathin screen in the M10S.
The M10S is designed with a tiny base to have the smallest possible footprint, and it’s thin enough to slide your keyboard onto it: It’s 6.3 inches (159mm) across and 0.2 inches (4mm) thick. It has a 1440p screen which can run up to 480Hz, and like a growing number of competitors offers a 24.5-inch mode; unlike those, it can run in that mode at 1332p as well as the more common 1080p, both up to 480Hz, so you don’t sacrifice much sharpness if you don’t want to.
You can set the cropped mode to align to the center or bottom of the panel. It’s DisplayHDR True Black 400 certified and can hit a peak brightness of 1,300 nits, albeit for a small 1.5 to 2% window. There’s also a matte coating to reduce glare and reflections.
The monitor also offers a couple of useful modes. FPS Pro Plus emphasizes player outlines to make them easier to spot quickly and FPS Pro simulates an old-school TN panel — I’m not sure if that means it replicates the bad as well as the good.
The InZone M9 2 ditches the awful, clunky stand.
There are a few minor updates to the second-gen M9, but to me one of the most notable is that it ditches the striking but clunky, big tripod stand. It its place is a more conventional stand with a small base, which actually allows for swiveling and pivoting in addition to adjusting the height and leaving space to tuck your keyboard underneath.
It’s also a little cheaper than the M9 was at launch — $800 vs. $900, though the M9’s price has dropped and now costs around $650 to $700. Sony has boosted the refresh rate to 160Hz and updated the DisplayPort connection to DP 2.1. The company has also added backlight scanning, which has been around for a while, to help reduce for motion blur.
Both monitors are available now.