Sony Inzone M10S II review: Another great OLED for gamers

Building a great gaming monitor isn't an easy task, and Sony knows that just as well as any big brand. After all, its Inzone gaming brand took a good couple of years to really get up to speed. Now, it's making genuinely persuasive hardware, but at prices that are often a little wince-inducing.

Still, when I tested the M10S last year, I was impressed by its 1440p OLED qualities, which meant that a loan with the M10S II was a no-brainer. In a year that's seen some really excellent monitors hit the market, how does this fairly subtle revision of last year's effort fare?

Price and Availability

Sony launched the M10S II about 18 months after the first-generation M10S. Both are available at this point in time, with stock directly from Sony's store – but also through a range of retailers.

Here in the UK, the M10S II comes at the exact same price as its predecessor: £1,199. In the US, it's the same picture, at $1,099.99, and shops in the EU are stocking it for €1,349.

That is obviously a pretty chunky amount of cash for a 27-inch monitor, but its performance should contextualise that price a little, so keep on reading.

Design and Specs

At first glance, it's not an easy task to find aesthetic differences between the M10S and M10S II – although I don't have both monitors side-by-side to do so exhaustively.

Sony has kept all the main design elements of its older monitor, which is no bad thing. After all, it had already come up with an extremely impressive and easy-to-adjust stand design that it retains this time around to give the M10S II a really small footprint.

Now, though, you get a little more tilt, which is welcome if you really know how to dial in your ergonomic needs to the smallest detail.

The monitor also has the same controls – one power button and one control knob both on the back of the monitor in the lower-right corner. They're intuitive and easy to locate, and the menus remain clear and precise once you pull them up to tweak settings.

Bezels are pretty slimline around all four sides of the monitor and it all adds up to an impressively sleek and professional vibe – this isn't a gaming monitor that shouts about itself, and that's something I've always appreciated when testing this category.

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The picture is also largely consistent on the I/O front, where you'll get one DisplayPort 2.1 jack and two HDMI 2.1 ports, along with a few USB-A ports and a 3.5mm jack for audio, since there are no built-in speakers here.

Where things have changed a little more quantifiably is on the spec sheet, which packs in some nice little upgrades compared to the previous model. Where the M10S came in with a ceiling of 480Hz (already enough for the vast majority of us), that bar has been raised to 540Hz this time around.

It's still a 1440p monitor, though, so there's no drastic change on that side of things, and that also means that it's once again really a PC-centric option. While the PS5 and PS5 Pro can indeed output at 1440p (quite happily, in some games' cases), it's still a little bit of a waste not to let them flex up to 4K when they can.

Under the hood (so to speak), the OLED panel here is also upgraded. It's now an RGB Tandem WOLED, and that brings with it a jump in brightness. This now tops out at 1500 nits – and you can really see the difference, especially if you're in a brightly lit room.

Response times have come down microscopically, from 0.03 seconds to just 0.02 seconds – not that most of us would notice the difference.

What's far more noticeable, though, is that the coating applied to the whole screen has changed – instead of a glossy finish, it's now matte and anti-reflective. While I know some people still favour gloss, I think this is a major upgrade for most of us and makes visibility much better in challenging conditions.

Image Quality

Sony wants you to drop an amount that used to buy a hugely capable gaming PC on just a monitor, so just like with the first-generation M10S, the performance here needs to be very impressive to make the price make sense.

Well, just like that first-gen effort, it is indeed really quite something in use. Its OLED panel is crisp, bright and beautiful, whether you're doing everyday work tasks on it (and my monitors always have to double-shift on this front) or gaming.

Since its refresh rate is such a star of the show, I took to Counter-Strike 2 again to embarrass myself online, and while I can't say that I improved thanks to the panel in front of me, its smoothness was something to behold.

It's also really detailed and sharp, making for quite the combination with the vivid colours and inky blacks of OLED tech.

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I also played some single-player fare, including dipping my toe into Silent Hill: Townfall. Its evocative environments were spooky as anything, and the colours on offer were really nicely represented on the M10S II – shades of grey are not as easy to nail as you'd think.

If you drop down to 720p, you can actually push the refresh rate even further, to 720Hz, which is as ludicrous as it sounds. This will only matter to the most competitive of gamers, but it might be a feature you want.

That anti-glare coating was by far the standout factor in my testing, though, changing how easy the screen was to see in bright moments, and it really did make a world of difference to general legibility of information (gaming or otherwise). Sony's done a tremendous job on that front.

It's a feature that pairs excellently with the boosted brightness, which puts this monitor into the same territory as the Asus ROG Strix XG27AQGNV I recently tested – they can both get genuinely uncomfortably bright if you don't customise them to your needs and room of choice.

Verdict

The M10S II is a curious monitor, because it doesn't necessarily change much about how we all look at Inzone right now. Sony's PC gaming sub-brand hasn't taken a big step forward here, choosing instead to refine the good work it already did.

That means this second-gen monitor is undeniably better than its predecessor, in a few very tangible ways, and I'd certainly therefore choose it over its older sibling. That said, the new RGB Tandem multi-layer panel's price is not inconsiderable.

The fact that I've tested Alienware monitors this year that feel a little more user-friendly for a huge chunk of change less means that the M10S II feels even more niche as a result. If you're a competitive or even tournament gamer, though, it might be the perfect OLED for you.

Also Consider

I'm taking a bit of a gamble here – because the last-gen M10S is still very much available on plenty of storefronts, but I'm not seeing it come down in price much. I'm sure it must soon, though, as stock of the M10S II filters around the world. So, if you want a cheaper alternative, keep an eye on that older model, to see whether you can score a deal when Black Friday rolls around.

If you've read this review thinking the monitor sounds great but far too specific for your needs, then consider looking at one of those Alienware models I mentioned in my verdict. The 32-inch AW3226Q is a brilliant option that plays far more nicely with consoles, is fully 4K, and costs just over half of what Sony wants, which makes it super attractive.