Sony

A brief history

Sony was founded in 1946 in Tokyo by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, repairing radios in postwar Japan. The brand renamed to Sony in 1958 and built its early reputation on the transistor radio, the Trinitron CRT (1968), and the Walkman (1979). The 1980s and 1990s saw expansion into film, music, and games — Sony Pictures (Columbia, 1989), Sony Music, and the original PlayStation (1994), which redefined consoles as mainstream entertainment hardware. The 2000s were rocky for the consumer electronics arm, but a corporate restructuring under Kazuo Hirai and Kenichiro Yoshida from 2012 onward refocused the company around imaging, gaming, music, and image sensors. Today Sony Group is dominant in CMOS sensors (over 50% global share), is the leading console manufacturer by units (PlayStation 5), and operates a top-tier audio brand (WH/WF-1000X) and Bravia television line.

What Sony is known for

Sony's strengths cluster in imaging, audio, and gaming. Sony Semiconductor Solutions supplies the main camera sensors used by Apple iPhone, Google Pixel, Xiaomi, OPPO, and most other flagship Android brands — meaning Sony is often the silicon behind a competitor's photo claims. The Alpha mirrorless line (A1, A7-series, A9-series, FX-series) leads the professional mirrorless market on autofocus and full-frame video, and the Xperia phone line uses the same engineering team's tuning for its cameras.

In audio, the WH-1000X and WF-1000X families have set the consumer ANC reference for nearly a decade, with the WH-1000XM6 currently leading our lab measurements below 1 kHz. Sony also pioneered Hi-Res Audio branding and 360 Reality Audio object-based spatial mixing. On the television side, Bravia leverages Sony's panel sourcing flexibility (LG WOLED, Samsung Display QD-OLED, mini-LED LCD) with custom XR Cognitive Processor image processing. The PlayStation 5 / PS5 Pro hold the leading position in our game consoles category, and the DualSense controller's haptics remain unmatched in mainstream consoles.

Where Sony excels on vsMars

Sony products appear across multiple vsMars categories. The WH-1000XM6 and WH-1000XM5 sit near the top of our headphones category and the best headphones shortlist; the WF-1000XM5 and follow-up models appear in wireless earbuds and best wireless earbuds. Sony Bravia QD-OLED and mini-LED models compete in TVs and best TVs, generally trading the top slot with LG OLED on motion handling and processing. The PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro lead game consoles and best game consoles.

Trade-offs to know

Sony's audio dominance is real, but pricing has crept up faster than competitors' — the WH-1000XM6 launched at a meaningful premium over its predecessor and over Bose QuietComfort Ultra. Bravia TV pricing also runs above LG and Samsung at the same panel tier, and Bravia's smart-TV software (Google TV) is competent but slower than LG's webOS on the same hardware. PlayStation 5 lacks broad backwards compatibility — only PS4 titles run natively, where Xbox Series X reaches back four generations. Xperia phones are technically excellent but distribution and after-sales coverage outside Japan and a handful of European markets is poor enough that we recommend them cautiously. Finally, Sony's product cycle is slow on accessories — chargers, cases, and replacement earbud tips are limited to first-party at premium prices, and the company has historically been slow to ship promised firmware features (LDAC variants, multi-point upgrades) post-launch.