Sony and Fnatic just announced a blazing-fast 720Hz OLED gaming monitor with one bizarre compromise

Meet the Sony Inzone M10S II, the company’s latest gaming monitor focused on delivering an ultra-fast gaming experience thanks to its OLED panel and ludicrously fast refresh rates. Developed in collaboration with British esports team Fnatic, the new display runs at 540Hz by default but can also be cranked up to a massive 720Hz, but only if you turn down its resolution.

We’ve seen these sorts of dual-mode displays quite a lot recently, with our current top recommendation on our best gaming monitor guide being the dual-mode LG Ultragear 32GS95UE. However, most of these have offered the option of switching between 4K and 1080p. With this new Sony model, though, you can run either at 2,560 x 1,440 at 540Hz or just 1,280 x 720 at 720Hz. Yes, that’s 720p.

While to many of you not entirely ensconsed in the esports world, gaming at such a low resolution these days probably sounds ridiculous. However, it is in fact common for esports pros to game at close to this resolution. For CS2 and Valorant players in particular, 1,280 x 960 is the most common resolution choice listed on ProSettings, and even 1,024 x 768 is pretty popular.

Crucially, though, no pros listed on that site actually run at below a 768 vertical resolution. Not even the six Fnatic players listed there run at quite such a low res. Still, that’s not to say there aren’t some players running at 720p, and that you can’t run at that resolution if you want to.

Otherwise, this is mostly a fairly typical 27-inch, QHD OLED monitor, with it offering up a super-fast 0.02ms response time and, of course, having effectively infinite contrast thanks to having truly black black levels. However, there are a few extra little features that make this new Sony display stand out.

For a start, when it comes to HDR, this panel can hit a ludicrously high 1,500cd/m2 peak brightness, which compares to typically around half that for many OLED panels, and half that again for most standard LCD panels.

Sony has also worked with Fnatic to optimize the design of the display to best suit competitive gaming. This means you get an anti-reflective coating, rather than having a glossy panel, plus the display can tilt upwards further than usual, allowing you to bring the panel closer to you while still maintaining an optimized viewing angle.

For similar reasons, the base of the stand has been kept ultra compact, almost to the point of it looking like it would be unstable. However, it allows for optimal versatility in how you arrange your mouse, keyboard and mouse pad around the display.

The company has also added a 24.5-inch mode that allows the display to match the size of tournament displays, plus there’s an FPS Pro image quality mode that aims to replicate the look of popular competitive LCD gaming monitors.

All this peak-gaming optimization doesn’t come cheap, though, with Sony slapping an astonishingly high $1,099.99 price tag on this monitor. You can sign up to be emailed when it becomes available via Sony’s webstore, which, if you do choose to buy the monitor via, you at least get the option of 0% APR financing, free shipping, and 5% back in My Sony Points. That’s something, right?