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- Gorgeously detailed and natural pictures
- Excellent sound quality
- Class-leading image processing
- Not cheap by today’s TV standards
- Only two HDMIs support all gaming features
- Not as bright as some OLED rivals
Sony’s first two generations of quantum dot OLED TVs, the A95K and A95L series, were both pretty much classics of the TV world. So hopes are high that the brand’s latest QD OLED model, the Bravia 8 II, keeps the run of form going – even if it might not catch the eye on the shop floor quite as much as some rivals do.
Sony Bravia 8 II review: Key specifications
| Screen sizes available | 55in (KR55XR8) and 65in (KR65XR8) |
| Panel type | Quantum dot OLED |
| Resolution | 4K/UHD (3,840 x 2,160) |
| Refresh rates | Up to 120Hz |
| HDR formats | HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision |
| Audio enhancement | 50W 2.2-channel system, Acoustic Surface Audio+, Dolby Atmos, DTS Digital Surround |
| HDMI inputs | 2 x full-spec HDMI 2.1 (one with eARC), 2 x HDMI 2.0 |
| Freeview Play compatibility | Yes |
| Tuners | Terrestrial Freeview HD |
| Gaming features | 4K/120Hz, ALLM, VRR, Perfect for PlayStation 5 (Auto HDR Tone Mapping, PS Remote Play support, Game Menu 2), Dolby Vision gaming mode |
| Wireless connectivity | Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 6E, Chromecast built-in, Apple AirPlay |
| Smart assistants | Works with Google Assistant and Apple Home Kit |
| Smart platform | Google TV |
What you need to know
Despite what its rather awkward model name might suggest, Sony’s Bravia 8 II is not a sequel to the brand’s Bravia 8 WRGB OLED series. In fact, that TV is continuing in the market. What the Bravia 8 II actually is is the third generation of Sony’s quantum dot approach to OLED technology, where blue light is shone through red and green quantum dot layers.
This is potentially great news given how excellent 2024’s second-generation A95L Sony QD OLED TV was, especially as the Bravia 8 II arrives rocking the latest QD OLED panel, meaning pictures should be brighter and even more vibrant. Plus, of course, all the latest panel advances will be marshalled under the ultra-intelligent and experienced eye of Sony’s Cognitive XR processor.
Price and competition
The Bravia 8 II series comprises just two models: a £1,799 55in model and a £2,199 65in model. This puts the series on the premium side, for sure – though they’re not as ‘out there’ on price, happily, as Sony’s previous QD-OLED generations have been.
Competition in the premium OLED sector is seriously tough. LG’s G5 series uses the latest Primary RGB Tandem technology to deliver a massive brightness increase over previous LG generations without causing the sort of colour washout or potential panel damage that such brightness would once have entailed. Meanwhile, Samsung’s S95F gets ground-breaking contrast and brightness out of its latest QD-OLED screens. The 55in and 65in G5 OLEDs cost £1,599 and £2,099, respectively, while the 55in and 65in Samsung S95Fs cost £1,599 and £2,299.
Design, connections and control
While the Bravia 8 II isn’t the most aggressively glamorous TV, there’s an elegant, understated look to it thanks to its slender profile, ultra-thin bezels and the way its desktop feet can slot right under each corner to essentially become extensions of the screen frame.
In the most attractive setup, the screen slots right down on these feet, pretty much flush to your table top, but the feet can be attached so that they lift the screen a couple of inches if you want to accommodate a soundbar. There’s no option, though, to place the feet in a more central position – something to consider if you’ve only got a narrow bit of furniture for your TV to sit on.
The Bravia 8 II looks very well connected at first glance, thanks to its quartet of HDMIs, twin USB slots, RF port, and inevitable support for both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Even on this premium model, though, Sony hasn’t delivered full gaming support on all four HDMIs. Only two can handle the 4K/120Hz feeds and variable refresh rates, and one of those has to do double duty as the only one to support HDMI’s eARC feature.
Smart TV platform
The Bravia 8 II continues Sony’s long run of deploying Google TV on its TVs. Google TV doesn’t feel quite as intelligent as some rival platforms at recommending content based on your viewing habits, leaving its recommendations feeling a bit dictatorial at times. Its design is a little overwhelming and cluttered, too. Sony has really refined how Google TV’s menus integrate alongside Sony’s own picture and sound menus, though, and the system runs reasonably slickly and much more stably than it has in years gone by.
While Google TV is overall very rich in content and video streaming services, it doesn’t support all of the UK’s terrestrial broadcaster apps. Happily, Sony has got around this by adding YouView to Google’s app roster, introducing all the main UK broadcast catch-up services in a handy, user-friendly wrapper.
Image quality
The Bravia 8 II’s performance with standard dynamic range video quickly reveals a brilliantly obsessive interest in accuracy and the finer things in AV life, rather than following the premium OLED TV herd by trying to dazzle you with their new panels’ extremes.
In its Professional picture preset, which tracks as close as possible to the video standards used in SDR mastering, I was struck by how dark the picture looked. An impression confirmed by a measured white/peak brightness level of only around 90cd/m2. That really is a low number by modern TV standards – but crucially, it’s actually only slightly under the 100cd/m2 figure typically used in SDR mastering, immediately suggesting that Sony is going all-out here to be accurate, even on a TV that’s capable of pushing things way further.
Certainly, the Professional mode delivers pictures that are right up there with the very best I’ve seen. You’ve got pretty much immaculate black levels with copious amounts of shadow detail, exceptionally clean, pure, natural and balanced colours, and motion with 24fps sources that looks cinematic and authentic rather than processed. The Bravia 8 II also demonstrates remarkable subtleties of light control in every part of the image, from the darkest black to the whitest white.
The only rider is that you need to darken your room as much as you can when you want to watch a film in the Bravia 8 II’s Pro mode, to ensure you get the maximum benefit from all the TV’s hard work.
Running my suite of objective tests using Portrait Displays’ Calman Ultimate software, G1 signal generator and C1 HDR5000 colorimeter yields results in the Professional preset that get extremely close to measured perfection. Especially when it comes to tracking the SDR EOTF curve. Elsewhere, ColorChecker, Saturation Sweep and Luminance Sweep tests score Delta E 2000 average errors of 4, 3.6 and 3.1.
These numbers would ideally all be under three, which is the value below which errors are considered imperceptible to the human eye, but they’re close enough. Especially when they’re backed up by the sort of subjective beauty the Bravia 8 II’s Pro mode provides.
If you want to see SDR content looking more intense and infused with more of the brightness and colour range the Bravia 8 II is capable of, Sony provides several picture presets that automatically deliver a genuine and permanent SDR to HDR conversion system.
Typically, the idea of not being able to turn a TV’s HDR upconversion system off (unless you choose the right preset) wouldn’t be a good thing, especially on a TV aimed very much at the AV enthusiast market. The Bravia 8 II, though, in keeping with most Sony TVs, does such a good job of the HDR upconversion that I don’t mind it at all. The results look brighter, more vibrant, and more dynamic, but they do so without pushing the HDR upgrade to an extent that looks forced or unbalanced. Nor does the HDR retrofit lose the feel of the original SDR content. The only setting where Sony’s intelligently cautious SDR-to-HDR conversion approach gets thrown to the wind is the cartoonish Vivid mode.
Applying my Calman measuring system to the gorgeous-looking default Standard preset sees peak brightness rise to around 235cd/m2 (still conservative for the default SDR mode on a modern TV), and records colours taking on a cooler, bluer tone. This feeds into higher Delta E 2000 average measurement errors than the Pro mode delivers, with two-point and multi-point grayscale checks hitting Delta E 2000 scores of 16.1 and 13.5, and the ColorChecker, Saturation Sweep and Luminance Sweep error levels rising to 9.9, 9.7 and 7.6. The blue push is consistently the main drag on the results.
These measurements aren’t nearly as far off ideal as those of many TVs’ equivalent modes, though, and as I’d expect with QD-OLED technology, the Bravia 8 II’s can reproduce 145% of the Rec 709/sRGB colour spectrum in Standard mode. Though the Professional mode deliberately reins this in to 99% for accuracy’s sake.
HDR performance
Sony’s obsession with refinement and accuracy over showboating sees the Bravia 8 II not pushing brightness nearly as hard with HDR sources as its OLED rivals typically do.
Calman Ultimate measurements find it peaking at 1,950cd/m2 in both the Standard and Professional modes for 1%, 2% and 5% HDR windows, dropping off fairly significantly to 1,600cd/m2 at 10%, and 770cd/m2 at 25%. Brightness measurements finish up at 300cd/m2 on a full-screen HDR test signal in Standard mode, and around 250cd/m2 in Professional mode.
For context, I’ve seen other OLED TVs this year hit between 3,000 and just over 4,000 peak brightness numbers, as well as hitting full-field brightness of between 400 and 500cd/m2. So, the Bravia 8 II is only around half as bright at its HDR extremes as some of its rivals this year, something you can clearly appreciate with your own eyes.
Once you’ve got past not receiving that instant dopamine hit associated with a blazingly bright HDR picture, the Bravia 8 II’s sensational attention to detail, balance and refinement starts to assert itself. Its argument for balance and insight over razzle-dazzle when it comes to HDR pictures is a strong one.
Dark scenes feature immaculate black levels and perfectly judged shadow detailing, while also avoiding any hint of near-black noise or blockiness. There’s no distractingly excessive black level instability/flickering when dark scenes contain slight increases or decreases in their overall brightness, either.
Colours retain their correct saturations beautifully in the darkest parts of the image too, as well as always containing exquisite levels of subtlety, tonal accuracy and balance that help create a phenomenally natural and three-dimensional look. Especially as Sony’s Cognitive XR processing does such a beautiful job of subtly adjusting all sorts of image elements to gently recraft images into something more akin to the way our eyes perceive the real world.
The subtlety of colour and shading from the Bravia 8 II also contributes to the image’s outstanding fine detailing and sharpness, delivering an image that feels fundamentally 4K without evidence of any aggressive over-sharpening or grittiness.
In its most accurate Professional mode, the Bravia 8 II’s Delta E 2000 average error numbers for P3 colour gamut sweep, BT.2020 sweep and ColorChecker tests come in at 3, 3.2 and 2.8, respectively, all essentially hitting the level at which the presentation perceptibly deviates from established HDR industry standards. The ColorMatch test signal veers off slightly more at 5.3, but overall the Bravia 8 II registers an outstanding set of results given how hard it is to control HDR’s much wider brightness splay and colour gamuts. The Bravia 8 II’s accuracy is achieved alongside what is essentially 100% coverage of the full DCI-P3 colour spectrum used for most current HDR mastering, and more than 90% of the much wider BT.2020 gamut.
Standard picture mode results for P3 and BT.2020 sweeps are 6.8 and 6.8, while ColorChecker and ColorMatch tests record Delta E 2000 average errors of 6.6 and 5.7. While obviously not as accurate as the Professional mode, many TVs record average error results of well into double figures in their default HDR presets. This backs up the idea I mentioned earlier that outside the Vivid mode, Sony always takes great care to try and ensure that pictures remain true to their originally mastered design.
Sony’s motion processing options, especially Motionflow True Cinema, do an outstanding job of helping 24fps film sources appear on the OLED screen with less judder but without losing that 24p cinematic feel, and the screen’s self-emissive pixels mean that images don’t lose any colour or contrast when viewed from even very wide angles.
The Bravia 8 II doesn’t join the Samsung S95F in sporting extreme reflection-rejecting filters, but it still suppresses reflections pretty well, and some viewers will prefer the slightly glossy look to the Bravia 8 II pictures versus the completely matte look of the Samsung S95F.
The Bravia 8 II isn’t quite flawless. If you watch a dark scene on it in a very bright room or a bright direct light source is hitting the screen, the set’s typically profound and natural black levels can become a bit grey, thanks to QD-OLED TVs not using polarising filters.
In a perfect world, the Bravia 8 II would support the HDR10+ premium HDR format alongside its the more popular Dolby Vision one (though it does carry specific Calibrated modes for Netflix, Prime Video and Sony Bravia Core playback) and finally I have to return to the fact that yes, the Bravia 8 II’s HDR pictures aren’t spectacularly punchy and in your face. But if you value nuance, balance and what feels like sheer love of picture quality, the Bravia 8 II is arguably the most refined and cinematic TV money can buy.
To test the Sony Bravia 8 II, I used Portrait Displays Calman colour calibration software.
Gaming
The Bravia 8 II isn’t as feature-rich as some rivals when it comes to gaming. It only supports frame rates up to 120Hz, when many rivals this year go to 144 or even 165Hz, and it only officially supports the core HDMI format of variable refresh rates when some rivals also support the AMD FreeSync or Nvidia G-Sync VRR varieties. Additionally, only two of the TV’s four HDMI ports support the full range of gaming features.
The Bravia 8 II does, though, support PS Remote Play, while the Auto HDR part of Sony’s Perfect For PlayStation 5 system means the console can tell which model of Sony TV it’s connected to and automatically optimise its HDR output to that TV’s specific abilities.
There’s also ALLM support, which automatically activates the TV’s Game mode when it detects a gaming source, and in this setting, it takes 16.5ms at 60Hz to render graphics. That’s slightly longer than I’d ideally like for seriously competitive gaming, but only by around 5ms or so.
The Bravia 8 II carries the second generation of Sony’s Game Menu, which becomes available when the TV is running in Game mode and provides access to an array of gaming options. These include a Black Equalizer that lets you raise the brightness of just the dark parts of the picture to more easily spot hiding enemies, a crosshair superimposed on the centre of the screen, mild motion smoothing at the cost of slightly higher input lag, and even the option to adjust image size if you want to recreate a monitor-style experience.
For the most part, gaming on the Bravia 8 II is a stellar experience, as the rich but controlled colours, awesome contrast, and beautiful native sharpness eke out every drop of today’s graphical glories. I didn’t feel particularly bothered by the slightly above-par input lag, either.
The only real gaming issues aside from the slightly limited feature count are that there can be the occasional slightly delayed HDR adjustments and that, as with all OLED TVs, dark cut scenes and static menus can exhibit a flickering effect. This is seldom visible during actual gameplay, though.
Sound quality
The Bravia 8 II benefits from a premium version of Sony’s Acoustic Surface technology, where a system of actuators makes the panel create sound. This might sound gimmicky, but it delivers excellent results on the Bravia 8 II.
The sound propels right out of the screen towards you, avoiding that slightly muffled, indirect, distant audio staging often associated with TVs that depend on side, down and rear-firing speakers. Sound effects also seem as if they’re coming from the correct part of the screen, including tracking the sounds of multiple individual objects as they move around the image.
The Bravia 8 II’s sound isn’t restricted to just the screen area, though. There’s a sense of both width and height when playing Dolby Atmos sources that extends comfortably beyond the panel’s outer edges. This is always immaculately controlled, so that it never sounds baggy, brittle or vague.
Add to this plenty of raw power and some surprisingly rich, smooth bass from a pair of integrated subwoofers that only succumb to mild buzzing interference with Hollywood’s most extreme low-frequency moments, and you’ve got a highly impressive integrated sound system.
Verdict
In a world where premium OLED rivals are typically caught in a remorseless battle of brightness, Sony’s apparent decision to focus on less shouty but more natural, nuanced pictures on the Bravia 8 II is a brave one.
Provided you can resist the lure of those other, more instantly impactful OLEDs, though, and aren’t looking for a TV for a perpetually very bright room, the Bravia 8 II’s stunningly homogenous, refined and natural pictures are pure home cinema heaven.
