I take a look at TVs, and Sony’s novel Bravia 8 II OLED presents an unbeatable mixture of image and sound quality

If you aquire thru hyperlinks on our articles, Future and its syndication companions would possibly even produce a rate.

Sony Bravia 8 II: Two-minute overview

The Sony Bravia 8 II is the firm’s flagship OLED TV for 2025. Whereas its Sony Bravia 8 predecessor outmoded a mid-fluctuate W-OLED indicate panel, the Bravia 8 II makes spend of a QD-OLED panel, the identical kind realized within the Samsung S95F.

Adding QD-OLED to the Sony Bravia 8 II combine has resulted in a TV with a significantly brighter image than the Bravia 8. It also improved color gamut protection, with colours wanting constantly rich, yet true on the Bravia 8 II. The TV’s effective anti-reflective display lets it lift over those image quality advantages for gleaming-room viewing, though the Bravia 8 II’s detailed, refined image is most difficult liked ought to you murky the lights.

On many of the most difficult TVs, the Bravia 8 II’s slim invent would possibly even level to doubtlessly anemic audio –you would possibly even desire to position decent-sized speakers someplace to get honest sound, and slim TV frames don’t accommodate that. Nonetheless Sony presents an ingenious workaround with its Acoustic Surface Audio+ feature, which positions actuators within the relieve of the TV’s QD-OLED panel that flip the total display precise into a speaker. This capacity that, the Bravia 8 II presents moderately fleshy and sturdy sound for a TV, and its Acoustic Center Sync feature also helps you to make spend of it as a dedicated center channel with a compatible Sony soundbar or speaker system.

Google TV is outmoded because the Bravia 8 II’s tidy TV platform, and it’s an straightforward-to-navigate system. A constructed-in mic helps you to preserve an eye fixed on the TV utilizing Google Converse Expose, and you would possibly even additionally preserve an eye fixed on it utilizing a mic button on the distant or with Alexa speakers if you happen to’re piece of the Alexa ecosystem.

PlayStation 5 customers unsurprisingly expertise gaming advantages on the Bravia 8 II, which automatically switches to a preset Game mode and engages auto HDR tone mapping when a connected PS5 console is turned on. The TV also helps 4K 120Hz input, but with most difficult two HDMI 2.1 ports, gamers piquant to also connect each an Xbox Sequence X console plus one among the most difficult soundbars will doubtless be upset.

The Bravia 8 II isn’t any doubt one among the most difficult OLED TVs to be launched in 2025, on the opposite hand it has stiff competitors from flagship OLEDs such because the Samsung S95F and LG G5, each of which would possibly maybe be brighter and extra feature-packed. All three sets are currently priced all the plan thru the identical, making the Bravia 8 II a small of a elaborate designate name, but its charms are many, and its huge total image and sound quality let it successfully compete with other flagship TVs.

Sony Bravia 8 II overview: Imprint and liberate date

• 55-gallop: $2,999 / £2,499 / AU$3,999

• 65-gallop: $3,499 / £2,999 / AU$4,999
  

Not like its Bravia 8 OLED TV predecessor, which became obtainable in 55-, 65-, and 77-gallop display sizes, the Bravia 8 II is particular to 55- and 65-gallop objects (though the older Sony A95L TV is being saved spherical in a 77-gallop mannequin most difficult, in case you wish a better risk).

Since its April unveiling, costs for each sizes fetch dropped within the US and Australia, with the 55-gallop now priced at $3,299 / AU$2,999 and the 65-gallop at $2,999 / AU$3,999.

The Bravia 8 II’s reduced designate extra carefully aligns it with other flagship OLED TVs such because the Samsung S95F ($3,399 / £3,399 / AU$5,295 at start) and LG G5 ($3,399 / £3,299 / AU$5,299 at start). Every those objects fetch also viewed early reductions within the US, with the S95F losing as low as $3,099 and the G5 to $3,199.

Sony Bravia 8 II overview: Specs

Sony Bravia 8 II overview: Benchmark outcomes

Sony Bravia 8 II overview: Formulation

• QD-OLED indicate panel with win anti-reflection layer

• Acoustic Surface Audio+ sound

• Supreme for PlayStation 5 gaming tech, but restricted other choices

The Sony Bravia 8 II choices a QD-OLED indicate panel – an give a enhance to over the humble W-OLED panel outmoded by its Bravia 8 predecessor. It also makes spend of Sony’s XR Processor, which presents AI-basically based totally mostly scene recognition to enhance photos, along with a bunch of image processing choices that come beneath the XR umbrella, such as Distinction Booster, Obvious Portray, and OLED Movement. The Dolby Imaginative and prescient, HDR10, and HLG excessive dynamic fluctuate formats are supported, but now not HDR10+.

A glossy display with an anti-reflective coating helps to lower display glare from indoor gentle sources on the Bravia 8 II. There’s no Filmmaker Mode, but a fluctuate of personalized presets, at the side of IMAX Enhanced, Netflix Adaptive Calibrated Mode, and Prime Video Calibrated Mode, will most certainly be found to optimize photos for motion photos, TV shows, and sports actions.

Sony TVs most frequently defective among the many most difficult TVs for sound, and the Bravia 8 II presents a fluctuate of choices that relieve distinguish it from other TVs by formulation of audio performance. The principle one is Acoustic Surface Audio+, which positions actuators within the relieve of the TV that flip the total display space precise into a speaker.

There’s also Acoustic Center Sync, a feature that accepts an audio input from a compatible Sony soundbar or speakers so the TV’s constructed-in audio system can even be outmoded as a middle-channel speaker.

Sony’s 3D Encompass Upscaling does exactly what its name implies by boosting two-channel and 5.1-channel soundtracks to an immersive audio presentation, while Converse Zoom 3 makes spend of AI to leer voices in soundtracks and presents them an additional volume enhance. Every the Dolby Atmos and DTS:X immersive audio formats are supported by the Bravia 8 II.

Sony TVs spend the Google TV tidy TV platform, and the Bravia 8 II has a constructed-in mic that helps you to make spend of Google Assistant for issue commands. A mic button on the TV’s distant preserve an eye fixed on can even be outmoded for issue commands, which has the wait on of now not having to fade the TV’s microphone perpetually on (there’s a mic on-off swap on the TV’s input panel).

You’ll doubtless be ready to wirelessly trek order to the Bravia 8 II utilizing Google Solid and AirPlay. And if you happen to’re piece of the Alexa universe, with Alexa speakers for your role, you would possibly even additionally preserve an eye fixed on the TV utilizing Alexa issue commands.

The Bravia 8 II’s gaming choices consist of help for 4K at 120Hz, variable refresh price, auto low-latency mode, and Dolby Imaginative and prescient gaming. It also has a novel Gaming Menu 2 for making gaming-associated modifications, and is “Supreme for PlayStation 5,” with an auto HDR tone mapping and auto genre mode choices kicking in when a PS5 console is attached.

Not just like the most difficult gaming TVs, which most frequently present four HDMI 2.1 inputs, the Bravia 8 II’s HDMI 2.1 input depend is particular to 2 ports out of its four HDMI ports in total.

Sony Bravia 8 II overview: Portray quality

• Moral brightness for an OLED TV

• Inky, detailed shadows and unlit tones

When we tested the Sony Bravia 8 in 2024, it yielded most difficult moderate HDR brightness levels, topping out at 817 nits height and 182 nits fullscreen brightness within the Fashioned image mode.

The novel mannequin’s QD-OLED panel pushes height HDR brightness levels considerably better, with the Bravia 8 II measuring 1,439 and 1,067 nits in Cinema and Fashioned modes, respectively. Fullscreen brightness, on the opposite hand, is most difficult a small of better, with the Bravia 8 II measuring 183 nits in Cinema mode and 250 nits in Fashioned mode.

The Bravia 8 II’s brightness outcomes, while a ambitious leap over closing twelve months’s mannequin, still plunge quick when put next with other 2025 flagship OLED TVs we’ve tested, such because the LG G5 and Samsung S95F, each of which reach well into the two,000 nits of height brightness fluctuate, and over 350 nits of fullscreen brightness.

That’s now not to claim that the Bravia 8 II isn’t sufficiently gleaming; its image honest doesn’t rise up equally well in gleaming room lighting fixtures prerequisites as those two TVs.

I measured the Bravia 8 II’s protection of the UHDA-P3 and BT.2020 color areas in Cinema mode at 99.9% and 87.5%, respectively. These are each ravishing outcomes and are associated to what we measured on the Samsung S95F.

Colour level accuracy within the identical mode averaged a 2.6 Delta-E designate (which is the margin of error between the take a look at pattern provide and what’s confirmed on-display, with a consequence lower than 3.0 being undetectable by the human admire). In distinction, Cinema mode grayscale accuracy became 5.4 – a less spectacular consequence.

Viewed in dimmed lighting fixtures prerequisites, a 4K Dolby Imaginative and prescient trek of the movie Civil Warfare appeared impressively punchy, with the intense highlights from spotlights and bonfires in a hour of darkness encampment scene contrasting well with the unlit night sky. Shadow aspect became also win, and the extra than one modifications within the TV’s image Brightness submenu will doubtless be outmoded to elegant-tune unlit levels to command out worthy extra aspect.

I had the identical influence when I watched one more movie, Alien: Romulus, in 4K Dolby Imaginative and prescient. Blacks within the ship’s shadowy chambers appeared inky and deep, and the coloured lights of the preserve an eye fixed on panels popped with a excessive level of brightness.

These and other reference motion photos I watched with my room’s overhead lights turned on misplaced about a of their distinction punch, but unlit levels remained mostly consistent. The TV’s anti-reflection display also did a honest job of casting off glare, though lamps positioned all the plan thru from the TV had been reflected in a assume-admire manner.

The Bravia 8 II does an ravishing job upscaling older motion photos and TV shows. Streaming an episode of the detective characterize Columbo from the 1980s, the image appeared impressively win and well-organized, and I would possibly even even produce out textures within the mullet haircuts of guests in a wedding scene.

Colours in each older and extra contemporary motion photos appeared constantly pure, and the Sony became ready to characterize true skin tones while also vividly rendering brightly coloured objects, such as a magenta flower bush and a yellow childhood’s toy, in a scene from Civil Warfare.

Movement facing is terribly honest on the Bravia 8 II. Watching a reference scene from the movie No Time to Die, the build James Bond walks all the plan thru a hillside cemetery, there became most difficult a shrimp diploma of judder and blur visible, and it would possibly maybe be easily lessened by atmosphere the TV’s Motionflow Smoothness settings to Movie (2) and Camera (2).

• Portray quality get: 5 / 5

Sony Bravia 8 II overview: Sound quality

• Acoustic Surface Audio+ turns the display precise into a speaker

• Dolby Atmos and DTS:X help

• Acoustic Center Sync helps you to connect TV with external speakers
  

Acoustic Surface Audio+ on the Bravia 8 II makes spend of actuators positioned within the relieve of the TV’s display that adjust into the total display precise into a speaker. This invent presents a approach of debate emanating straight away from the characters on-display, and it also lets sound outcomes music precisely with the action.

Every the Dolby Atmos and DTS:X sound formats are supported by the Bravia 8 II, along with IMAX Enhanced. The latter formulation you would possibly even trek the library of motion photos with DTS:X soundtracks contained in each the Sony Images Core and Disney+ apps, and expertise them with IMAX Enhanced put up-processing, which is supposed to command the identical extended dynamic fluctuate you hear in IMAX cinemas.

Dialogue in motion photos admire Civil Warfare sounded clear and well-defined on the Bravia 8 II, and the Converse Zoom 3 feature helped to raise voices in war scenes with many of background noise. The TV’s Acoustic Center Sync feature, meanwhile, let me spend it as a middle channel speaker by connecting a cable from the TV to Sony’s Bravia Theater Quad wi-fi speakers, while the Bravia Connect app made it straightforward to calibrate the center channel level for a tender blend with the leisure of the system.

When I had that space up, the TV worked very successfully as a middle channel speaker, with voices sounding pure and complete-bodied. Listened to on its possess with out the Bravia Theater Quad setup, the TV’s constructed-in speakers delivered moderately fleshy sound with motion photos, with a honest sense of ambience, but bass became restricted – something to be anticipated from a TV with this kind of slim profile.

• Sound quality get: 4.5 / 5

Sony Bravia 8 II overview: Create

• Two-formulation aluminum help toes

• Fleshy-sized, backlit distant preserve an eye fixed on
  

Sony’s Slim One Slate invent for the Bravia 8 II presents the TV a bezel-free ‘all-image’ stare, and its textured relieve panel makes issues stare honest even from the relieve and aspects. Sturdy aluminum help toes at the TV’s outer edges can even be space for either a flush installation with the display positioned straight away on a stand or an elevated one, with three inches of space cleared for a soundbar.

Connections would possibly maybe be found in a aspect-mounted panel and consist of four HDMI ports with two HDMI 2.1 inputs providing 4K 120Hz help, a mini-jack speaker input for the Acoustic Center Sync feature, USB-A and Ethernet ports, and an antenna input for the TV’s ATSC 3.0 broadcast tuner (US-most difficult). Sony presents you detachable panels to camouflage the input and energy wire sections put up-installation, which will lower cable clutter and preserve the TV’s 360-diploma honest looks to be like.

Sony’s medium-sized distant preserve an eye fixed on sits conveniently within the hand and involves a fleshy sufficient array of preserve an eye fixed on buttons that you simply received’t desire to keep in touch over with the TV’s onscreen menus to realize something as straightforward as swap inputs. Inform get entry to buttons are equipped for key apps admire Netflix and Prime Video, and likewise for extra imprecise ones such because the Crunchyroll Anime carrier.

Oddly, the Bravia 8 II’s distant isn’t the identical Eco Some distance flung version equipped with closing twelve months’s Bravia 8 and Sony Bravia 9 TVs, one which makes spend of a USB-C port for charging. It’s miles made of seventy 9.7% recycled plastic, on the opposite hand.

Sony Bravia 8 II overview: Reasonable TV and menus

Portray 1 of three

Portray 2 of three

Portray 3 of three

• Are living program grid integrates FAST and broadcast channels

• Like a flash Settings menu presents straightforward get entry to to modifications

Sony TVs spend the Google TV tidy TV platform, one with a homescreen dominated by a gigantic rotating banner up top with adverts for shows. A few of those adverts, along with the row of ‘Prime picks for you’ order solutions straight away below, are in step with your viewing and web browsing process, which is something you give Google get entry to to ought to you designate in with a Google yarn.

Google TV presents a total array of streaming apps, and these are arrayed in a row at the bottom of the homescreen in an characterize that can even be personalized. Tabs at the tip of the homescreen will let you get entry to Are living TV and Sony screens, among other alternate choices, with the Sony display providing get entry to to Sony Images Core movie streaming picks to boot to tutorial movies on presumably the most difficult formulation to operate the TV.

The Are living TV display is price commenting upon on yarn of it well integrates Google Freeplay free advert-supported TV (FAST) channels with broadcast TV ones pulled in by the TV’s ATSC 3.0 tuner. Every FAST and broadcast channels can even be browsed in a time-basically based totally mostly program grid, with program data equipped for every channel.

As with other Google TVs, accessing image, sound, and system settings on the Bravia 8 II involves urgent the gear icon on the distant, or the identical thing on the tip honest nook of the Google TV homescreen. Sony presents an intensive fluctuate of modifications for dialing within the Bravia 8 II’s image, even supposing attending to those involves wading deep thru menus.

The next risk for making modifications is to press the wrench icon button on the distant, which calls up the TV’s Like a flash Settings menu at the bottom of the display. From right here you would possibly even scroll thru alternate choices admire image settings, image modes, brightness, and loads of audio modifications, and you would possibly even additionally edit the menu to add or hold away alternate choices.

• Reasonable TV & menus get: 4 / 5

Sony Bravia 8 II overview: Gaming

• Two HDMI 2.1 ports with 4K 120Hz help

• Supreme for PlayStation 5 choices

• Comparatively excessive 16.3ms input fling

The Bravia 8 II presents a soft change of gaming choices, presumably the most important being ‘Supreme for PlayStation 5’ choices, which consist of an Auto HDR Tone Mapping mode when input from a PS5 gaming console is detected to match the dynamic fluctuate of the generated photos to precisely what the display is able to revealing.

An Auto Vogue Portray Mode feature can even automatically flip on the TV’s Game image mode for the PS5, and Sony’s Game Menu 2 helps you to present onscreen gaming-associated image and other modifications.

Other gaming choices supported by the Bravia 8 II consist of Dolby Imaginative and prescient gaming, variable refresh price, and auto low-latency mode. Two of the TV’s four HDMI 2.1 inputs help 4K 120 Hz input for gaming consoles, though at the 2nd it’s becoming extra frequent to leer three or extra HDMI 2.1 inputs on TVs.

Using a Leo Bodnar 4K meter, I measured input fling in Game Mode on the Bravia 8 II at 16.3ms, a significantly better level than on other TVs we’ve unbiased nowadays tested, about a of which measure below 10ms on the identical take a look at.

Sony Bravia 8 II overview: Imprint

• Priced roughly the identical as top OLED competitors

• Lower total brightness than top OLED competitors

• Less intensive gaming choices than competitors
  

At its $2.999 reduced designate within the US, the Bravia 8 II currently costs now not as much as the 2025 flagship OLED TVs from LG and Samsung. Nonetheless does that produce it a huge OLED TV designate?

The Bravia 8 II has fabulous total image quality, with excessive brightness for an OLED TV. Its image lacks the mini-LED-rivalling brightness levels of the Samsung S95F and LG G5, on the opposite hand, and it looks to be like most difficult in dimmed lighting fixtures prerequisites, the build the TV’s outstanding distinction, rich color, and elegant aspect can even be totally liked.

Sony’s top OLED also has spectacular sound quality for this kind of slim and stylish TV, and it presents plenty of choices that enable it easily combine with compatible Sony soundbars and wi-fi speakers for even better sound performance.

The Bravia 8 II’s Gaming choices, while honest, aren’t as intensive as what you’ll accept on top TVs from Samsung and LG, though there are specific advantages for PlayStation 5 console owners.

Regarded at by formulation of designate, the Bravia 8 II is namely a most difficult wager for movie followers who don’t mind dimming the lights a small, though its image is also gleaming sufficient to lengthen in well-lit rooms. It doesn’t exactly beat this twelve months’s flagship OLED TV competitors, but with designate reductions having already kicked in, now not now not as much because it’s competitively priced.

Should always I buy the Sony Bravia 8 II?

Aquire it if…

You like to fetch a huge TV for motion photos
The Bravia 8 II has huge total image quality, and its image processing makes every part, even former TV shows and YouTube movies stare honest, on the opposite hand it in actuality shines with 4K motion photos on streaming and Blu-ray disc.

You like to desire to make spend of it with a Sony soundbar or wi-fi speakers
The Bravia 8 II has audio choices that enable or now not it be outmoded as a middle speaker in a Sony encompass sound system with compatible Sony soundbars and wi-fi speakers.

You basically gape in gleaming rooms
While the Bravia 8 II has excessive brightness for an OLED TV, it doesn’t hit the identical mini-LED brightness levels as its flagship competitors, a top quality that makes those TVs a honest risk for gleaming room viewing.

Don’t buy it if…

You like to fetch presumably the most difficult TV for gaming
The Bravia 8 II has a win space of gaming choices, but there are most difficult two HDMI 2.1 ports, and it lacks the identical cloud-basically based totally mostly gaming alternate choices realized on LG and Samsung TVs.

You basically gape in a gleaming room
While the Bravia 8 II has excessive brightness for an OLED TV, it doesn’t hit the identical mini-LED brightness levels as its flagship competitors that makes them a honest risk for gleaming room viewing.Discover about Deal

You like to desire to set money
The Bravia 8 II is a top price OLED TV that sells for a top price designate. Cheaper mini-LED TV alternate choices are broadly obtainable that provide very honest image quality at a worthy more cost-effective designate.

Sony Bravia 8 II: Additionally preserve in mind…

LG G5
The LG G5’s innovative ‘four-stack’ OLED panel delivers outstanding brightness levels for an OLED TV. It also has a superior space of gaming choices when put next with the Bravia 8 II, along with a extra progressed tidy TV platform.

Right here’s our LG G5 overview

Samsung S95F
Samsung’s flagship OLED TV is one more OLED that delivers mini-LED-rivalling brightness levels, and its Glare Free 2.0 display successfully eliminates reflections when viewing in gleaming rooms. Fancy the LG G5, it also has a superior space of gaming choices and a extra progressed tidy TV platform.

Right here’s our Samsung S95F overview

Sony Bravia 8
The Bravia 8 is still obtainable, and it presents many of the identical audio and gaming choices because the Bravia 8 II. Its image has significantly lower height brightness than the Bravia 8 II, but when you happen to’re ecstatic with dimming the lights, you’ll get a huge OLED image at a worthy reduced designate.

Right here’s our Sony Bravia 8 overview

How I tested the Sony Bravia 8 II

• I spent about 15 viewing hours in total, measuring and evaluating

• Measurements had been made utilizing Calman color calibration instrument

• A fleshy calibration became made sooner than proceeding with subjective tests

When I take a look at TVs, I first use about a days or even weeks utilizing them for casual viewing to evaluate the out-of-field image presets and get accustomed to the tidy TV menu and image modifications.

I subsequent make a selection presumably the most true preset (in total Filmmaker Mode, Movie or Cinema) and measure grayscale and color accuracy utilizing Portrait Displays’ Calman color calibration instrument. The resulting measurements present Delta-E values (the margin of error between the take a look at pattern provide and what’s confirmed on-display) for every category, and enable for an summary of the TV’s total accuracy.

Along with those tests, I produce measurements of height gentle output (recorded in nits) for each regular excessive-definition and 4K excessive dynamic fluctuate utilizing 10% and 100% white window patterns. Protection of DCI-P3 and BT.2020 color space is also measured, with the outcomes providing a approach of how faithfully the TV can render the extended color fluctuate in ultra excessive-definition sources – you would possibly even read extra about this route of in our data to how we take a look at TVs at TechRadar.

For the Sony Bravia 8 II, I outmoded the Calman ISF workflow, along with the TV’s progressed image menu settings, to calibrate the image for most difficult accuracy. I also watched a fluctuate of reference scenes on 4K Blu-ray discs to evaluate the TV’s performance, along with 4K HDR shows streamed from Max, Netflix, and other products and companies.

• First reviewed: June 2025

• Read TechRadar’s opinions guarantee