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

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Sony Bravia 8 II: Two-minute evaluation

The Sony Bravia 8 II is the firm’s flagship OLED TV for 2025. Whereas its Sony Bravia 8 predecessor aged a mid-vary W-OLED expose panel, the Bravia 8 II makes use of a QD-OLED panel, the same form expose in the Samsung S95F.

Adding QD-OLED to the Sony Bravia 8 II combine has resulted in a TV with a notably brighter image than the Bravia 8. It moreover improved coloration gamut protection, with colors making an are trying consistently prosperous, yet appropriate on the Bravia 8 II. The TV’s effective anti-reflective conceal conceal lets it carry over those image quality advantages for intellectual-room viewing, though the Bravia 8 II’s detailed, sophisticated image is most efficient preferred for folk that shadowy the lights.

On a quantity of the most efficient TVs, the Bravia 8 II’s slim hang could existing potentially anemic audio –it is advisable position first fee-sized audio system somewhere to salvage excellent-making an are trying sound, and slim TV frames don’t accommodate that. However Sony offers an ingenious workaround with its Acoustic Ground Audio+ characteristic, which positions actuators in the wait on of the TV’s QD-OLED panel that flip your total conceal conceal into a speaker. As a result, the Bravia 8 II offers comparatively plump and tough sound for a TV, and its Acoustic Heart Sync characteristic moreover helps you to make use of it as a dedicated heart channel with a well suited Sony soundbar or speaker plan.

Google TV is aged because the Bravia 8 II’s trim TV platform, and it’s a easy-to-navigate plan. A built-in mic helps you to aid a watch on the TV utilizing Google Verbalize Scream, and which you may maybe even be ready to moreover aid a watch on it utilizing a mic button on the far-off or with Alexa audio system for folk that’re section of the Alexa ecosystem.

PlayStation 5 users unsurprisingly expertise gaming advantages on the Bravia 8 II, which automatically switches to a preset Sport mode and engages auto HDR tone mapping when a linked PS5 console is turned on. The TV moreover supports 4K 120Hz enter, but with solely two HDMI 2.1 ports, players making an are trying to moreover connect both an Xbox Sequence X console plus one in every of the most efficient soundbars would maybe be disappointed.

The Bravia 8 II is for certain one in every of the most efficient OLED TVs to be released in 2025, but it has stiff competitors from flagship OLEDs such because the Samsung S95F and LG G5, both of which are brighter and more characteristic-packed. All three items are at expose priced around the same, making the Bravia 8 II a tiny of a now now not easy label name, but its charms are many, and its spacious general image and sound quality let it effectively compete with moderately a few flagship TVs.

Sony Bravia 8 II evaluation: Tag and release date

• 55-inch: $2,999 / £2,499 / AU$3,999

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

Unlike its Bravia 8 OLED TV predecessor, which used to be accessible in 55-, 65-, and 77-inch conceal conceal sizes, the Bravia 8 II is little to 55- and 65-inch items (though the older Sony A95L TV is being saved around in a 77-inch model solely, whereas it is advisable win an even bigger option).

Since its April unveiling, prices for both sizes win dropped in the US and Australia, with the 55-inch now priced at $3,299 / AU$2,999 and the 65-inch at $2,999 / AU$3,999.

The Bravia 8 II’s lowered label more carefully aligns it with moderately a few flagship OLED TVs such because the Samsung S95F ($3,399 / £3,399 / AU$5,295 at open) and LG G5 ($3,399 / £3,299 / AU$5,299 at open). Every those items win moreover viewed early reductions in the US, with the S95F shedding as tiny as $3,099 and the G5 to $3,199.

Sony Bravia 8 II evaluation: Specs

Sony Bravia 8 II evaluation: Benchmark outcomes

Sony Bravia 8 II evaluation: Aspects

• QD-OLED expose panel with solid anti-reflection layer

• Acoustic Ground Audio+ sound

• Ultimate for PlayStation 5 gaming tech, but little moderately a few capabilities

The Sony Bravia 8 II capabilities a QD-OLED expose panel – an pork up over the well-liked W-OLED panel aged by its Bravia 8 predecessor. It moreover makes use of Sony’s XR Processor, which offers AI-based completely scene recognition to bolster photos, alongside with a bunch of image processing capabilities that advance beneath the XR umbrella, equivalent to Inequity Booster, Obvious Image, and OLED Motion. The Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG excessive dynamic vary codecs are supported, but now now not HDR10+.

A sleek conceal conceal with an anti-reflective coating helps to lower conceal conceal glare from indoor gentle sources on the Bravia 8 II. There’s no Filmmaker Mode, but a unfold of custom presets, together with IMAX Enhanced, Netflix Adaptive Calibrated Mode, and High Video Calibrated Mode, are accessible in to optimize photos for motion photographs, TV shows, and sports activities.

Sony TVs on a strange foundation harmful amongst the most efficient TVs for sound, and the Bravia 8 II offers a unfold of capabilities that aid distinguish it from moderately a few TVs in relation to audio performance. The principle one is Acoustic Ground Audio+, which positions actuators in the wait on of the TV that flip your total conceal conceal topic into a speaker.

There’s moreover Acoustic Heart Sync, a characteristic that accepts an audio enter from a well suited Sony soundbar or audio system so the TV’s built-in audio plan can even be aged as a middle-channel speaker.

Sony’s 3D Encompass Upscaling does precisely what its name implies by boosting two-channel and 5.1-channel soundtracks to an immersive audio presentation, whereas Verbalize Zoom 3 makes use of AI to expect voices in soundtracks and offers them an extra quantity enhance. Every the Dolby Atmos and DTS:X immersive audio codecs are supported by the Bravia 8 II.

Sony TVs use the Google TV trim TV platform, and the Bravia 8 II has a built-in mic that enables you to make use of Google Assistant for tell commands. A mic button on the TV’s far-off aid a watch on can moreover be aged for tell commands, which has the abet of now now not having to leave the TV’s microphone with out rupture on (there’s a mic on-off swap on the TV’s enter panel).

It’s likely you’ll wirelessly circulation grunt material to the Bravia 8 II utilizing Google Solid and AirPlay. And for folk that’re section of the Alexa universe, with Alexa audio system on your dwelling, you would maybe be ready to moreover aid a watch on the TV utilizing Alexa tell commands.

The Bravia 8 II’s gaming capabilities encompass pork up for 4K at 120Hz, variable refresh fee, auto low-latency mode, and Dolby Vision gaming. It moreover has a novel Gaming Menu 2 for making gaming-linked adjustments, and is “Ultimate for PlayStation 5,” with an auto HDR tone mapping and auto genre mode capabilities kicking in when a PS5 console is linked.

Unlike the most efficient gaming TVs, which in general present four HDMI 2.1 inputs, the Bravia 8 II’s HDMI 2.1 enter count is little to 2 ports out of its four HDMI ports in total.

Sony Bravia 8 II evaluation: Image quality

• Ravishing brightness for an OLED TV

• Inky, detailed shadows and dark tones

After we examined the Sony Bravia 8 in 2024, it yielded solely common HDR brightness levels, topping out at 817 nits height and 182 nits fullscreen brightness in the Celebrated image mode.

The unique model’s QD-OLED panel pushes height HDR brightness levels substantially bigger, with the Bravia 8 II measuring 1,439 and 1,067 nits in Cinema and Celebrated modes, respectively. Fullscreen brightness, on the moderately a few hand, is solely a tiny bigger, with the Bravia 8 II measuring 183 nits in Cinema mode and 250 nits in Celebrated mode.

The Bravia 8 II’s brightness outcomes, whereas an spectacular hop over remaining year’s model, restful tumble short in comparison to moderately a few 2025 flagship OLED TVs we’ve examined, such because the LG G5 and Samsung S95F, both of which reach well into the 2,000 nits of height brightness vary, and over 350 nits of fullscreen brightness.

That’s now now not to explain that the Bravia 8 II isn’t sufficiently intellectual; its image appropriate doesn’t come up equally well in intellectual room lighting fixtures prerequisites as those two TVs.

I measured the Bravia 8 II’s protection of the UHDA-P3 and BT.2020 coloration areas in Cinema mode at ninety nine.9% and 87.5%, respectively. Those are both ravishing outcomes and are comparable to what we measured on the Samsung S95F.

Color point accuracy in the same mode averaged a 2.6 Delta-E label (which is the margin of error between the take a look at pattern source and what’s confirmed on-conceal conceal, with a result lower than 3.0 being undetectable by the human glimpse). In distinction, Cinema mode grayscale accuracy used to be 5.4 – a less spectacular result.

Viewed in dimmed lighting fixtures prerequisites, a 4K Dolby Vision circulation of the movie Civil Battle regarded impressively punchy, with the intense highlights from spotlights and bonfires in a midnight encampment scene contrasting well with the dark evening sky. Shadow component used to be moreover solid, and the multiple adjustments in the TV’s image Brightness submenu could presumably be aged to dazzling-tune dark levels to bring out far more component.

I had the same impression when I watched another movie, Alien: Romulus, in 4K Dolby Vision. Blacks in the ship’s dark chambers regarded inky and deep, and the coloured lights of the aid a watch on panels popped with a excessive stage of brightness.

These and moderately a few reference motion photographs I watched with my room’s overhead lights turned on misplaced some of their distinction punch, but dark levels remained largely constant. The TV’s anti-reflection conceal conceal moreover did a beautiful job of putting off glare, though lamps positioned all the strategy thru from the TV had been mirrored in a mirror-like manner.

The Bravia 8 II does an ravishing job upscaling older motion photographs and TV shows. Streaming an episode of the detective expose Columbo from the Eighties, the image regarded impressively solid and ravishing, and I could even salvage out textures in the mullet haircuts of visitors in a marriage ceremony scene.

Colours in both older and more contemporary motion photographs regarded consistently pure, and the Sony used to be ready to expose appropriate pores and skin tones whereas moreover vividly rendering brightly colored objects, equivalent to a magenta flower bush and a yellow kids’s toy, in a scene from Civil Battle.

Motion handling is terribly excellent-making an are trying on the Bravia 8 II. Searching at a reference scene from the movie No Time to Die, where James Bond walks all the strategy thru a hillside cemetery, there used to be solely a minute level of judder and blur viewed, and it can presumably be with out misfortune lessened by atmosphere the TV’s Motionflow Smoothness settings to Movie (2) and Digital camera (2).

• Image quality fetch: 5 / 5

Sony Bravia 8 II evaluation: Sound quality

• Acoustic Ground Audio+ turns the conceal conceal into a speaker

• Dolby Atmos and DTS:X pork up

• Acoustic Heart Sync helps you to connect TV with external audio system
  

Acoustic Ground Audio+ on the Bravia 8 II makes use of actuators positioned in the wait on of the TV’s conceal conceal that transform your total conceal conceal into a speaker. This hang offers a sense of dialogue emanating straight far off from the characters on-conceal conceal, and it moreover lets sound effects be conscious accurately with the action.

Every the Dolby Atmos and DTS:X sound codecs are supported by the Bravia 8 II, alongside with IMAX Enhanced. The latter skill you would maybe be ready to circulation the library of motion photographs with DTS:X soundtracks contained in both the Sony Photos Core and Disney+ apps, and expertise them with IMAX Enhanced post-processing, which is supposed to bring the same extended dynamic vary you hear in IMAX cinemas.

Dialogue in motion photographs like Civil Battle sounded determined and well-defined on the Bravia 8 II, and the Verbalize Zoom 3 characteristic helped to raise voices in fight scenes with hundreds background noise. The TV’s Acoustic Heart Sync characteristic, in the period in-between, let me use it as a middle channel speaker by connecting a cable from the TV to Sony’s Bravia Theater Quad wireless audio system, whereas the Bravia Join app made it easy to calibrate the center channel stage for a cozy blend with the leisure of the plan.

Once I had that distress up, the TV labored very effectively as a middle channel speaker, with voices sounding pure and entire-bodied. Listened to on its hang with out the Bravia Theater Quad setup, the TV’s built-in audio system delivered moderately plump sound with motion photographs, with a beautiful sense of atmosphere, but bass used to be little – one thing to be anticipated from a TV with such a slim profile.

• Sound quality fetch: 4.5 / 5

Sony Bravia 8 II evaluation: Make

• Two-method aluminum pork up ft

• Paunchy-sized, backlit far-off aid a watch on
  

Sony’s Slim One Slate hang for the Bravia 8 II offers the TV a bezel-free ‘all-image’ inspect, and its textured wait on panel makes issues inspect excellent-making an are trying even from the wait on and facets. Sturdy aluminum pork up ft on the TV’s outer edges can even be distress for either a flush set up with the conceal conceal positioned straight away on a stand or an elevated one, with three inches of topic cleared for a soundbar.

Connections would be found in a aspect-mounted panel and encompass four HDMI ports with two HDMI 2.1 inputs providing 4K 120Hz pork up, a mini-jack speaker enter for the Acoustic Heart Sync characteristic, USB-A and Ethernet ports, and an antenna enter for the TV’s ATSC 3.0 broadcast tuner (US-solely). Sony offers you removable panels to veil the enter and vitality twine sections post-set up, that will lower cable muddle and maintain the TV’s 360-level excellent-making an are trying appears to be.

Sony’s medium-sized far-off aid a watch on sits very with out misfortune in the hand and involves a plump ample array of aid a watch on buttons that you just acquired’t prefer to envision with the TV’s onscreen menus to originate one thing as easy as swap inputs. Enlighten salvage entry to buttons are provided for key apps like Netflix and High Video, and moreover for more obscure ones such because the Crunchyroll Anime carrier.

Oddly, the Bravia 8 II’s far-off isn’t the same Eco Remote version provided with remaining year’s Bravia 8 and Sony Bravia 9 TVs, one which makes use of a USB-C port for charging. It’s made of seventy nine.7% recycled plastic, nonetheless.

Sony Bravia 8 II evaluation: Clear TV and menus

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• Stay program grid integrates FAST and broadcast channels

• Hasty Settings menu offers easy salvage entry to to adjustments

Sony TVs use the Google TV trim TV platform, one with a homescreen dominated by a expansive rotating banner up prime with adverts for shows. Just a few of those adverts, alongside with the row of ‘High picks for you’ grunt material options straight away beneath, are based completely on your viewing and net shopping voice, which is one thing you give Google salvage entry to to for folk that signal in with a Google legend.

Google TV offers a full array of streaming apps, and these are arrayed in a row on the backside of the homescreen in an explain that can even be customized. Tabs on the cease of the homescreen mean you would maybe be ready to salvage entry to Stay TV and Sony displays, amongst moderately a few alternate options, with the Sony conceal conceal providing salvage entry to to Sony Photos Core movie streaming alternatives besides to academic movies on methods to characteristic the TV.

The Stay TV conceal conceal is worth commenting upon because 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-based completely program grid, with program files provided for every channel.

As with moderately a few Google TVs, having access to image, sound, and plan settings on the Bravia 8 II involves pressing the instruments icon on the far-off, or the same factor on the cease lawful nook of the Google TV homescreen. Sony offers an intensive vary of adjustments for dialing in the Bravia 8 II’s image, though attending to those involves wading deep thru menus.

A more effective option for making adjustments is to press the wrench icon button on the far-off, which calls up the TV’s Hasty Settings menu on the backside of the conceal conceal. From right here you would maybe be ready to scroll thru alternate options like image settings, image modes, brightness, and moderately a few audio adjustments, and which you may maybe even be ready to moreover edit the menu so that you just can add or take away alternate options.

• Clear TV & menus fetch: 4 / 5

Sony Bravia 8 II evaluation: Gaming

• Two HDMI 2.1 ports with 4K 120Hz pork up

• Ultimate for PlayStation 5 capabilities

• Comparatively excessive 16.3ms enter plod

The Bravia 8 II offers a beautiful different of gaming capabilities, the most essential being ‘Ultimate for PlayStation 5’ capabilities, which encompass an Auto HDR Tone Mapping mode when enter from a PS5 gaming console is detected to match the dynamic vary of the generated photographs to precisely what the conceal conceal is succesful of revealing.

An Auto Genre Image Mode characteristic will moreover automatically flip on the TV’s Sport image mode for the PS5, and Sony’s Sport Menu 2 helps you to salvage onscreen gaming-linked image and moderately a few adjustments.

Varied gaming capabilities supported by the Bravia 8 II encompass Dolby Vision gaming, variable refresh fee, and auto low-latency mode. Two of the TV’s four HDMI 2.1 inputs pork up 4K 120 Hz enter for gaming consoles, though on the expose time it’s changing into more general to glimpse three or more HDMI 2.1 inputs on TVs.

The utilization of a Leo Bodnar 4K meter, I measured enter plod in Sport Mode on the Bravia 8 II at 16.3ms, a notably bigger stage than on moderately a few TVs we’ve now now not too prolonged ago examined, some of which measure beneath 10ms on the same take a look at.

Sony Bravia 8 II evaluation: Rate

• Priced roughly the same as prime OLED competitors

• Lower general brightness than prime OLED competitors

• Less broad gaming capabilities than competitors
  

At its $2.999 lowered label in the US, the Bravia 8 II at expose prices now now not up to the 2025 flagship OLED TVs from LG and Samsung. However does that salvage it a spacious OLED TV label?

The Bravia 8 II has not likely general 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, nonetheless, and it appears to be most efficient in dimmed lighting fixtures prerequisites, where the TV’s distinctive distinction, prosperous coloration, and dazzling component can even be fully preferred.

Sony’s prime OLED moreover has spectacular sound quality for such a slim and stylish TV, and it offers several capabilities that enable it with out misfortune integrate with well suited Sony soundbars and wireless audio system for even higher sound performance.

The Bravia 8 II’s Gaming capabilities, whereas excellent-making an are trying, aren’t as broad as what you’ll safe on prime TVs from Samsung and LG, though there are particular advantages for PlayStation 5 console owners.

Seemed at in phrases of label, the Bravia 8 II is particularly a most efficient wager for movie followers who don’t mind dimming the lights a tiny, though its image is moreover intellectual ample to lengthen in well-lit rooms. It doesn’t precisely beat this year’s flagship OLED TV competitors, but with label reductions having already kicked in, on the least it’s competitively priced.

Can even restful I buy the Sony Bravia 8 II?

Buy it if…

You will need a spacious TV for motion photographs
The Bravia 8 II has spacious general image quality, and its image processing makes the entirety, even extinct TV shows and YouTube movies inspect excellent-making an are trying, but it basically shines with 4K motion photographs on streaming and Blu-ray disc.

You prefer to make use of it with a Sony soundbar or wireless audio system
The Bravia 8 II has audio capabilities that enable it be aged as a middle speaker in a Sony surround sound plan with well suited Sony soundbars and wireless audio system.

You mainly spy in intellectual rooms
Whereas the Bravia 8 II has excessive brightness for an OLED TV, it doesn’t hit the same mini-LED brightness levels as its flagship competitors, a quality that makes those TVs a beautiful option for intellectual room viewing.

Don’t buy it if…

You will need the ideal TV for gaming
The Bravia 8 II has a solid distress of gaming capabilities, but there are solely two HDMI 2.1 ports, and it lacks the same cloud-based completely gaming alternate options chanced on on LG and Samsung TVs.

You mainly spy in a intellectual room
Whereas the Bravia 8 II has excessive brightness for an OLED TV, it doesn’t hit the same mini-LED brightness levels as its flagship competitors that makes them a beautiful option for intellectual room viewing.Seek for Deal

You prefer to effect money
The Bravia 8 II is a top class OLED TV that sells for a top class label. More affordable mini-LED TV alternate options are broadly accessible that supply very excellent-making an are trying image quality at a famous lower label.

Sony Bravia 8 II: Furthermore take into accout…

LG G5
The LG G5’s revolutionary ‘four-stack’ OLED panel delivers distinctive brightness levels for an OLED TV. It moreover has a superior distress of gaming capabilities in comparison to the Bravia 8 II, alongside with a more progressed trim TV platform.

Here’s our LG G5 evaluation

Samsung S95F
Samsung’s flagship OLED TV is another OLED that delivers mini-LED-rivalling brightness levels, and its Glare Free 2.0 conceal conceal effectively eliminates reflections when viewing in intellectual rooms. Love the LG G5, it moreover has a superior distress of gaming capabilities and a more progressed trim TV platform.

Here’s our Samsung S95F evaluation

Sony Bravia 8
The Bravia 8 is restful accessible, and it offers a huge selection of the same audio and gaming capabilities because the Bravia 8 II. Its image has notably lower height brightness than the Bravia 8 II, but for folk that’re okay with dimming the lights, you’ll salvage a spacious OLED image at a famous lowered label.

Here’s our Sony Bravia 8 evaluation

How I examined the Sony Bravia 8 II

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

• Measurements had been made utilizing Calman coloration calibration software program

• A plump calibration used to be made sooner than proceeding with subjective assessments

Once I take a look at TVs, I first use a few days or even weeks utilizing them for casual viewing to evaluate the out-of-field image presets and salvage familiar with the trim TV menu and image adjustments.

I subsequent opt the most appropriate preset (in general Filmmaker Mode, Movie or Cinema) and measure grayscale and coloration accuracy utilizing Portrait Displays’ Calman coloration calibration software program. The resulting measurements present Delta-E values (the margin of error between the take a look at pattern source and what’s confirmed on-conceal conceal) for every class, and enable for an overview of the TV’s general accuracy.

Along with those assessments, I salvage measurements of height gentle output (recorded in nits) for both well-liked excessive-definition and 4K excessive dynamic vary utilizing 10% and 100% white window patterns. Protection of DCI-P3 and BT.2020 coloration topic is moreover measured, with the implications providing a sense of how faithfully the TV can render the extended coloration vary in ultra excessive-definition sources – you would maybe be ready to read more about this direction of in our e-book to how we take a look at TVs at TechRadar.

For the Sony Bravia 8 II, I aged the Calman ISF workflow, alongside with the TV’s progressed image menu settings, to calibrate the image for most efficient accuracy. I moreover watched a unfold of reference scenes on 4K Blu-ray discs to evaluate the TV’s performance, alongside with 4K HDR shows streamed from Max, Netflix, and moderately a few products and companies.

• First reviewed: June 2025

• Be taught TechRadar’s opinions guarantee