ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Sony’s flagship TV delivers implausible image and audio high quality.
- There’s loads of flexibility with fine-tuning picture and audio settings.
- The display screen would not get as vibrant as competing fashions, making the TV much less preferrred in brightly-lit areas.
extra shopping for decisions
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Sony is without doubt one of the high names in OLED TVs, and for good motive. Their flagship fashions constantly ship high-quality image and audio in addition to premium options. I obtained to take a look at the Bravia 8 II at our testing lab in Louisville, pitting it head-to-head in opposition to fashions from Samsung, LG, and even TCL to see the way it stacks up.
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The very first thing I seen concerning the Bravia 8 II is that the display screen could be very darkish proper out of the field, particularly when set beside the Samsung S95F and LG G5 OLED.
Each image mode, even Vivid, was very dim and shadowy, which made viewing in brighter environments a bit tough. Sony appears to have designed this explicit OLED with darkened residence theaters and residing rooms in thoughts, however, happily, you possibly can tweak the brightness settings in the principle menu and both apply them to a single image mode or throughout all TV settings. That is one of many Bravia 8 II’s greatest strengths.
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You may also fine-tune issues like coloration temperature, sharpness, and distinction to get a customized image setting that works greatest together with your house. Whereas adjusting settings for the testing lab, I actually appreciated how simple it was to navigate Sony’s TV menus and the way rapidly I may make adjustments on-the-fly.
This significantly got here in helpful once I was switching between motion pictures and video games; with only a few menu choices, I may simply tweak settings to get essentially the most out of my motion pictures and video games.
With the assistance of each Dolby Atmos and Sony’s Acoustic Floor Audio+ expertise, the Bravia 8 II offers you wealthy audio that does, certainly, observe on-screen motion and helps separate left and proper channels for streaming music to present you a extra immersive expertise. You may also arrange customized equalizer profiles for all the pieces from streaming music to watching the native information.
Establishing the Bravia 8 II was fast and easy. You want solely a Google account to entry streaming apps and the house display screen. The TV itself has fairly a skinny construct — not fairly as skinny because the Samsung S95D OLED — however you may nonetheless need a second particular person that can assist you transfer the display screen round to stop cracking or different injury.
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Throughout our Calman coloration accuracy checks, the Bravia 8 II had a slight blue shift throughout all image modes, however it wasn’t sufficient to have an effect on coloration accuracy or image high quality. It is most noticeable when watching black-and-white movies like Casablanca, as all the pieces will really feel prefer it has a cool blue filter utilized. You may counteract this with the built-in blue-light filter mode, which provides a heat filter that I really choose because it makes colours really feel extra vibrant, particularly in older media.
The devoted recreation mode has three image settings: normal, FPS, and RTS, every of which options totally different enter latency, refresh price, coloration, and sound settings to fit your favourite titles. The variations between the three settings aren’t sufficient to be noticeable to the common console gamer, however streamers and match gamers can respect with the ability to tweak settings for recording content material or practising for an occasion.
The Bravia 8 II boasts unique VRR assist for the PlayStation 5, in addition to low-latency response occasions. I attempted out a wide range of titles like Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater 1+2, Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, and Ghost of Tsushima. Whereas every recreation seemed superb on the OLED display screen, with vibrant colours and sharp distinction, I could not actually really feel a distinction in body price or latency when in comparison with the TCL QM8K I additionally had arrange as a comparability (and helps AMD FreeSync Premium Professional).
Motion felt simply as clean on each TVs, and response occasions had been about the identical, however the Bravia 8 II was the perfect of the week by way of image and audio.
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In the event you’re making the change to Google TV, utilizing the platform is about as simple because it will get. If you have already got a Google account, like Gmail, you should utilize it to signal into your TV’s working system, which makes it simple to maintain monitor of usernames and passwords. It additionally helps monitor your favourite apps and media throughout gadgets, so you can begin watching a film in a single room and decide it again up on one other Google TV later.
Switching from streaming to gaming on the PS5 was additionally extremely easy, with the TV in a position to mechanically detect when the console was linked and powered on. And in contrast to my Hisense U8N, which mechanically switches inputs as soon as the console is powered on, the Bravia 8 II launches a small preview tile on the house display screen.
That is good for when pets and children unintentionally flip in your console in the course of a film or if you happen to’re simply not fairly prepared to modify inputs.
ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation
The Sony Bravia 8 II is a high-end OLED TV, with a premium price ticket to match. Nevertheless, if you happen to’re prepared to spend the additional cash to get premium options like Acoustic Floor Audio+ expertise, you may be getting a TV that not solely appears to be like and sounds nice, however will final at the very least a number of years to assist preserve your private home theater on the reducing fringe of leisure. For these causes, the Sony Bravia 8 II is acknowledged by ZDNET’s Editors’ Alternative.
Whereas the PS5-exclusive VRR and low-latency options are appreciated, the Bravia 8 II is geared extra in the direction of film buffs than avid gamers — most of whom will undoubtedly benefit from the studio-calibrated image, IMAX Enhanced mode, Dolby Imaginative and prescient HDR, and Dolby Atmos digital encompass sound.
