ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Sony’s flagship TV delivers unbelievable image and audio high quality.
- There’s loads of flexibility with fine-tuning picture and audio settings.
- The display does not get as brilliant as competing fashions, making the TV much less best in brightly-lit areas.
extra shopping for selections
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Sony is likely one of the prime names in OLED TVs, and for good cause. Their flagship fashions persistently ship high-quality image and audio in addition to premium options. I acquired to take a look at the Bravia 8 II at our testing lab in Louisville, pitting it head-to-head towards 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 may 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 troublesome. Sony appears to have designed this specific OLED with darkened dwelling theaters and dwelling rooms in thoughts, however, thankfully, you may tweak the brightness settings in the primary 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 too can fine-tune issues like shade temperature, sharpness, and distinction to get a customized image setting that works finest along with your area. 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 modifications on-the-fly.
This significantly got here in useful after I was switching between motion pictures and video games; with only a few menu choices, I may simply tweak settings to get probably the most out of my motion pictures and video games.
With the assistance of each Dolby Atmos and Sony’s Acoustic Floor Audio+ know-how, the Bravia 8 II provides 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 too can arrange customized equalizer profiles for every little thing 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. The TV itself has fairly a skinny construct — not fairly as skinny because the Samsung S95D OLED — however you may nonetheless need a second individual that will help you transfer the display round to stop cracking or different injury.
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Throughout our Calman shade accuracy checks, the Bravia 8 II had a slight blue shift throughout all image modes, but it surely wasn’t sufficient to have an effect on shade accuracy or image high quality. It is most noticeable when watching black-and-white movies like Casablanca, as every little thing will really feel prefer it has a cool blue filter utilized. You’ll be able to counteract this with the built-in blue-light filter mode, which provides a heat filter that I really want because it makes colours really feel extra vibrant, particularly in older media.
The devoted sport mode has three image settings: commonplace, FPS, and RTS, every of which options completely different enter latency, refresh price, shade, 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 event gamers can recognize having the ability to tweak settings for recording content material or working towards for an occasion.
The Bravia 8 II boasts unique VRR assist for the PlayStation 5, in addition to low-latency response instances. 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 sport appeared wonderful on the OLED display, with brilliant 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 easy on each TVs, and response instances have been about the identical, however the Bravia 8 II was one of the best of the week when it comes to 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 need to use 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 units, 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 capable of 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.
That is good for when pets and youngsters by chance flip in your console in the course of a film or in case you’re simply not fairly prepared to change 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, in case you’re keen to spend the additional cash to get premium options like Acoustic Floor Audio+ know-how, you may be getting a TV that not solely appears to be like and sounds nice, however will final at the least a number of years to assist hold your house theater on the reducing fringe of leisure. For these causes, the Sony Bravia 8 II is acknowledged by ZDNET’s Editors’ Choice.
Whereas the PS5-exclusive VRR and low-latency options are appreciated, the Bravia 8 II is geared extra in direction of film buffs than players — 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.
