Sony BRAVIA 8 II OLED TV Review

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has impressive HDR brightness, and highlights really pop out in dark and moderately lit scenes. The TV is noticeably dimmer during scenes with large areas of brightness, but it still provides an impactful HDR experience during these entirely bright scenes.

The Samsung S95F OLED uses the same panel, but that TV has noticeably higher peak brightness, especially with bright elements that take up a large portion of the screen. Sony clearly isn't driving the panel as much as Samsung is with their flagship QD-OLED.

Our results above are with the TV set to Professional with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Gradation Preferred.' Below are the results with the 'Brightness Preferred' setting, which significantly increases the TV's luminance, but makes the image less accurate.

• Hallway Lights: 1590 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 1234 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 859 cd/m²

The TV is noticeably dimmer in its dedicated gaming mode compared to the Professional picture mode. Highlights still pop out, and the image doesn't look dim, but you do notice a difference in luminance when gaming. Our results above are in Game Mode with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Gradation Preferred,' but you can get a brighter image by setting that to 'Brightness Preferred' if you're willing to trade in some accuracy. Those results are below.

• Hallway Lights: 1118 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 1273 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 662 cd/m²

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has adequate SDR brightness. Small and medium-sized areas of the screen have good brightness in dim and moderately lit scenes, but large areas of brightness in entirely well-lit scenes are dimmer. Unfortunately, the TV is noticeably dimmer in SDR compared to its predecessor, the Sony A95L OLED. It's also a lot dimmer than its main competitor, the Samsung S95F OLED, which uses the same panel. Still, the TV is bright enough to fight glare from indirect lighting in a room with the lights on, but it's not quite bright enough for well-lit rooms with the curtains open on a sunny day.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has a nearly infinite contrast ratio, giving it perfect contrast. Due to OLED's self-lit pixels, it displays bright highlights next to perfect inky blacks, making it very impressive in a dark room.

Since OLEDs don't use lighting zones and instead have individual pixels that can be lit up to their maximum brightness next to pixels that are turned off, there's no blooming when bright elements are surrounded by deep blacks.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II is an OLED without a backlight, so its self-lit pixels give it the same performance as a TV with perfect local dimming and no zone transitions. We still film the zone transition video on the TV so you can see how it compares to an option with local dimming.

There's no difference in dark scene behavior when the TV is set in Game Mode.

Because OLEDs can turn off individual pixels, the TV has perfect black uniformity with no blooming or halo effect around bright objects.

The TV has outstanding SDR color volume. Not only does it fully cover the commonly used Rec.709 color space, but it also covers the entirety of the wider DCI-P3 color space. Furthermore, it has excellent coverage of the widest BT.2020 space, so this TV does a fantastic job when you watch the rare SDR content mastered in these wider color spaces. It's also a fantastic choice if you like to force Rec.709/sRGB content in a wider color space for increased saturation.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has outstanding HDR color volume. It displays dark, saturated colors with ease thanks to its nearly infinite contrast ratio. It also displays bright colors with impact, and since it doesn't rely on a white subpixel to boost the overall luminance in bright scenes like the LG G5 OLED or any other WOLED model, very bright colors aren't washed out.

Unlike the Sony A95L OLED, which has top-tier accuracy out of the box, this TV has mediocre SDR color accuracy before calibration. Its white balance is poor overall, with too much blue in most shades of gray, which contributes to the TV's overly cool color temperature. Gamma is very close to 2.2, but certain scenes are a bit too bright, while others are too dark. Colors have good accuracy overall, but there are noticeable inaccuracies in whites and most light shades of colors.

The TV's SDR pre-calibration accuracy is noticeably worse than its predecessor, the Sony A95L OLED. However, we saw very similar out-of-the-box SDR color accuracy on the 2024 Sony BRAVIA 8 OLED.

Fortunately, this TV is easy to calibrate, and doing so gives it fantastic SDR accuracy. Any issues with white balance, gamma, color temperature, and color accuracy are essentially gone, leaving you with an image that's incredibly close to the content creator's intent.

See our full calibration settings.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has very good HDR color accuracy before calibration. Its white balance is great overall, but there's too much blue in lighter shades of gray. This affects the TV's color temperature, which is cooler than the industry standard 6500K. The accuracy of colors is very good, but there are noticeable mapping errors throughout, so color enthusiasts will want to get the TV calibrated.

After calibration, the TV has fantastic HDR color accuracy. There are still some minor errors in white balance, color temperature, and overall color accuracy, but these inaccuracies are very hard to notice with real content. If you're after the most accurate image possible from this TV, calibration is worth it.

The TV has outstanding PQ EOTF tracking. Near-blacks are slightly raised, while some shadows and highlights are a bit dimmer than intended. However, these very small inaccuracies are hard to notice, and the brightness of HDR content stays true to the filmmaker's intent. There's a slight roll-off near the TV's peak brightness, which helps to maintain detail in specular highlights that are brighter than the TV's capabilities.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has great low-quality content smoothing. It's excellent at smoothing out macro-blocking and pixelization when streaming content, with only a slight loss of detail.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has superb sharpness processing and upscaling overall. Fine details in low-resolution content are upscaled well, and text is clear and easy to read.

The TV has excellent gradient handling in HDR. There's some slight banding in most colors, but it's hard to notice unless you're up close to the screen and looking for it. Even though you're unlikely to notice much banding at all when watching real content from a normal viewing distance, there is a bit more banding than other QD-OLEDs like the Sony A95L OLED.

Like most Sony models, the TV's input lag is a bit higher than competing models from other brands. It's still low enough in Game Mode for a responsive feel, but it's a bit disappointing for gamers who mostly play PVP titles. The TV's input lag is a lot higher in the other picture modes, so you really feel a delay when scrolling through menus and pausing content.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II supports all common formats up to 4k @ 120Hz, but it doesn't support 165Hz like the LG G5 OLED and the Samsung S95F OLED do. Fortunately, it displays chroma 4:4:4 at both 60Hz and 120Hz, which is important for clear text from a PC.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II supports variable refresh rate technology to reduce screen tearing. HDMI Forum VRR and G-SYNC compatibility work over the entire refresh rate range, but it doesn't support FreeSync.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II delivers sharp motion at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. There's a bit of overshoot when transitioning from black, but these transitions settle quickly, so you don't notice it.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II delivers sharp motion at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. There's a bit of overshoot when transitioning from black, but these transitions settle quickly, so you don't notice it.

The TV's CAD at 60Hz is fantastic. Most transitions from one RGB level to another are nearly instantaneous, but it's slightly slower when transitioning from blacks due to some overshooting. There's also still some noticeable persistence blur.

With the exception of 1440p, the TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, like 4k @ 120Hz and HDMI Forum VRR. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II is almost fully compatible with everything the Xbox Series X|S offers, including 4k @ 120Hz, HDMI Forum VRR, FreeSync Premium Pro, and Dolby Vision gaming. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag. It doesn't support 1440p @ 120Hz.

Unfortunately, due to the TV's nearly instantaneous pixel response time, there's stutter with low frame rate content, which is most noticeable during slow panning shots. You can smooth out stutter using motion interpolation, but if you set it too high, you'll introduce noticeable artifacts.

This TV removes 24p judder from any source, including those that output content in 60Hz, which helps with the appearance of motion in movies and shows.

Like all OLED displays, this TV has a nearly instantaneous response time, resulting in incredibly clear motion behind fast-moving objects. There's some overshoot in shadow details, but it's minor and not noticeable when watching content.

This TV doesn't have a traditional backlight and doesn't use pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim each pixel, but it's not completely flicker-free. There's a slight dip in brightness that corresponds to the TV's refresh rate. This differs from the PWM flicker on TVs with LED backlights and occurs on every OLED we've tested. It's not noticeable, and most people won't be bothered by this, but it can still bother people who are extra sensitive to flicker.

The TV has an optional black frame insertion (BFI) feature that reduces the appearance of persistence blur caused by the TV's nearly instantaneous response time. It can only insert black frames at a 60Hz refresh rate.

The TV has an optional motion interpolation feature to help improve the appearance of motion. Unfortunately, there are noticeable artifacts even in slower panning shots. When the action ramps up, there are artifacts and haloing, and the TV stops interpolating altogether for brief moments.

The TV does a great job reducing the intensity of direct reflections, so you aren't overly distracted if you have a lamp or window opposite your screen.

The TV does a disappointing job of displaying deep blacks in a bright room. Blacks look increasingly gray as your room becomes brighter, so the image looks washed out, and you lose the impactful picture quality this OLED has in a dark room.

The TV does an exceptional job with total reflected light. Its glossy screen finish significantly reduces the intensity of indirect reflections. However, due to the lack of a polarizer, the TV has a purple tint to it in a well-lit room.

The TV has very good color saturation in a bright room. Mid-luminance and high-luminance colors retain their saturation very well, but low-luminance colors lose a lot of saturation in a well-lit room. Fortunately, you still get very saturated colors in a bright room overall, since its color volume is so impressive to begin with.

The TV has an incredibly wide viewing angle. You won't have any issues using it in a wide seating area as people viewing it from the side see the same image as in front.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 2 has a clean panel, with no noticeable uniformity issues. If you look closely during scenes with near blacks (5% gray), there are some faint vertical lines on the panel, but these aren't as noticeable after the TV is broken in or when viewed from a normal viewing distance.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II uses a unique subpixel structure. Instead of having all three subpixels in a row, each pixel forms a triangle, with the larger green subpixel at the top. This leads to color fringing; on a bright window on a Windows PC, you might notice a green fringe at the top since that's where the green subpixel is. Similarly, there's a purple fringe at the bottom of bright windows, as that's where the red and blue subpixels are. Furthermore, with this subpixel arrangement, text has just okay clarity on a PC, as Windows ClearType settings aren't designed for this subpixel structure and can't correct for it.

The TV uses quantum dots to achieve high color peaks with excellent separation between blues, greens, and reds. This gives the TV great color purity and allows it to display an incredibly wide range of colors.

HDMI ports 3 and 4 support the full 48Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, while HDMI 1 and 2 are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth. However, because HDMI 3 is an HDMI 2.1 and eARC port, you lose an HDMI 2.1 slot if you connect a soundbar.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II supports eARC, allowing you to pass high-quality, uncompressed audio to a compatible receiver or soundbar through an HDMI cable. You can also connect a compatible Sony soundbar to the S-Center speaker input and use the TV's speakers as a center channel.

The overall design of the TV is very impressive and resembles the Sony A95L OLED. It has incredibly thin bezels and a nearly frameless design, making it look great in any room.

The TV uses two height-adjustable feet. They hold the TV well and can be adjusted into two different positions. The high position lifts the TV about 3.66 inches, so almost any soundbar fits underneath. If you don't need space for a soundbar, the low position only lifts the TV about 1.18 inches.

Footprint of the 65-inch stand: 56.7" x 13.4"

The back of the TV features the checkerboard pattern that's typical of Sony TVs. The inputs are very close to the side of the TV, making them easy to access if you wall-mount it. There's a single clip underneath the input section to help run cables through, and the back includes covers for cable management.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has outstanding build quality. It's made of premium materials that make it feel solid, and there are no issues with quality control.

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II runs version 12 of the popular Google TV OS, and it's loaded with apps and works well. Unfortunately, there's a minor bug when looking at the signal information that shows a 120Hz refresh rate, even when outputting a 60Hz signal.

Unfortunately, like most TVs, the interface contains ads. You can opt out of personalized ads, but this doesn't change the number of ads you'll see; they just won't be personalized to match your search and viewing history.

• Remote control
• 2x AAA batteries
• User guides
• Cable management covers
• Plastic optical adapter

The Sony BRAVIA 8 2 has an okay frequency response. There's a bit of bass, but it's not very impactful, and you're best off pairing the TV with a soundbar if you want deep bass. The TV speakers aren't very loud, but they provide a balanced sound profile at most volume levels, making dialogue easy to understand. However, the sound profile does become unbalanced at maximum volume.