I Compared The Sony Bravia 8 Ii To Competing Oled Tvs, And It Settled My Buying Decision

ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Sony's flagship TV delivers awesome image and audio quality.
• There's plentifulness of elasticity pinch fine-tuning image and audio settings.
• The surface doesn't get arsenic agleam arsenic competing models, making nan TV little perfect successful brightly-lit spaces.

Follow ZDNET: Add america arsenic a preferred source on Google.

Sony is 1 of nan apical names successful OLED TVs, and for bully reason. Their flagship models consistently present high-quality image and audio arsenic good arsenic premium features. I sewage to cheque retired nan Bravia 8 II astatine our testing laboratory successful Louisville, pitting it head-to-head against models from Samsung, LG, and moreover TCL to spot really it stacks up.

Also: The champion Sony TVs you tin buy

The first point I noticed astir nan Bravia 8 II is that nan surface is very acheronian correct retired of nan box, particularly erstwhile group beside nan Samsung S95F and LG G5 OLED.

Every image mode, moreover Vivid, was very dim and shadowy, which made viewing successful brighter environments a spot difficult. Sony seems to person designed this peculiar OLED pinch darkened location theaters and surviving rooms successful mind, but, fortunately, you tin tweak nan brightness settings successful nan main paper and either use them to a azygous image mode aliases crossed each TV settings. That's 1 of nan Bravia 8 II's biggest strengths.

Also: The default TV mounting I ever move disconnected erstwhile mounting it up - and why experts urge it

You tin besides fine-tune things for illustration colour temperature, sharpness, and opposition to get a civilization image mounting that useful champion pinch your space. While adjusting settings for nan testing lab, I really appreciated really easy it was to navigate Sony's TV menus and really quickly I could make changes on-the-fly. 

This peculiarly came successful useful erstwhile I was switching betwixt movies and games; pinch conscionable a fewer paper options, I could easy tweak settings to get nan astir retired of my movies and games. 

Adam Breeden/ZDNET

With nan thief of some Dolby Atmos and Sony's Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology, nan Bravia 8 II gives you rich | audio that does, indeed, travel on-screen action and helps abstracted near and correct channels for streaming euphony to springiness you a much immersive experience. You tin besides group up civilization equalizer profiles for everything from streaming euphony to watching nan section news. 

Setting up nan Bravia 8 II was speedy and simple. You request only a Google relationship to entree streaming apps and nan location screen. The TV itself has rather a bladed build -- not rather arsenic bladed arsenic nan Samsung S95D OLED -- but you'll still want a 2nd personification to thief you move nan surface astir to forestall cracking aliases different damage. 

Also: I tested nan Samsung S95F OLED for a week, and it spoiled nan measurement I watch TV

During our Calman colour accuracy tests, nan Bravia 8 II had a flimsy bluish displacement crossed each image modes, but it wasn't capable to impact colour accuracy aliases image quality. It's astir noticeable erstwhile watching black-and-white films for illustration Casablanca, arsenic everything will consciousness for illustration it has a cool bluish select applied. You tin counteract this pinch nan integrated blue-light select mode, which adds a lukewarm select that I really for illustration since it makes colors consciousness much vibrant, particularly successful older media.

The dedicated crippled mode has 3 image settings: standard, FPS, and RTS, each of which features different input latency, refresh rate, color, and sound settings to suit your favourite titles. The differences betwixt nan 3 settings aren't capable to beryllium noticeable to nan mean console gamer, but streamers and tourney players tin admit being capable to tweak settings for signaling contented aliases practicing for an event.

Adam Breeden/ZDNET

The Bravia 8 II boasts exclusive VRR support for nan PlayStation 5, arsenic good arsenic low-latency consequence times. I tried retired a assortment of titles for illustration Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2, Persona 5: Dancing successful Starlight, and Ghost of Tsushima. While each crippled looked astonishing connected nan OLED screen, pinch agleam colors and crisp contrast, I couldn't really consciousness a quality successful framework complaint aliases latency erstwhile compared to nan TCL QM8K I besides had group up arsenic a comparison (and supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro). 

Action felt conscionable arsenic soft connected some TVs, and consequence times were astir nan same, but nan Bravia 8 II was nan champion of nan week successful position of image and audio.

Also: Don't cancel Netflix yet: These concealed codes tin unlock nan afloat catalog of shows for you

If you're making nan move to Google TV, utilizing nan level is astir arsenic straightforward arsenic it gets. If you already person a Google account, for illustration Gmail, you tin usage it to motion into your TV's operating system, which makes it easy to support way of usernames and passwords. It besides helps way your favourite apps and media crossed devices, truthful you tin commencement watching a movie successful 1 room and prime it backmost up connected different Google TV later. 

Adam Breeden/ZDNET

Switching from streaming to gaming connected nan PS5 was besides incredibly simple, pinch nan TV capable to automatically observe erstwhile nan console was connected and powered on. And dissimilar my Hisense U8N, which automatically switches inputs erstwhile nan console is powered on, nan Bravia 8 II launches a mini preview tile connected nan location screen. 

This is bully for erstwhile pets and kids accidentally move connected your console successful nan mediate of a movie aliases if you're conscionable not rather fresh to move inputs.

ZDNET's buying advice

The Sony Bravia 8 II is simply a high-end OLED TV, pinch a premium value tag to match. However, if you're consenting to walk nan other money to get premium features for illustration Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology, you'll beryllium getting a TV that not only looks and sounds great, but will past astatine slightest respective years to thief support your location theatre connected nan cutting separator of entertainment. For those reasons, nan Sony Bravia 8 II is recognized by ZDNET's Editors' Choice.

While nan PS5-exclusive VRR and low-latency features are appreciated, nan Bravia 8 II is geared much towards movie buffs than gamers -- astir of whom will undoubtedly bask nan studio-calibrated picture, IMAX Enhanced mode, Dolby Vision HDR, and Dolby Atmos virtual situation sound.