I compared the Sony Bravia 8 II to competing OLED TVs, and it settled my buying decision

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• Sony’s flagship TV delivers fantastic picture and audio quality.
• There’s plenty of flexibility with fine-tuning image and audio settings.
• The screen doesn’t get as bright as competing models, making the TV less ideal in brightly-lit spaces.

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Sony is one of the top names in OLED TVs, and for good reason. Their flagship models consistently deliver high-quality picture and audio as well as premium features. I got to check out the Bravia 8 II at our testing lab in Louisville, pitting it head-to-head against models from Samsung, LG, and even TCL to see how it stacks up.

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The first thing I noticed about the Bravia 8 II is that the screen is very dark right out of the box, especially when set beside the Samsung S95F and LG G5 OLED.

Every picture mode, even Vivid, was very dim and shadowy, which made viewing in brighter environments a bit difficult. Sony seems to have designed this particular OLED with darkened home theaters and living rooms in mind, but, fortunately, you can tweak the brightness settings in the main menu and either apply them to a single picture mode or across all TV settings. That’s one of the Bravia 8 II’s biggest strengths.

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You can also fine-tune things like color temperature, sharpness, and contrast to get a custom picture setting that works best with your space. While adjusting settings for the testing lab, I really appreciated how easy it was to navigate Sony’s TV menus and how quickly I could make changes on-the-fly. 

This particularly came in handy when I was switching between movies and games; with just a few menu options, I could easily tweak settings to get the most out of my movies and games. 

With the help of both Dolby Atmos and Sony’s Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology, the Bravia 8 II gives you rich audio that does, indeed, follow on-screen action and helps separate left and right channels for streaming music to give you a more immersive experience. You can also set up custom equalizer profiles for everything from streaming music to watching the local news. 

Setting up the Bravia 8 II was quick and simple. You need only a Google account to access streaming apps and the home screen. The TV itself has quite a thin build — not quite as thin as the Samsung S95D OLED — but you’ll still want a second person to help you move the screen around to prevent cracking or other damage. 

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

During our Calman color accuracy tests, the Bravia 8 II had a slight blue shift across all picture modes, but it wasn’t enough to affect color accuracy or picture quality. It’s most noticeable when watching black-and-white films like Casablanca, as everything will feel like it has a cool blue filter applied. You can counteract this with the integrated blue-light filter mode, which adds a warm filter that I actually prefer since it makes colors feel more vibrant, especially in older media.

The dedicated game mode has three picture settings: standard, FPS, and RTS, each of which features different input latency, refresh rate, color, and sound settings to suit your favorite titles. The differences between the three settings aren’t enough to be noticeable to the average console gamer, but streamers and tournament players can appreciate being able to tweak settings for recording content or practicing for an event.

The Bravia 8 II boasts exclusive VRR support for the PlayStation 5, as well as low-latency response times. I tried out a variety of titles like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, and Ghost of Tsushima. While each game looked amazing on the OLED screen, with bright colors and sharp contrast, I couldn’t really feel a difference in frame rate or latency when compared to the TCL QM8K I also had set up as a comparison (and supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro). 

Action felt just as smooth on both TVs, and response times were about the same, but the Bravia 8 II was the best of the week in terms of picture and audio.

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If you’re making the switch to Google TV, using the platform is about as straightforward as it gets. If you already have a Google account, like Gmail, you can use it to sign into your TV’s operating system, which makes it easy to keep track of usernames and passwords. It also helps track your favorite apps and media across devices, so you can start watching a movie in one room and pick it back up on another Google TV later. 

Switching from streaming to gaming on the PS5 was also incredibly simple, with the TV able to automatically detect when the console was connected and powered on. And unlike my Hisense U8N, which automatically switches inputs once the console is powered on, the Bravia 8 II launches a small preview tile on the home screen. 

This is nice for when pets and kids accidentally turn on your console in the middle of a movie or if you’re just not quite ready to switch inputs.

ZDNET’s buying advice

The Sony Bravia 8 II is a high-end OLED TV, with a premium price tag to match. However, if you’re willing to spend the extra money to get premium features like Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology, you’ll be getting a TV that not only looks and sounds great, but will last at least several years to help keep your home theater on the cutting edge of entertainment. For those reasons, the Sony Bravia 8 II is recognized by ZDNET’s Editors’ Choice.

While the PS5-exclusive VRR and low-latency features are appreciated, the Bravia 8 II is geared more towards movie buffs than gamers — most of whom will undoubtedly enjoy the studio-calibrated picture, IMAX Enhanced mode, Dolby Vision HDR, and Dolby Atmos virtual surround sound.