Sony Bravia 8 review: A solid and lovely OLED TV Score Details The Bravia 8 is the Sony OLED TV most folks should buyProsGorgeous right out of the boxExcellent motion and upscalingAmazing contrastImpressive HDRGreat soundConsMissing deep calibration featuresNot as accurate as most Sony TVsTable of ContentsTable of ContentsSony Bravia 8 OLED specsThe right amount of brightImpressive, clear soundNumbers for Nit NerdsTest resultsYour eyes will thank youWorth the extra money?Earlier this year Sony announced the Bravia 8 an OLED TV sandwiched between two mini-LED TVs, the Bravia 7 and Bravia 9 and since then Ive been curious about it. This TVs predecessors most recently, the A80L and the A80K before that have always had one clear advantage over the competition: Sonys processing. However, competitors like LG have done a lot of catching up on the processing front. Now the Bravia 8s leg-up on the LG C-series OLED TV isnt quite as stark as it has been.Still, Sony has managed to hold onto a dedicated and enthusiastic crowd, and so far has maintained a major pull with premium buyers. My question has been: Does the Bravia 8 deliver what those folks want? Who should buy this TV over the LG C4? What does it have and whats it doing better than the competition? Lets get into it.RelatedPrice range$2,000 to $3,900Sizes55, 65, and 77 inchesWeight37.7 to 71.2 pounds (depends on size)Display typeOLEDProcessorXR ProcessorOperating systemGoogle TVScreen resolution4K Ultra HD (3,840 x 2,160)HDR supportDolby Vision, HDR10, HLGRefresh rate120 Hz, VRR (HDMI 3 & 4)Gaming featuresALLM, PS Remote PlayAudio supportDolby Atmos, DTS:XOutputsHDMI 2.1 x 2 (eARC x 1), HDMI 2.0 x 2TunerATSC 3.0The Bravia 8 is an OLED TV, so right off the bat it has tremendous appeal thanks to its amazing contrast and color. Its a Sony, so we can expect all the processing that drives its OLED panel to be top-tier, and simply among the best you can buy.There are three types of OLED panels used in TVs today: the relative newcomer,QD-OLED, uses quantum dots to achieve extremely impressive color volume and accuracy. Then theres WRGB OLED, sometimes called W-OLED, which uses a white subpixel to boost brightness. Finally theres a hot rod version of W-OLED called MLA OLED, which uses tiny little lenses to boost brightness even more.Zeke Jones / Digital TrendsThe Bravia 8 uses a standard W-OLED panel, meaning it is not trying to be the most intensely bright OLED on the market. Sony leaves that bragging right for its award-winning A95L QD-OLED. That doesnt mean this TV cant get impressively bright. It just means that its not a hot rod, and you dont have to spend hot rod money to get it.One thing youll notice about this TV is that it doesnt flaunt its ultra-thin OLED panel like other brands do. Its still very thin, but Sony gives the TV a uniformly thin chassis, rather than one thats ultra-thin at the top with a big bump-out toward the bottom like the LG C4.The TV comes with two feet that can be mounted toward the center, reducing the width of its footprint so it can fit on smaller platforms or out toward the edges. You also have a choice of two different heights in either of those positions: one that slings the TV low for a sleek look and one that elevates the TV, allowing a wide array of soundbars to fit just in front of it without blocking the screen.The Bravia 8s remote is backlit and made of a recycled material Sony makes called Sorplas, which has little flecks in the finish. It uses two triple-A batteries, and has a microphone for voice control and calibrating the TVs sound.There are a couple of transducers mounted to the back of the panel that allow the screen to act as a speaker, which, when paired with a little bass driver on the back of the TV, adds up to really impressive and clear sound. On larger models, it may seem like the voices are coming from the actors mouths.The TV comes with two HDMI 2.1 inputs; one is an eARC connection for feeding a soundbar or A/V receiver. The TV also includes an ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV tuner. Compare that to the LG C4, which has four HDMI 2.1 inputs, but no NextGen tuner on board.Zeke Jones / Digital TrendsThe Bravia 8 runs on Google TV (my favorite) with a built-in smart TV interface, which has been customized by Sony. The LG C4 runs LGs WebOs (which is fine, but definitely not my preferred smart TV platform).If you choose to augment the Bravia 8 with a Sony soundbar or a Bravia Theater Quad Dolby Atmos surround system, the TVs speakers can work as a center channel and otherwise expand the sound. Sony has a few other little bells and whistles available, but thats the most notable one.Before digging into measurements, lets talk about some curious things you may have already heard about.On Vincent Teohs HDTVTest channel, he noted that this TV was missing some deeper picture settings and adjustment options and wondered if the restricted bits were just for his region or if it was a global thing. He confirmed that the Bravia 8s in Japan were also missing some settings, and I can confirm that this is also true for the North American versions.Zeke Jones / Digital TrendsThe Bravia 8 does not have a Smooth Gradation slider, which lets you alter the strength of the algorithm that aims to smooth out jarring transitions in color shades. Smooth gradation is still at work in this TV you just cant make adjustments to it. This TV has a 10-point white balance calibration menu as opposed to the more granular 20-point white balance youll find in TVs like the Bravia 9 and A95L. There is also no color management system at all.Professionals need all the controls to calibrate a display as close to perfection as possible. However for most people this isnt an issue not in practical terms.When I asked Sony why the Bravia 8 is missing controls we have come to expect in its TVs, a spokesperson pointed out that with the controls available, this TV can be adjusted to have white balance and color errors with a Delta E of less than 3, which is considered to be below the threshold of human perception. They are correct: I got Delta errors of less than 3 for white balance and most colors.Zeke Jones / Digital TrendsIn my opinion, Sony probably thinks that its super-enthusiast audience or those in professional circles arent looking to get a Bravia 8 instead they are more likely to get a Bravia 9 or an A95L. I dont think anything meaningful has been lost by not including those controls, so I feel comfortable acknowledging this is not a disadvantage to Sony customers.When I asked Sony about what advantage is gained by not including these controls, they politely declined to answer. Left to speculate, I think it may perhaps reduce the cost of production. Otherwise, if it doesnt save them money, why not just leave those things in? (Vincent speculates it is possible that a co-processor chip was omitted. However, it appears that Sonys processing is as effective here as it is in other Sony TVs.)Along those lines, Sony essentially says that their picture processing engine the XR processor evolves year by year, and the user interface and specifications are optimized for each model and panel type as far as customer usability and convenience are concerned. Therefore, certain features differ between years and in between models.Zeke Jones / Digital TrendsThat sounds like processing demands are lower for the Bravia 8 than for the Bravia 9 which has a new backlight system that Sony has likely tweaked the XR processor for and for the A95L, which has a QD-OLED panel that behaves differently and needs its own special treatment.I suppose that if the Bravia 8 had an MLA OLED panel, it might need its own special treatment as well. I dont sense anything nefarious here, however the fully transparent answer would likely get extremely deep in the weeds and likely misconstrued by less savvy media and its probably not worth risking the PR nightmare of a misguided discussion on forums. I could be dead wrong, but Ive been in this business a while, and thats what it feels like to me.In the end, does it really matter? Im going to say no, it doesnt matter to 99.99 percent of humans on this planet. What does matter is how the TV performs.To conduct my measuring, I placed the Bravia 8 in Professional mode for both SDR and HDR. When I subjectively evaluated the TV with Dolby Vision content, I used Dolby Vision Dark.In Professional SDR mode with the default settings which has the brightness set to 40, and more importantly, the peak brightness setting set to off heres what I got:Peak luminance was 100 nits very strict adherence to SDR which is what I would expect for Professional mode. The two-point white balance was a little odd. Sony doesnt always target exact D65, but the blue channel at just 100 nits seemed really off. That is easily calibrated out using the white balance controls.Zeke Jones / Digital TrendsWith a 20-point grayscale measurement, the blue channel was hot all the way up the chain. The color balance was OK, but not what I expect from Sony.In Cinema mode default, the brightness was maxed out and the peak luminance was set to medium. It was better in some ways, and worse than others. I saw a lower error at the very brightest white but it was more off through the top half of the grayscale, which was weird.Next I tested in Professional mode with everything maxed out, which is how I had the TV set most of the time I was watching SDR content. In some ways it was better; in other ways, it was more of the same. The factory tuning leaned cooler, which I have to presume was intentional. It was a marginal difference.When messing with color temperature, in just 10 minutes I was able to make adjustments to the white balance to get everything below a Delta E of 2.The Bravia 8 is an excellent OLED TV.Credit goes to Vincent for making this next part much easier for me:EOTF tracking with the peak brightness setting at high was the default for the HDR Professional mode, and the tracking was off in a couple of places. It wasnt bright enough in some areas and too bright in others, which is very un-Sony-like. When the peak brightness setting was bumped down to medium the EOTF tracking was spot-on. However, peak HDR brightness went down significantly.Im OK if a TV brand wants to offer an over-brightened HDR setting most people find that approach easier to watch. However thats not what I think most folks are expecting out of Sonys Professional mode, and I dont think that folks should have to decide between accurate HDR tracking and full HDR brightness capability. Its not a compromise Sony has asked anyone to make in the past, and I dont understand why we would be asked to accept it now.Zeke Jones / Digital TrendsHowever, Sony could be reading its audience and knows this is not going to bother the vast majority of folks who buy this TV. What advantage does Sony gain by going this way? Cost savings? That will just have to remain a mystery.Heres my takeaway: This is not really an enthusiasts TV. Not only is it missing those typical granular calibration controls, but the white balance and grayscale is further afield than Id expect. It can be corrected well, but if youre looking for Sonys historically excellent out-of-box accuracy, the unit I tested didnt have it. Also, seeing it track so low on the EOTF with the peak brightness set to high was just odd.The Bravia 8 is reasonably accurate in its Professional and Cinema picture modes, right out of the box, and you can tweak it to be even more accurate if you want to. With the peak brightness setting at high, you will get a very enjoyable, if not technically dead-on-balls (thats an industry term) accurate picture. If you want extremely accurate HDR tracking, the trade-off is a fair amount of brightness. Most of you, though, are going to be thrilled with this TVs HDR performance, as it can get very punchy in bright highlights and it generally makes all content look amazing.The Bravia 8 is an excellent OLED TV. It has great upscaling and image clean-up capabilities, making it an ideal choice for folks who watch a lot of cable or live TV streaming services like YouTube TV, Sling TV, or Fubo TV. It has a super clean picture 95 percent of the time. The color isnt just accurate, its gorgeous. Its an OLED TV that starts at a baseline of awesome, and also happens to be an excellent example of an OLED TV, thanks to Sonys outstanding processing.The Bravia 8 is absolutely worth considering.The Bravia 8 is a mind-blowing treat for the eyes. There are brighter hot rod OLED TVs, and mini-LED TVs can get a lot brighter. But when you start from perfect black and there are no backlight anomalies? You will be dazzled.I enjoyed watching the Bravia 8 a lot and I have access to the worlds best TVs. I never feel the need to take the Bravia 8 down and put up the Z95A because the Bravia 8 is lovely. If you are looking at getting your first OLED, or even replacing an OLED thats four years old or older, the Bravia 8 is absolutely worth considering.The question is not a matter of whether this TV is worth buying it absolutely is. The question is whether you should spend more to buy this TV as opposed to an LG C4 OLED. At the 65-inch size, the Sony Bravia 8 is about $200 more than the LG C4. Does the Bravia 8 earn that extra $200?The LG C4 has four HDMI 2.1 inputs while the Bravia 8 has just two and one of them is taken up with the eARC functionality. If you have both the Xbox Series X and a PlayStation 5, or a gaming PC and you want to use eARC to get audio to your soundbar or A/V receiver, I suppose the LG C4s additional HDMI 2.1 ports are an advantage. However, for most folks, they arent.Zeke Jones / Digital TrendsThe Sony has an ATSC 3.0 tuner whereas the LG C4 does not. I suspect it isnt going to sway many folks. However, the Sony Bravia 8 has better sound quality than the LG C4. If you want the best dialog clarity, the Bravia 8 is a better choice.The Bravia 8 has a standard remote as opposed to LGs magic motion remote. I know which one I prefer what about you?The Sony runs Google TV as opposed to LGs WebOS. Again, I know which one I prefer what about you?Im a fan of the LG C4 and Id be quite thrilled to own one. But, if Im spending my own money, would I shell out an extra $200 on a 65-inch Bravia 8? Yes, because of the better sound, Google TV, and a remote that doesnt drive me crazy.I think that extra $200 is gonna break down to maybe an extra $4 per month over the course of four years, which is as long as I can keep a TV before upgrade-itus sets in.Transparently, Im a top-tier OLED kind of person when it comes to my living room. If Im buying an OLED TV, Im probably going to save up a little longer to get the Sony A95L, the LG G4, the Samsung S95D or the Panasonic Z95A, which has really captured my heart (even though I hate Amazon Fire TV). If Im going big, its going to be a huge mini-LED TV.The Bravia 8 is a solid and lovely OLED TV. It gets a full recommendation from me. The question is: Is it the right TV for you? Hopefully, Ive helped you arrive at that decision.Editors Recommendations