Sony Bravia 8 II OLED TV review: a TV enthusiast’s dream

Sony has a history of making excellent TVs, from the Trinitron CRTs of last century to the world’s first OLED nearly 20 years ago to 2016’s ZD9 mini-LED that delivered exceptional brightness and dimming control for the time. And while Samsung beat Sony to the market with the S95B, in 2022 Sony was the first company to announce a QD-OLED TV. That TV, the A95K, was the best TV I had ever seen — until the A95L in 2023. Now we have the next in the series. The naming convention has changed, but with the Bravia 8 II, Sony once again aims to create the best-ever QD-OLED TV.

Since its release in June 2025, the Bravia 8 II has received praise for its deep blacks and shadow detail, excellent processing, and realistic picture quality. Like the A95K in 2022, and the A95L in 2023 and 2024, the Sony Bravia 8 II was named the King of TV by the judges of the Value Electronics’ 2025 TV Shootout (including Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel). It’s a bit brighter than the A95L, its processing is stellar — especially the way it elevates the look of lower-quality content — and it runs on Google OS (which is a great benefit over its QD-OLED and OLED competitors from Samsung, LG, and Panasonic, which rely on either their own, clunkier interfaces or on Amazon Fire TV). Since it’s an OLED, its blacks are deep and inky, and better when the lights are on than the Samsung S95F QD-OLED, which uses a matte finish. But it isn’t quite as accurate out of the box as the A95L, which measured virtually perfect. Because of those sky-high expectations, some reviewers and enthusiasts have rated the Bravia 8 II lower than it deserves.

There’s no such a thing as a perfect TV. Each one has something it doesn’t do quite right. But while the Bravia 8 II does have some minor issues, they’re the kind that only TV enthusiasts are likely to notice. And those enthusiasts are the same people that will get the Bravia 8 II calibrated, eliminating most of the issues. Even though I’m exceedingly particular about TV performance (it’s my career, after all), none of the issues were deal-breakers for me, because with actual content they were either fleeting or not visible from a normal viewing distance. When it comes down to it, I’ve rarely enjoyed watching a TV more than this one.

At a Sony Electronics event I attended at Sony Pictures in Los Angeles a couple years ago, company reps boasted that Sony products are used in every level of cinema production, from the cameras and lenses to the $40,000 display used to master the final product. Sony’s tagline for its Bravia TVs and speakers is “Cinema is coming home,” and the Bravia 8 II is its top-end OLED, designed to deliver as close to a theater-level performance in your living room as possible. It’s what cinephiles chase: a TV that accurately displays the creators’ intent. And it’s for that reason I’m being a bit picky in my assessment.

The Bravia 8 II is only available in 55- and 65-inch sizes with MSRPs of $2,599.99 and $3,299.99, respectively (Sony provided a 65-inch model for our review). Only two of the four HDMI inputs are 2.1, allowing for 4K/120Hz signals with VRR, and one of those ports (HDMI 3) is the eARC connection. So if you’re connecting a soundbar or receiver and aren’t routing a game console through it, you’re losing one of the HDMI 2.1 inputs.

Like its predecessor, the A95L, the Bravia 8 II uses feet connected out near the screen edge that can be attached in two height positions — one with the bottom edge of the TV about half an inch from the surface it’s resting on and the second elevating the TV 3 inches. That’s enough to accommodate a soundbar right under the screen instead of in front of it, as with TVs like the TCL QM9K that have pedestal stands. But it also means you need a media console wide enough to fit the TV.

OLED performance with Sony processing

Since it’s a QD-OLED TV, the Bravia 8 II comes with the pure blacks and pixel-level control we expect from an OLED, with the extra color vibrancy of quantum dots. Matched with Sony’s excellent image processing, which has been the best on the market for years, the Bravia 8 II delivers a fantastic 4K image. Stars sparkle, there’s great detail in the shadows, and scenery looks realistic and inviting. The grittiness of future Los Angeles in Blade Runner 2049 is heightened by the details visible in the dark, rainy streets. The buildings among the trees of Rivendell look like a true solace from the evils creeping through Middle-earth. At numerous points during my review process I was sucked into what I was watching and forgot I was there to evaluate. Even a YouTube video of a train winding its way through snow-covered villages in Switzerland was mesmerizing, and kept my attention as I dreamed of a vacation in the Alps.

The TV’s processing and upscaling improves lower-quality content, too, causing it to look smoother and less pixelated, and better than what I’ve seen on competitors from LG, TCL, Samsung, and Hisense. Nobody does it better than Sony. Most of the content people watch is 1080p — be it from a streaming service, cable, or over the air — and there the Bravia 8 II achieves a cleaner and more detailed image than its competitors.

OLED brightness isn’t the problem it used to be

Brightness has always been the biggest thing holding OLEDs back, and while they still can’t compete with mini-LED TVs, they’re now able to put out enough light to stand up against ambient lighting conditions. While the LG G5 is the brightest OLED I’ve seen, the Bravia 8 II still gets plenty bright. In HDR, the Sony measures 1,590 nits from a 10 percent window, and gets even brighter with smaller highlights (up to 1,884 nits). As the size of the bright area increases, the Sony isn’t able to maintain that level of brightness (no TV is), and a full white screen measures only 239 nits. But no one (other than reviewers) watches a full-field white screen. While watching movies and TV shows in my living room — which admittedly doesn’t get direct sunlight — the Sony ably held up to ambient light. If you have large picture windows with sunlight streaming through, I’d consider the G5; for most, Sony’s brightness should be plenty.

In SDR, if you turn Peak Luminance (found under Brightness) to High, the Sony hits 540 nits, which, again, should be enough unless your living room is drenched in sunlight. For the video purists watching SDR in a home theater, leaving Professional with its default SDR settings, the TV tracks between 107 and 100 nits from small highlights up to a full screen. This is spot-on reference-level brightness for SDR content in a dark room. It shows that Sony’s engineers are serious about delivering a reference-quality image with minimal settings adjustments.

While the Bravia 8 II is incredibly accurate out of the box in Professional picture mode, there are a few minor issues. Most people won’t be bothered by any of them. In HDR, the grayscale on the Bravia 8 II leans a little blue as it gets closer to white, in a way the LG G5 doesn’t. It’s most noticeable in things like white clouds or snow on mountain peaks. It’s in no way unpleasant, just not quite as accurate and pure as it should be. Colors also pull a bit toward blue. It’s not drastic — the red Corvette in The Big Lebowski is still red, just not quite as vibrant — but with a TV this good, those minor details stand out more.

Calibration brings it from excellent to near perfect

I normally don’t recommend calibration to most people, or for most TVs. Out-of-the-box performance has improved pretty significantly over the past few years across a broad range of prices and manufacturers, as long as you switch out of the default picture mode to something called Movie, Cinema, or Professional. And as I’ve said, the Bravia 8 II looks really great in Professional. But it can still look better. When you say a TV is the one that brings cinema home, the people that are buying it are very likely chasing the best image quality they can get. And for those people, a calibration is worth it. I performed a quick 21-point calibration on the Bravia 8 II, and afterward, the image looked perfect. No more blues in clouds, and colors from skin tones to nature backdrops looked even more incredible.

If we’re being picky, the Bravia 8 II does have two issues specific to QD-OLED panels, but even those are less noticeable than on earlier models. One is the lack of a polarizing filter, which can lead to raised blacks with a slightly purplish color. While there was a little bit of this happening on the Bravia 8 II, it’s better than what I’ve seen on Samsung QD-OLED TVs, and it was barely noticeable in regular use. Even with the lights on in my living room, the blacks felt deep and inky, giving the TV exceptional contrast. And the triangular pixel structure of QD-OLEDs can cause color fringing of either green or purple on the edges of bright images against dark backgrounds. I saw hints of this as well, but from a normal viewing distance it’s only noticeable if you’re intently looking for it. It didn’t bother my family at all. And this too is less noticeable than on early generation QD-OLEDs, though it likely won’t go away entirely until and unless Sony changes the pixel structure on QD-OLED panels.

If I were to buy a TV for myself today, the Sony Bravia 8 II is the one I would get — no question. The picture it produces is incredibly engaging, and throughout my review process I found myself wanting to watch it more and more, even without the calibration. Sure, there are minor issues with some dark scene color fringing, and it doesn’t get as bright as other TVs. A case could be made for the older A95L if you find it discounted, as out of the box it will be a little more accurate than the Bravia 8 II. And for a room that’s absolutely bathed in light, the LG G5 offers very similar performance with a brighter image. But during my time spent with the Sony Bravia 8 II, there was never a moment, be it with critical viewing or watching a movie with my family, when I wasn’t impressed. It reminded me why I love movies. What more could you ask from a TV?

Photography by John Higgins / The Verge