This review explores the Sony Bravia 8 OLED TV, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses compared to competitors like the LG C-series. The article delves into the TV's processing capabilities, panel type (W-OLED), brightness levels, and overall performance, aiming to determine if it justifies its premium price tag and appeals to Sony's dedicated customer base.
Sony Bravia 8 review: A solid and lovely OLED TV Score Details “The Bravia 8 is the Sony OLED TV most folks should buy” Pros Cons Table of Contents 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 I’ve been curious about it. This TV’s predecessors — most recently, the A80L and the A80K before that — have always had one clear advantage over the competition: Sony’s processing.
The 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 doesn’t mean this TV can’t get impressively bright. It just means that it’s not a hot rod, and you don’t have to spend hot rod money to get it.
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.
Numbers for Nit Nerds Before digging into measurements, let’s talk about some curious things you may have already heard about. 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.
That 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. 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” — here’s what I got:
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.
Here’s my takeaway: This is not really an enthusiast’s TV. Not only is it missing those typical granular calibration controls, but the white balance and grayscale is further afield than I’d expect. It can be corrected well, but if you’re looking for Sony’s historically excellent out-of-box accuracy, the unit I tested didn’t have it. Also, seeing it track so low on the EOTF with the peak brightness set to high was just odd.
Worth the extra money? 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?
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