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.
Sony Bravia 8 II specs Display type: QD-OLED Sizes available (inches): 55, 65 Backlight: N/A HDR formats: Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG OS: Google TV HDMI inputs: 2 x HDMI 2.0, 2 x HDMI 2.1 (one with eARC/ARC) Gaming features: 4K/120Hz, VRR, ALLM
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.
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