Sony 65-inch Bravia 8 OLED TV (K-65XR80) review

Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) TVs can be some of the sleekest, most visually stunning models you can find, and that’s why they consistently command higher prices than comparable LED-backlit LCD TVs. They may not be as bright as LED TVs, but they can offer some of the best picture quality out there, which is why the very expensive LG Evo G4 OLED ($3,399.99 for 65 inches) is the company’s flagship model and our Editors’ Choice winner. Not all OLEDs are created equal though, and Sony’s midrange Bravia 8 is proof of that. While the 65-inch model we tested costs less than the LG G4 Evo at $2,799.99, it only gets half as bright while displaying slightly less accurate colors. This makes the LG Evo G4 a good choice that justifies the high price it commands

Design: Sleek, slim OLED look

Thanks to the nearly bezel-free design, the Bravia 8’s screen is almost completely unadorned. A thin strip of metal wraps around the top and sides, while a brushed metal band just 0.3 inches wide runs along the bottom edge. Other TVs don’t have the usual lump of bands for infrared sensors and far-field microphone arrays; Instead, the array is built in the middle of the band, leaving the entire edge straight.

Although it has a minimalist front-facing design, the Bravia 8 isn’t as slim or elegant as other OLED TVs. OLED technology enables incredibly thin panels just a few millimeters thick, and typically the electronics needed to operate those panels add a fairly unobtrusive bulge to the back of the TV (or in the case of the $3,399.99 Samsung S95D, those electronics are in a separate box connected to the screen via a single cable completely offloaded). The Bravia 8 instead has a curved plastic section that runs across the back of the screen and is 1.4 inches thick, making the TV look different from an LED-backlit model that requires a separate lighting arrangement behind the LCD panel. It doesn’t look bad or even clunky, unlike other OLED models we’ve seen.

The TV has an adjustable table stand consisting of two T-shaped gray metal legs that can be installed in four different configurations. The feet can be set near the edge of the screen or near the center, allowing the screen to sit up to two inches higher for a slim soundbar or other device. The screen can also be mounted on the wall.

All of the Bravia 8’s connections sit in a discrete area on the back left of the TV, facing left. These include four HDMI ports (two 4K120, one of which is eARC); two USB ports (one USB 2, one USB 3); 3.5mm port for center channel audio input, IR receiver, and RS232 control; An optical audio output, an Ethernet port and an antenna/cable connector. The power cord plugs into a recess on the right side of the back of the TV.

The included remote has a fairly simple skinny, rectangular design, with one visually distinctive twist: its black plastic is speckled with blue. The plastic is actually a fully recycled material called SourPlus, resulting in a completely random, non-repeating pattern and a slightly matte tactile feel. It’s a nice-feeling material that doesn’t seem to make any structural or aesthetic compromises from non-recyclable plastics. The back of the TV is also partially made from SourPlus, with a ratio of 65% SourPlus to 35% new plastic.

A small, circular navigation pad sits near the top of the remote, topped by a pinhole microphone and input, power, and menu buttons. Volume and channel rockers are located below the pad, along with playback controls and dedicated service buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Crunchyroll, Disney+, Netflix, Sony Pictures Core, and YouTube.

Google TV, with all the trimmings

Sony uses Google TV as its smart TV platform. All major streaming services are available, including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Crunchyroll, Disney+, Netflix, Twitch and YouTube, and you can stream locally from Android and iOS devices, Chrome tabs and Macs via Apple AirPlay and Google Cast.

The Google Assistant voice assistant is also built into Google TV, and you can get hands-free access to the Bravia 8’s far-field microphones. Google Assistant lets you control your TV and compatible smart home devices, search for content, get useful information, and perform other tasks just by saying “Hey, Google.”

Picture quality: Deep blacks, decent whites, and slightly cool colors

The Sony Bravia 8 is a 4K OLED TV with a 120Hz refresh rate It supports high dynamic range (HDR) in Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+ and Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) formats. It has an ATSC 3.0 tuner for over-the-air 1080p and 4K broadcasts.

We test the TV using a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and portrait display Kalman software. OLED TVs aren’t typically as bright as similar LED TVs, and the Bravia 8 isn’t Sony’s highest-end or brightest OLED TV (the A95L is currently Sony’s flagship OLED), but it still puts out a respectable amount of light.

In Cinema mode with an HDR signal, the Bravia 8 showed peak brightness of 188 nits with a full-screen white field, 587 nits with an 18% white field, and 781 nits with a 10% white field. It’s not as bright as the LG Evo G4 (1,103 nits 18%, 1,510 nits 10%) or the Samsung S95D (1,016 nits 18%, 1,613 nits 10%), but those TVs are more expensive than the Bravia 8.

Like all OLED TVs, the Bravia 8 shows perfect blacks and, therefore, has “infinite” contrast. Thanks to locally dimming mini-LED backlight arrays, high-end LED TVs are also starting to show near-perfect blacks, but that technology produces noticeable light bloom (a light haze around the edges of some bright objects on a dark background), while OLED does not. Don’t show everything.

The charts above show the Bravia 8’s color levels in Cinema mode with an SDR signal compared to Rec.709 broadcast standards and an HDR signal compared to DCI-P3 digital cinema standards. SDR colors are reasonably accurate, but whites, cyans, and magentas are slightly cooler, and yellows are oddly slightly greenish. HDR colors are actually more accurate, covering almost the entire DCI-P3 color space and staying within reasonable tolerances of their targets. Whites and cyans are still a bit cooler and magentas are a touch warmer, but not significantly so.

BBC’s “Singh” episode dynasty The Bravia 8 demonstrates both its strengths and weaknesses. The bright (for an OLED) picture is full of detail and shows excellent contrast, especially for brightly lit scenes, but the footage’s already neutrally mastered colors are muted a bit more by the TV’s slightly cooler fat. While the Bravia 8 is capable of perfect blacks, it struggles a bit when rendering very dark but perfectly black objects. In a shot where a lioness is silhouetted against the sunrise, none of her muscles or fur can be seen against the dark silhouette. Another shot with trees silhouetted against a stormy sky is good, showing the edges of the leaves and even preserving some green, but the limbs of the trees look a bit blurry.

All black and white in the party scene The Great Gatsby Coming off very well on Bravia 8, white balloons and shirts look very bright against dark suits and hair. The cut and contours of the black jacket come through in many shots, though those details look a bit muddy at times. Skin tones and other colors look natural and not overdone or overly cool.

What the Bravia 8 loses in detail in very dark shadows, it makes up for in highlights. Snowy and cloudy display footage looks bright and natural on the Spears and Munsil Ultra HD benchmark disc. Snowfall and individual clouds are all clearly visible in an overcast sky, and even subtle color changes are visible between cool fluffy clouds and higher, sunlit cloud cover. This kind of detail is easily overshadowed by flat white on many TVs, especially many bright high-end LED TVs. Some very dark landscape shots also show a surprising amount of detail, such as individual trees in shadowy forests. They are hard to see unless you look in a dimly lit room, but they are rendered Landscape colors are also vibrant if a touch cooler than ideal.

Gaming Performance: Fast, but not the fastest

Gamers should be satisfied with the Bravia 8, although it’s not the most responsive OLED we’ve tested. Using an HDFury Diva HDMI matrix, the Bravia 8 showed an input lag of 4.6 milliseconds in game mode. That’s less than half of the 10ms threshold we use to consider a TV good for gaming. It doesn’t come close to the LG Evo G4 or the Samsung S95D, but both show sub-millisecond input lag.

The 120Hz panel supports variable refresh rate (VRR), though it lacks AMD FreeSync or Nvidia G-Sync certification.

Verdict: An expensive mid-grounder

The Sony Bravia 8 is a good-looking and well-equipped OLED TV that costs less than the flagship model and still offers perfect black levels and fantastic contrast. It’s still very expensive though and doesn’t shine as bright as the LG G4 Evo. Its slightly cooler colors also fall a little short of accuracy. You’re going to pay a premium for an OLED panel regardless, and the G4 Evo’s superior picture quality is worth the price, so it remains our Editors’ Choice winner. You can also spend a lot less on a QLED TV like the Hisense U8N, which is blindingly bright for less than half the price of the Bravia 8, but offers some light that OLED TVs fundamentally lack.

About Will Greenwald

Principal Analyst, Consumer Electronics

I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering TVs and everything you want to connect them with. I’ve reviewed over a thousand different consumer electronics products, including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and a THX-certified home theater professional, and I’m here to help you understand 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and even 8K (and to assure you that you won’t do it for at least a few more 8K to think about for the year).

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