Sony’s new Bravia lineup includes its ‘King of TV’ successor

Sony has a replacement for its existent flagship QD-OLED TV, the highly well-received A95L. That’s the exemplary that was crowned “King of TV” astatine past year’s Value Electronics TV Shootout, which Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel served connected the judging sheet for.

The caller exemplary is called the Bravia 8 II. Sony claims that it has 125 percent the highest brightness of the A95L and 150 percent of past year’s Bravia 8, which volition stay connected merchantability arsenic an OLED-but-not-QD option. It has a akin plan to the A95L, and Sony adjacent says it’ll beryllium cheaper — though pricing accusation won’t beryllium shared until aboriginal successful spring. 

The guiding ngo of the Bravia lineup, according to Sony, is to present the astir authentic cinema acquisition imaginable successful the surviving room. Yosuke Nakano, from the company’s merchandise readying department, claims the Bravia 8 II has the “most faithful reproduction of the nonrecreational show look of immoderate TV successful the industry.”

To that end, astatine a caller objection league astatine its Tokyo headquarters, Sony enactment the Bravia 8 II up against the A95L, Samsung’s S95D, and LG’s G4, on with adjacent much formidable competition: Sony’s ain BVM-HX3110 notation monitor, which you’d usually find connected movie sets and studios for the astir close HDR colour grading possible. 

If you haven’t seen 1 of these successful idiosyncratic before, I benignant of urge not seeking 1 out, due to the fact that it volition ruin each different screens for you. It costs astir $40,000 and has 4,000 nits highest brightness. It looks perfectly retired of control, and I would dearly emotion to person 1 connected my desk.

That’s what Sony is shooting for with the Bravia 8 II. Does it get there? Well, no. The BVM-HX3110’s higher brightness gives HDR footage an astir surreal look acknowledgment to its finer power implicit contrast. But successful each TV’s filmmaker mode, which is expected to present the astir close colour possible, Sony got overmuch person than Samsung oregon LG. As the proprietor of a mates of LG OLEDs myself, I was really a small amazed astatine however washed retired and green-tinted the G4 tended to look successful comparison. 

Now, Sony won’t person chosen demo footage that mightiness travel up its ain displays, and it’s besides astatine an evident vantage erstwhile it comes to emulating the colour reproduction of the BVM-HX3110. But Sony truly is the marketplace person for notation monitors by immoderate distance, truthful that inactive feels similar a just and applicable target. I would not beryllium shocked if the Bravia 8 II turns retired to beryllium different victor by “King of TV” metrics.

Sony is besides updating respective different products successful its location theatre range. The Bravia 5 rounds retired Sony’s lineup by bringing Mini LED backlighting to the midrange — it’s replacing the X90L, which uses full-array section dimming alternatively than Mini LED, and consequently Sony says the Bravia 5 has up to six times much dimming zones. This enactment comes successful sizes from 55 to 98 inches, the precocious extremity of which is larger than immoderate OLED Sony sells. 

Sony showed disconnected the Bravia 5 against the X90L arsenic good arsenic Samsung’s QN85D “QLED” set. Also portion of this objection was the BVM-HX310 notation monitor, which is akin to the BVM-HX3110 but “only” reaches 1,000 nits highest brightness. 

The Bravia 5’s power implicit backlighting and blooming was intelligibly amended than its predecessor, and it looked to beryllium a much robust solution than Samsung’s arsenic well. Sony besides made a constituent of demonstrating its AI sound simplification feature, which is the benignant of happening I’d usually tally distant from but person to admit was rather awesome — it did a bully occupation of cleaning up aged footage from Friends and Home Alone successful existent time. 

Unsurprisingly, the Bravia 5 couldn’t travel adjacent to the BVM-HX310, since Mini LED inactive suffers successful examination to OLED erstwhile it comes to blooming and viewing angles. It besides won’t lucifer the Bravia 7, which is staying successful the lineup and offers 100 percent the brightness and 25 percent much dimming zones. But astatine slightest successful this demonstration, the Bravia 5 made the astir convincing effort to reproduce colors and opposition arsenic good arsenic you could reasonably expect from a mid-range Mini LED TV.

Sony is besides introducing a caller entry-level TV for the US, somewhat confusingly called the Bravia 2 II; the archetypal Bravia 2 wasn’t really sold successful the US before. This is simply a reasonably modular LED TV that comes successful sizes from 43 to 77 inches, but you’ll get akin representation processing and bundle integration to the remainder of Sony’s Bravia range.

If you’re much of a projector person, Sony is adding the caller Bravia Projector 7 to its range, joining the higher-end 8 and 9 models. The Projector 7 is beauteous adjacent to them spec-wise, reaching 2,200 nits successful brightness and supporting 4K 120Hz. One quality is that the 7 has a “standard” lens, not the “advanced crisp-focused” optics seen successful the 8 and 9. 

The Bravia Projector 7 is replacing the well-reviewed VPL-XW5000ES, which is simply a $6,000 projector, truthful adjacent though this is an entry-level merchandise it’s an introduction to a precise costly category. Still, it did look awesome successful a demo against its closest contention from JVC, truthful I’d expect this to beryllium a beardown enactment for radical considering a location theatre setup. 

Finally, Sony is introducing immoderate caller audio options to integrate with its Bravia TVs. The Bravia Theater Bar 6 is simply a 3.1.2 soundbar with upward-firing speakers, the Bravia Theater System 6 is simply a 5.1 setup-in-a-box with a little susceptible soundbar, and the Bravia Theater Rear 8 is simply a brace of wireless rear speakers. All of these products tin beryllium paired to Bravia TVs and controlled with the Bravia Connect mobile app.

As mentioned, Sony doesn’t yet person pricing details for immoderate of its caller Bravia products — that’ll travel sometime this spring.