The Sony A8H OLED is an excellent TV that delivers incredible picture quality and manages to improve upon its predecessor, the Sony A8G OLED. Its OLED panel can turn off pixels individually to produce perfect blacks with an infinite contrast ratio, which is ideal for watching movies in a dark room. It has exceptional reflection handling and gets decently bright, so it's suitable for moderately-lit rooms as well. Its viewing angles are excellent, so you don't have to worry about losing image accuracy when watching from an angle. It also has a near-instantaneous response time and a low input lag. That said, the lack of variable refresh rate (VRR) technology may disappoint more serious gamers. Like all OLEDs, it has a risk of permanent burn-in, although it shouldn't be an issue for people who watch a variety of content. Its Android TV platform is easy-to-use and runs smoothly, and there are countless apps for all your needs available at the press of a button in the Google Play Store.
The Sony A8H is an excellent TV for most uses. Its picture quality is amazing thanks to an infinite contrast ratio and near-instantaneous response time. It upscales lower resolution content well, which is great for watching cable TV or sports. HDR content looks excellent thanks to its wide color gamut and decent peak brightness. Unfortunately, although its input lag is great, it doesn't support advanced gaming features like VRR. Also, like all OLED TVs, there's a risk of permanent burn-in.
The Sony A8H is incredible for watching movies. Because it's an OLED TV, it has an infinite contrast ratio and produces perfect blacks, which is ideal for watching movies in a dark room. It doesn't use a backlight, so there's no blooming around bright objects. Its near-instantaneous response time can cause lower frame rate content to stutter, but this can be helped with motion interpolation.
The Sony A8H is great for watching TV shows. It has exceptional reflection handling and gets decently bright, so you shouldn't have issues watching TV in the daytime. It also has excellent viewing angles, so the image remains accurate no matter what angle you watch from, and it upscales lower-resolution content from cable boxes without issue. Like all OLEDs, there's a risk of permanent burn-in, but this shouldn't be a problem if you watch varied content.
The Sony A8H is an amazing TV for watching sports. It has fantastic motion handling thanks to its near-instantaneous response time, and it has a Black Frame Insertion option to further reduce motion blur. You shouldn't have visibility issues in most lighting conditions since it gets decently bright and handles reflections extremely well. It also has wide viewing angles, which is great for watching the big game with a large group.
The Sony A8H is an excellent TV for gaming. It has a low input lag, fast response time, and its infinite contrast ratio makes it the perfect choice for gaming in the dark. However, it doesn't support variable refresh rate technology, and it doesn't have an 'Auto Low Latency Mode'. There's a risk of permanent burn-in, as with all OLEDs, but it shouldn't be an issue if you watch varied content.
The Sony A8H is amazing for watching movies in HDR. Like all OLEDs, it can produce perfect blacks, and it doesn't have any issues with blooming since it can turn pixels off individually. It has a wide color gamut and gets bright enough to make highlights in HDR content pop, especially if you're watching in a darker environment. There's a bit of stutter when watching lower frame rate content, which is caused by the TV's near-instantaneous response time.
The Sony A8H is an impressive TV for HDR gaming. It has a nearly instantaneous response time that makes fast-moving action in video games look crisp, and it has a low input lag. The TV produces perfect black levels and has a wide color gamut that helps bring out highlights in HDR content, despite only getting decently bright. Unfortunately, it doesn't support variable refresh rate technology to reduce screen tearing.
The Sony A8H is a great TV for use as a PC monitor. It has a low input lag, fast response time, and excellent viewing angles, so the edges of the screen won't look washed out if you sit up close. It supports most common resolutions, except for 1440p, and it can display chroma 4:4:4 properly, so text should appear crisp. Unfortunately, there's a risk of permanent burn-in, which can happen with constant exposure to static elements like a desktop user interface.
The Sony A8H OLED replaces the Sony A8G OLED from 2019 and is Sony's entry-level OLED for 2020, sitting below their Master series. It competes with other OLED TVs, like the LG CX OLED and the Vizio OLED 2020.
The Sony A8H comes with Sony's two-way position stand, which has two height settings. The higher setting provides enough room for most soundbars, so the lower portion of the screen doesn't get obstructed. The stand comes in four pieces: two feet and two brackets. The brackets and the feet can be set in different configurations to achieve the desired height.
Footprint of the 55" stand in the elevated position: 41.3" x 12.8".
The back of the screen itself is metal, but the rest is made out of plastic. There's not much in terms of cable management; you can only route the cables through the back of the stand. If you choose to wall-mount it, it's compatible with Sony's SU-WL855 slim wall-mount.
The Sony A8H doesn't have a local dimming feature since there's no backlight. OLED panels can turn off pixels individually, so there are no issues with blooming, and subtitles are displayed perfectly.
Decent SDR peak brightness. The brightness varies depending on the scene. It's better suited for a dark to moderately-lit room, as it may have trouble overcoming glare in a very bright environment. That said, it's a very decent upgrade from the Sony A8G OLED.
During our testing, we observed that the peak brightness ramps up over some time and then drops very quickly once it reaches its peak. This happens during static scenes and can take up to 45 seconds to ramp up to its peak brightness. This isn't noticeable in normal content, though.
We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration, using the 'Custom' Picture Mode, 'Expert 1' Color Temperature, and with Peak Luminance set to 'High'.
Decent HDR peak brightness. There's a lot of variation in brightness across different content. This is enough to deliver a good HDR experience.
We measured the HDR peak brightness before calibration, using the 'Custom' Picture Mode and 'Expert 2' Color Temperature. Brightness was set to maximum and Contrast was left at '90', which is the default.
The Sony A8H has excellent gray uniformity, although this can vary between units. There's almost no visible dirty screen effect, which is great for watching sports or scenes with a lot of uniform colors. Uniformity is even better in darker scenes. We didn't notice any horizontal or vertical banding like on some other OLEDs, although this may occur with more extensive use over time.
The Sony A8H has exceptional reflection handling. You shouldn't have issues using it in a bright room with multiple light sources. If you want a TV with slightly better reflection handling, check out the Vizio OLED 2020.
Update 12/09/2020: We remeasured the accuracy after calibrating our spectroradiometer. The review has been updated.
Out of the box, the Sony A8H has excellent color accuracy, although this can vary between units. Inaccuracies with most colors shouldn't be noticeable to the naked eye. The color temperature is a bit cold, giving the image a slight blue tint. Gamma follows the target fairly well, except most scenes are still too bright.
After calibration, the color accuracy is exceptional. Gamma, color temperature, and white balance are all nearly perfect. Color accuracy has improved, but there are still some issues with the color blue.
You can see our recommended settings here.
Native 4k content is displayed perfectly. We didn't see any signs of the issue that the Sony A8G OLED had with text rendering when using the TV as a PC monitor.
The Sony A8H has a four sub-pixel structure, like all other OLED TVs. The four sub-pixels are never on at the same time. You can see the green sub-pixel in this photo.
The Sony A8H has an excellent HDR color gamut. It has superb coverage of the commonly used DCI P3 color gamut, and its coverage of the wider Rec 2020 is decent. The EOTF follows the PQ curve almost perfectly, with only some brightening in darker scenes to avoid crushing. Like other Sony OLED TVs, it has a very sharp roll-off towards the TV's peak brightness. The 'Game' mode EOTF is nearly identical, which you can see here.
If you find HDR content too dim, you can make it brighter by setting Advanced Contrast Enhancer to 'High', Peak Brightness to 'High', and Brightness to maximum. These settings will result in this EOTF. You can also increase the Gamma slider and the Black Level for an even brighter image, although they weren't used for our EOTF measurement.
This TV has good color volume. It displays dark colors well due to its superb contrast ratio, but it has a bit of trouble displaying very bright colors.
Exceptional gradient handling. There's only a little bit of banding in the darker shades of gray, green, and red. Enabling Smooth Gradation removes most of it; however, there's still some banding in the greens. That said, it's more noticeable in our test pattern than in normal content. Do note that using the Smooth Gradation feature can cause a loss of fine details in some scenes.
There's a bit of temporary image retention, but it usually goes away after a few minutes. However, this can vary between units.
This test is only indicative of short-term image retention and not the permanent burn-in that may occur with longer exposure to static images.
Like all OLED TVs, the Sony A8H is susceptible to permanent burn-in. However, we don't expect it to be an issue for most people who watch varied content. Sony has built-in two features that can help minimize the risks, which you can read about here.
If you're concerned about the risks of permanent burn-in, then check out the Sony X950H, which is an LED TV.
Update 07/22/2020: We've retested the BFI and can confirm that when playing 24p content, the flickering frequency is 96Hz with the Clearness slider set to '1' or '2', and setting it to '3' lowers it to 48Hz.
The Sony A8H has an optional Black Frame Insertion feature. It can flicker at 60Hz or 120Hz, regardless of the refresh rate of the content, meaning that you can set it to 60Hz or 120Hz flickering in 60fps content, and the same goes for 120fps content. To get a 60Hz flicker, set Motionflow to 'Custom', then set Clearness to '3'. For a 120Hz flicker, the Clearness slider should be set to '1' or '2'.
Update 07/15/2020: We've retested the motion interpolation with different content and noticed a good amount of artifacts in scenes that have a lot of movement. This is likely due to the TV continuing to interpolate during intense scenes, whereas other TVs tend to stop.
The Sony A8H can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120fps to make motion look smoother. It does a good job in slow-moving scenes, but unfortunately, it introduces a lot of artifacts when the action gets intense. To enable motion interpolation, set Cinemotion to 'Auto' and adjust the Smoothness slider to your preference.
Due to the TV's near-instantaneous response time, lower frame rate content can appear to stutter. If the stuttering bothers you, enabling motion interpolation can help.
The Sony A8H can remove judder from all sources. Although it doesn't require any change in the settings to remove judder in 24p content, it's recommended to set Cinemotion to 'Auto', as without it, there are still a few frames that are out of place. For 60p, 60i, and content from native apps, set Cinemotion to 'Auto', Motionflow to 'Custom', and leave the Smoothness slider at '0'.
The Sony A8H doesn't support any variable refresh rate technologies. If you want an OLED TV with VRR support, check out the LG BX OLED.
The Sony A8H has great low input lag, a significant upgrade from the Sony A8G OLED. It's low as long as you're in 'Game' mode, and PC users can be in either 'Game' or 'Graphics' mode, although 'Game' mode is what we used for testing and is the recommended one. The 'Game' mode input lag should be fine for most casual gaming, but not so much for competitive gaming.
To use motion interpolation, set Motionflow to 'Custom', adjust the Smoothness slider to '3', and set Cinemotion to 'Auto'.