The Sony BRAVIA 8 II OLED is the 2025 successor to the Sony A95L OLED. It technically sits above the Sony BRAVIA 8 OLED, which has been carried over from 2024. It only sits below the flagship Sony BRAVIA 9. It uses a new QD-OLED panel, the same one found in the Samsung S95F OLED. The TV uses an upgraded version of Sony's XR Processor, which includes an AI feature that automatically adjusts picture settings based on the type of content you're watching. It has many of the same features as Sony's other higher-end models, so you get HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports, 4k @ 120Hz, VRR, Dolby Vision, and DTS audio passthrough. It also has Sony's S-Center input, which allows you to use the TV's speakers as a dedicated center channel when paired with compatible soundbars. It runs version 12 of the popular Google TV OS, so you get access to a huge selection of apps. We bought and tested the 65-inch model, but it's also available in a 55-inch option.
Our Verdict
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II is excellent for mixed usage. It looks stellar in a dark room, thanks to its perfect black levels, vibrant colors, and great HDR brightness. The TV offers modern gaming features and, combined with its excellent image quality, it's a solid choice for gamers. It has solid reflection handling, but it's only bright enough to overcome glare in a moderately lit room, and blacks look gray in a room with ambient lighting; you don't enjoy the same image quality when you flip your lights on. Fortunately, the TV has an incredibly wide viewing angle, making it an outstanding choice for a wide seating arrangement.
Perfect blacks with no blooming around bright highlights.
Incredibly wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
Colors are vibrant, lifelike, and bright.
Does a great job lessening the intensity of direct reflections.
Black levels are significantly raised in a bright room.
Not bright enough in SDR for well-lit rooms.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II is outstanding for a home theater. It displays perfect black levels with no blooming at all, making it look stellar in a dark room. You also get well-saturated, lifelike, and bright colors in both SDR and HDR thanks to its outstanding color volume, so it truly delivers a vibrant image. Highlights in HDR content really pop out in most scenes, but the TV is noticeably dimmer in rare HDR scenes that are entirely bright. Still, HDR content looks great, and it respects the filmmaker's intent when it comes to colors and the brightness of HDR content. Like all OLEDs, there's noticeable stutter during slow camera movements, so they aren't as smooth as they're intended to be.
Perfect blacks with no blooming around bright highlights.
Colors are vibrant, lifelike, and bright.
Does a superb job upscaling and a great job cleaning up low-quality content.
Impressive HDR peak brightness means highlights really pop.
Very good color accuracy in HDR.
Very noticeable stutter due to the TV's fast response time.
Mediocre SDR color accuracy before calibration.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II is decent for a bright room. It does a great job reducing the intensity of direct reflections caused by light sources placed opposite the screen, and it's bright enough in SDR to overcome glare in a moderately lit room. However, it's not bright enough for well-lit rooms, especially when your curtains are open on a sunny day. The TV does a very good job of retaining its color vibrancy in a bright room, although dark colors do lose some perceived saturation. Unfortunately, black levels are raised in a bright room, making them look grayish with a slight purple tint.
Colors stay vibrant in a room with ambient lighting.
Does a great job lessening the intensity of direct reflections.
Black levels are significantly raised in a bright room.
Not bright enough in SDR for well-lit rooms.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II is very good for watching sports. It has solid reflection handling overall and adequate SDR brightness, so you don't have to worry about glare in a moderately lit room. However, it's not bright enough to overcome glare on a sunny afternoon with the curtains open. Colors are vibrant, compressed feeds are cleaned up well, and the TV has superb upscaling, so you get a pleasant-looking image from heavily compressed streams and cable broadcasts. You also get an incredibly wide viewing angle, so your friends sitting to the sides of the screen see the same image quality as viewers watching from the front. Finally, motion looks nice and smooth thanks to its nearly instantaneous response time and clean transitions.
Incredibly wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
Does a superb job upscaling and a great job cleaning up low-quality content.
Does a great job lessening the intensity of direct reflections.
Very good gray uniformity with no noticeable dirty screen effect.
No transition artifacts.
Not bright enough in SDR for well-lit rooms.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II is excellent for gaming. It displays perfect blacks, has great HDR brightness for punchy highlights, and displays incredibly vivid colors in SDR and HDR, so you get awesome image quality when playing any game. The TV has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, VRR, and 4k @ 120Hz, so you can take advantage of the features your modern console provides. You also get very clear motion thanks to its nearly instantaneous pixel transitions. Its input lag is low enough for a responsive feel, but it's higher than competing OLEDs from other brands, which is a bit of a drawback if you mostly play PVP titles.
Nearly instantaneous pixel transitions for no noticeable blur behind fast motion.
Colors are vibrant, lifelike, and bright.
Impressive HDR peak brightness means highlights really pop.
Higher input lag than competing models from other brands.
Has only two HDMI 2.1 ports, and the TV is limited to 120Hz, so it's not as versatile and future-proof as competing models from other brands.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has very good brightness overall. It displays very bright highlights in HDR, making them pop during dim and moderately lit scenes. However, the TV is noticeably dimmer in HDR during well-lit scenes with large areas of brightness. Its SDR brightness is adequate for a moderately lit room with some overhead lights on, but it's not bright enough to overcome glare in well-lit rooms.
Impressive HDR peak brightness means highlights really pop.
Not bright enough in SDR for well-lit rooms.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II is an OLED, so it has perfect black levels. Blacks are deep and inky when viewed in a dark room, with no blooming around bright highlights.
Perfect blacks with no blooming around bright highlights.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has excellent colors overall. It has outstanding color volume in SDR and HDR, so colors are bright and well-saturated regardless of the format of your content. Colors have very good accuracy in HDR without calibration, so most viewers who care about the filmmaker's intent will be pleased. However, its SDR color accuracy out of the box is mediocre, so you need to get the TV calibrated if you want movies and shows to look the way they should.
Colors are vibrant, lifelike, and bright.
Very good color accuracy in HDR.
Mediocre SDR color accuracy before calibration.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II OLED has very good motion handling when watching all types of content. The TV is free from transition artifacts, so colors are consistent, and there's no ghosting in fast-paced scenes and sports. There's some subtle judder with 25p content being sent via a 60p signal, which leads to hiccups in motion when watching some European content on older streaming devices. However, the TV is completely judder-free with all other signals and from the internal apps. Unfortunately, there's visible micro-judder when watching movies and shows from a 60p signal, so scenes with a lot of movement on the screen look a bit choppy if you're streaming from an older device. Like any OLED, there's stutter that's most noticeable during slow panning shots.
No transition artifacts.
Removes judder from most content.
No micro-judder except when using an older streaming device.
Perfect lighting zone transitions.
Very noticeable stutter due to the TV's fast response time.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has excellent responsiveness in its dedicated game mode. It supports up to 4k @ 120Hz with either G-SYNC or HDMI Forum VRR on two of its HDMI 2.1 ports, making it a good choice to pair with modern consoles. Motion is crisp thanks to its nearly instantaneous pixel transitions, so you get the clearest motion possible at both 60Hz and 120Hz. The TV's input lag is low enough that you don't feel a delay with your inputs, but it's notably higher than competing models from other brands, which isn't ideal for playing competitive titles where every millisecond counts.
Nearly instantaneous pixel transitions for no noticeable blur behind fast motion.
Higher input lag than competing models from other brands.
Has only two HDMI 2.1 ports, and the TV is limited to 120Hz, so it's not as versatile and future-proof as competing models from other brands.
Note: We're in the process of improving our tests related to image processing, but this score should give you a general idea of how a TV performs overall with its image processing capabilities.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II has amazing processing capabilities. It does a great job cleaning up artifacts in heavily compressed low-quality content, and it does a superb job upscaling low-resolution content, making it a great choice when the quality of your movies, shows, and games isn't ideal. The TV respects the filmmaker's intent when it comes to the brightness of HDR content, so it's outstanding if you care about accuracy. Although there's a bit more banding than most other QD-OLED TVs, it's barely noticeable with real content, so you aren't distracted by ugly lines in color gradients.
Does a superb job upscaling and a great job cleaning up low-quality content.
Outstanding HDR brightness accuracy.
Very little banding in color gradients.
Performance Usages
Changelog
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Updated Mar 10, 2026:
We added text to our new Motion Handling performance usage and our new Transition Artifacts and Stutter Reduction Via Interpolation test sections after converting the review to TV 2.2.
- Updated Mar 10, 2026: This review has been updated to TV 2.2. We've added new sections for Transition Artifacts and Stutter Reduction Via Interpolation, and updated the way we test Stutter. Additionally, we removed the 'Broken' disclaimer from our Motion Handling usage.
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Updated Oct 21, 2025:
This review has been updated to Test Bench 2.1. We wrote text for the newly added Micro-Judder test, refreshed the text in the updated Judder section, and tweaked the text in the renamed Response Time Stutter section.
- Updated Oct 21, 2025: We added text to the new Micro-Judder section and refreshed the text in the updated Judder and Response Time Stutter sections after converting the review to TV 2.1.
Check Price
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the 65-inch Sony BRAVIA 8 II, and these results also apply to the 55-inch model. This TV has no known variants, and it's the same in all regions.
| Size | Model |
|---|---|
| 55" | K55XR80M2 |
| 65" | K65XR80M2 |
Our unit was manufactured in April 2025, as seen on the label.
Popular TV Comparisons
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II OLED is an excellent TV overall, albeit a bit disappointing. Despite coming out almost two years after the enthusiast-oriented Sony A95L OLED, it barely does anything better than that TV. It uses the same QD-OLED panel as the Samsung S95F OLED, but it's not nearly as bright as that TV is. The TV is barely any brighter than its predecessor in HDR, and you'd be hard-pressed to notice a difference between them if you had the two TVs side by side. Sadly, it's dimmer than the A95L in SDR and has worse SDR color accuracy out of the box. It even has a bit more banding than its predecessor in color gradients. There isn't much that it does better than the A95L, so if you want a Sony QD-OLED for your home theater, you're better off getting the cheaper and better overall A95L. If you want an OLED that performs well in a bright room, the Samsung S95F OLED is a much better option.
For more options, check out our recommendations for the best OLED TVs, the best gaming TVs, and the best TVs for watching movies.
The LG G5 OLED is better overall than the Sony BRAVIA 8 II OLED. The LG is the much brighter TV overall, so it delivers more impactful highlights in HDR and overcomes a lot more glare in a well-lit room. The LG also does a superior job of retaining its black levels and color saturation in a bright room. When it comes to gaming performance, the LG is better since it provides lower input lag, up to 4k @ 165Hz, 4 HDMI 2.1 ports, and supports FreeSync. On the other hand, the Sony has the advantage when it comes to color vibrancy and gradient handling due to its QD-OLED panel.
The Sony A95L OLED and the Sony BRAVIA 8 II OLED are very similar overall, but the A95L is a bit better. The A95L is brighter in SDR, has better accuracy in SDR, and has less banding in color gradients. On the other hand, the BRAVIA 8 II has a slight edge with HDR brightness and color volume. With most content, you won't notice a difference between them, so go with whatever model is more affordable.
The Sony BRAVIA 9 is built for bright living rooms, pushing much higher full-screen bright scenes and SDR brightness than the Sony BRAVIA 8 II OLED, and its extra dimming zones rein in blooming better than earlier Sony FALD sets. Still, the OLED's classic strengths come through: the BRAVIA 8 II delivers flawless pixel-level blacks and wider viewing angles. Both TVs share Sony's XR processor, Dolby Vision, DTS passthrough, and solid motion interpolation, and both still top out at 4k @ 120Hz on their two full-bandwidth HDMI ports. If glare fighting and SDR punch matter most, the BRAVIA 9 is the safer pick; if you value perfect blacks, the BRAVIA 8 II is the more compelling option.
The Sony BRAVIA 8 II OLED is better than the Sony BRAVIA 8 OLED. The BRAVIA 8 II is a lot brighter in HDR, so it provides more impactful highlights in HDR content, and it's the more accurate TV. The BRAVIA 8 II also has the advantage when it comes to colors, thanks to its QD-OLED panel, so you get more vibrant colors with less banding in gradients. However, the BRAVIA 8 has lower input lag.
We buy and test dozens of TVs yearly, taking an objective, data-driven approach to deliver results you can trust. Our testing process is complex, with hundreds of individual tests that take over a week to complete. Most of our tests use specially designed test patterns that mimic real content, but we also use the same sources you have at home to ensure our results match the real-world experience. We use two main tools for our testing: a Colorimetry Research CR-100 colorimeter and a CR-250 spectroradiometer.
Test Results
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