Sony BRAVIA 8 II K65XR80M2 65"

The Sony BRAVIA 8 II 65-inch QD-OLED is a near-perfect TV for movie fans and mixed-use households, serving up perfect blacks, astonishingly accurate color, and the smoothest motion you can buy. Its one real weakness is a single HDMI 2.1 port, which is a headache for multi-console gamers. If you can snag it near the $2,000 mark, it's an outstanding value.

If you've been eyeing a premium 65-inch OLED that doesn't just deliver deep blacks but also some of the most accurate color you'll see outside a mastering monitor, the Sony BRAVIA 8 II K65XR80M2 is probably on your list. It's a 2025 QD-OLED, which means you get that pixel-level lighting for infinite contrast plus a quantum dot layer that pushes color volume way past traditional WOLED panels. Google TV is built right in, and Sony's Cognitive Processor XR handles everything from upscaling old DVDs to smoothing out fast motion. It's aimed at movie lovers and mixed-use households where gaming, streaming, and live sports all share the same screen. Right now prices are bouncing between $2,018 and $3,698 across retailers, so shopping around can save you a serious chunk of change.

We pulled every benchmark and owner review we could get our hands on, and the consensus is clear: this TV's picture processing and motion handling are the absolute best right now. Our database scores the display and smart features in the 94th percentile, with audio not far behind at the 93rd. But there's a weird quirk. Our raw picture quality metric lands at a mediocre 36th percentile, mostly because peak brightness numbers don't match Mini-LED competitors. In a dark or moderately lit room, though, the BRAVIA 8 II looks spectacular. The one thing that keeps popping up in user complaints is the single HDMI 2.1 port. For a TV in this price tier, many expected at least two.

Sony packed a lot into the panel: XR Triluminos Max for billions of real-world colors, Acoustic Surface Audio+ that vibrates the screen itself for dialogue, and exclusive PS5 features like Auto Genre Picture Mode. It's a full-featured flagship, but a few corners, like the non-backlit remote and a 100Mbps Ethernet port, remind you that even Sony has to cut somewhere.

Out of the box, the BRAVIA 8 II makes a killer first impression. The QD-OLED panel hits those perfect blacks we obsess over, but it's the color accuracy that really separates it from the pack. Sony's XR Triluminos Max tech taps the quantum dot layer to cover a massive color gamut, and the Cognitive Processor XR does an eerily good job of making skin tones look natural. In our testing, motion handling is a standout, the XR OLED Motion tech keeps 24fps movies looking filmic without soap opera effect, and 120Hz native refresh with VRR makes fast games feel buttery. The audio is surprising for a flat panel: Acoustic Surface Audio+ uses actuators behind the screen to turn the entire display into a speaker, and with Dolby Atmos support, dialogue sounds like it's coming right from the actors' mouths.

For gamers, the 120Hz panel combined with VRR and ALLM over HDMI 2.1 means your PS5 or Xbox Series X will run at full tilt, low input lag, no tearing. But here's the catch: only one of the four HDMI ports is the full-fat 2.1 bandwidth. If you've got both consoles and a gaming PC, you'll be swapping cables. Our lab numbers reflect this: gaming capability sits in the 79th percentile, solid but not leading because of the single high-bandwidth port. Connectivity overall is top-tier (94th percentile), with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3, but we should mention the Ethernet port is capped at 100Mbps, not gigabit. That's fine for streaming 4K, but if you're pulling huge game downloads over a wired connection, it's a bottleneck.

Let's talk money. The BRAVIA 8 II's price tag is all over the place: we've seen it as low as $2,018 bundled with a protection plan and cable, and as high as $3,698. At the $2K end, it's a screaming deal for a 65-inch QD-OLED with this level of processing. That's cheaper than the Samsung S95F and LG G5 in the same size, and you're getting Sony's legendary motion and upscaling. At the full $3.7K, you're brushing up against 77-inch OLED territory, and at that point you really need to be a die-hard Sony fan. Our advice: wait for a sale or poke around for the bundled deals that crop up at major online retailers. If you're paying over $2,500, you should seriously consider stepping up to a larger screen or looking at the Samsung S95F, which trades a bit of Sony's color accuracy for extra brightness and more HDMI 2.1 ports.

The BRAVIA 8 II's most direct rival is the Samsung S95F (QN65S95FAFXZA), another 65-inch QD-OLED. Picture-wise, they're both stunning, but Sony's motion processing pulls ahead in sports and fast action. Samsung fights back with a brighter panel and, crucially, four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, so if you've got all the consoles, Samsung might be the smarter buy. The LG G5 Series (OLED83G5WUA, though usually compared in 65-inch) uses WOLED with MLA tech for higher peak brightness, but its color volume can't touch the QD-OLED's saturation. That said, the G5's matte screen does better in bright rooms.

Then there are the Mini-LED monsters: the Hisense U8 (65U8QG) and TCL QM8K Series (75QM8K, but also available in 65-inch) deliver eye-searing HDR brightness at half the price of the Sony. They get black levels remarkably close now, but off-angle viewing and blooming still give away the backlight. If you're in a sun-drenched living room and care more about daytime football than midnight movies, one of those might actually be a better fit. The Roku Plus Series (55R6C7) is in a different league, budget-friendly but no match for OLED contrast.

Skip the BRAVIA 8 II if you need more than one HDMI 2.1 port for a gaming PC plus consoles, because swapping cables gets old fast. Also, if your living room is flooded with daylight and you don't want to tinker with settings, a bright Mini-LED like the Hisense U8 or TCL QM8K will give you better daytime visibility without the dimming dance. Over-the-air TV fans might be annoyed by the slow tuner and short power cord, and anyone who insists on a backlit remote will need to budget for a third-party replacement. Budget shoppers can pocket a grand and still get a great picture from the TCL QM8K, but you lose the OLED's perfect blacks and Sony's processing magic.

If you're the type of viewer who grins during dark scene transitions because the blacks just vanish, and you don't want to fiddle with settings for hours to get colors right, the BRAVIA 8 II is one of the most rewarding TVs we've tested. It nails the cinema experience in a way that few sets can, and the built-in audio is good enough that you might skip a soundbar for casual watching. The Google TV interface is snappy and stays out of your way. So, should you buy it? For mixed movie and single-console gaming, absolutely. The picture quality is jaw-dropping, and motion handling is the best in the business right now.

But Sony's decision to stick with one HDMI 2.1 port in 2025 feels stubborn, and the non-backlit remote is a silly oversight for a TV that'll cost you over two grand. If you've got a home theater PC and both next-gen consoles, you will be frustrated. Also, if your room gets blitzed with sunlight all day, the auto brightness limiter can make the screen look cloudy until you dig into settings. For most people, though, these are small trade-offs that don't spoil what is otherwise a phenomenal OLED.