Sony Bravia 9 Review Best Mini-LED TV Ever

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Okay folks, the wait is finally over. Welcome to  the most requested TV review I've ever made. It's   time to talk about the super hyped, hugely  ambitious, highly anticipated Sony Bravia   9 TV. Better buckle [Music] up. Welcome back,  everyone. I'm Caleb Denison, and let me start   by thanking you for your patience. I mean,  not patience in spirit because all of y'all   in the comment section of just about every video  I've made for the last 6 weeks or so have seemed   anything but patient. But you've waited, you're  here now, and I thank you for enduring the wait. Now, for those of you who don't count  yourselves among the TV Enthusiast crowd,   the buildup to the Sony Bravia 9 TV, also known  as the XR90, has been rather dramatic. It started  

with a rather exclusive trip to Sony's Tokyo  headquarters where, for the first time,   Sony peeled back the super secretive curtain  and a few TV panel layers on its mini LED   backlight technology. The anticipation was  then further intensified more recently at   a special press event that Sony held at the  Sony Pictures lot in Culver City, California,   where journalists who had previously only  read about the forthcoming Bravia 9 got to   see it in action. The acclaim for this  TV has been almost entirely universal. So, super exciting TV. You'd think  that I'd hurry up and review it,   but as I explained in other videos, between  the availability of Sony Bravia 9 review units,   a short 9-day vacation that I took, and the  arrival of a rather imposing 115-inch monster TV,   this review was always going to be a little later  than I wanted. But there were some other TVs I   wanted to test before I got to the Bravia 9, the  reasons for which will soon be clear. And frankly,  

I feel like the stakes are pretty  high for this review. And I mean,   even right now, I really want to get this  review right. Doing things right takes time,   so thanks again for your patience. Now,  I hope to make that patience pay off. So, for anyone unaware, what makes the  Bravia 9 seem like such a big deal? Well,   for the full story on that, check  out this video that I did digging   into Sony's new backlight tech. But  the short and sweet version is this:  

Sony developed a new little IC chip that allows  very granular dimming control over its mini LED   backlights. That control promises to deliver  intensely bright HDR highlights and overall   brightness while also delivering the kind of  high-performance black levels and contrast   one could previously only get from an OLED  TV. And with that promise, the question that   has managed to arise in discussion forums has  become: is the Sony Bravia 9 an OLED killer? Well, I'll tell you right now that I have always  thought that was the wrong question to ask. And  

I'll take it a step further and tell you right  now that the Bravia 9 is not an OLED killer. No   consumer LCD-based TV ever will be an OLED  killer, and I'll explain why shortly. But,   like I just said, asking if the Bravia 9  is an OLED killer is a distraction. Now,   I'm going to do something I don't normally do,  and I'm going to give you the goods on this TV   right now. The Bravia design is an astonishing,  thrilling, and otherwise absolutely delightful   TV. It's a marvel of engineering. It raises the  bar, and yet it is not perfect, and it will not  

be the right choice for everyone. I'll make the  reasons why that is the case clear soon enough. Now, I know a lot of you want me to just get to  the picture quality already, and I hear that. But   we have to talk about everything this TV offers  and doesn't offer for one very important reason:   the AA 9 is remarkably expensive,  $3,000 right now for the 65-inch,   and that's like barking into LG G4 premium  OLED territory. And while stellar picture   quality is reason enough for some folks to  pry their wallets wide open, most folks are   going to want to know that if they lay down  big bucks for a premium TV, that it's going   to feel like one of the best investments they've  ever made. So, let's dig into that notion first.

Best as I can tell, Sony skimped on nothing with  the Bravia 9. Now, for those of you rushing to   your keyboards about HDMI 2.1 inputs, I'll address  that in the nit nerds section. Just hold on to   your shorts for a second. Everything really about  this TV feels premium and delightful. I don't say   delightful about TVs a whole lot, but I kind  of feel like doing that with this TV. I mean,  

it starts with the fact that this TV is  exceptionally well packed for safe transit,   minimizing the risk of damage to the panel. Sony  offers a four-way stand that allows for a narrow   stance on smaller cabinets or a wider one for  a bit more stability. In either placement,   the TV can be positioned at two heights:  one low slung for a sleeker look,   the other slightly higher to accommodate  a soundbar, and the feet are metal,   not plastic. The TV's cabinet is light yet  strong with a brushed metal frame that yields   virtually no bezels along the top and sides  and a thin plastic border at the bottom. Now, the remote is not metal this year,  which seemed like a skimp until you know   it's made of Sony's Sorplas material, which  was created by Sony's own Material Sciences   division. It's light and strong, so it's  built to last. The remote is backlit, yay,   USB rechargeable, yay, and has a remote  finder speaker built in, again, yay.

The Bravia 9, like all Sony TVs, runs  the Google TV smart TV OS with Sony's   custom UI laid over it, and I've grown  to love how Sony has set this up. So,   you have all the essential settings in a ribbon  at the bottom of the screen, with less popular   and more granular settings available if you  dig just a bit further. I really appreciate   that Sony limits the number of clicks that you  have to make to get to what you need and want,   and that extends to Sony's choice to have  the TV tune to the last used input when you   turn it on. So, instead of always going to the  Google TV home screen like so many other TVs   do when you turn it on, if it was on HDMI 1,  like where you might have your cable TV box,   the TV will be tuned to HDMI 1 automatically when  you turn it back on, instantly showing you what's   on your cable TV. You're never forced to navigate  to an input from the home screen unless it's a   switch from your typical routine, and I think  that will count for a lot with a lot of folks. But the most premium non-picture quality-related  aspect of the Bravia 9 is the onboard audio   system. Guys, I don't think viewers are talking  about this enough. The built-in audio system on  

this TV is tremendously good. It is, by a  significant margin, the best-sounding TV   I've ever reviewed, and that includes Sony's own  OLED TVs where the sound literally comes from the   screen. What this TV has going on that others  don't is some seriously robust bass response.   The bass doesn't just get deep and provide  a sense of rumble that other TVs just don't,   but it adds weight and makes the overall sound  super robust. The fidelity is outstanding for  

an onboard TV audio system, but what really  pushes it over the top is Sony's Voice Zoom tech,   which makes dialogue clear and intelligible  even in super challenging situations. At least,   that is when you connect a compatible Sony  audio system. I had a way better experience   with Voice Zoom on the Bravia Theater Quad  than I did directly from the TV. Still,   this TV has the goods to make dialogue very  clear and audible. I just think Sony needs  

to tweak it a little bit on the TV itself,  which I'm going to try to work with them on. Anyway, I've always felt that a premium TV,  especially the most expensive ones, needed to   have super impressive sound, and this TV has got  it big time. Huge kudos to the audio engineers   that built this TV's sound system. You all deserve  a shiny medal and a fun night out on the town. So,  

you're going to spend big money on this TV.  I mean, the Sony tax is in full effect here,   but I feel like Sony has done a sufficient  job of delivering a premium experience outside   of picture quality. But, as we all know,  the picture quality is what counts most,   and I've already told you it's tremendously  good. Now, I'm going to describe how and why  

it's so good, along with whether it may or may  not be what you want or need. To kick that off,   it's time for numbers for nit nerds. This  is the section where we dig into the deeper   technical data that I gathered on this TV.  If you aren't interested, that's all good.   I'll summarize what you need to know in a moment,  and you can skip to that part using the time code   links we've put down in the description.  For you nit nerds out there, here we go. For the most part, I did my evaluation with  the TV in the professional picture preset,   both for SDR and HDR. This would be the equivalent  to a filmmaker mode on other TVs. I did, however,   also test the cinema and standard picture presets  so I could get a feel for the TV's bright room   capabilities. For SDR content in professional  SDR mode, I got almost exactly 100 nits peak  

brightness, which is the most PR mode thing that  you can do since SDR content only has info for   up to 100 nits. You can, of course, make the TV  insanely bright for SDR if you want. Choosing   cinema mode bumped up peak SDR brightness  to 400 nits, which is more than enough for   most people, even in bright rooms. In fact, many  pro calibrators I've spoken to say they rarely   take their calibrations past 300 nits for SDR.  You can, as you'll soon learn, make the TV even   brighter though, brighter than you will need  or want it to be for most viewing situations. Now, the two-point white balance didn't come  out quite as I'd expected. Sony doesn't tend  

to target D65 with its in-house calibration,  so I didn't expect that right out of the box.   But I didn't expect the blue channel, and only the  blue channel, to be low in the bright whites. Now,   this chart makes it look far lower than it  actually is. The Delta E here is under four,   so barely perceivable to the naked eye and  easily remedied with a little calibration. So,   not at all an issue, just kind of a surprise to  me as a reviewer. Now, when we take a look at   the grayscale, it tracks with what the two-point  white balance suggests: deadly accurate toward the   low end and just barely off at the high end,  again assuming a D65 white point standard is   your intended target. Now, the gamma measurement  is also very good here, though not perfection.

Color gamut readings are excellent. Everything  other than white is below a Delta E of two,   though technically the LG G4 OLED I tested  was slightly better, not that you can tell   with the naked eye. The Bravia 9 also aces the  challenging color checker in CalMAN. Again,   only the whites daring edge over  Delta E of three, so outstanding   here as well. Color saturation: again  excellent. Color luminance: mostly excellent,  

except oddly enough low luminance blue  was out, which is kind of curious. Moving on to HDR, which I know is where the  exciting numbers tend to be. PQ EOTF tracking   was excellent, just about dead on the entire  way, super impressive. The brightest whites:  

again a little lean in the blue, which I'd want  to fix in a calibration. This was in the Pro mode,   though. If you choose the cinema  mode, though, the EOTF tracks high,   so it boosts HDR brightness across the  board, which is not accurate, but it is   going to be preferred by most viewers. I think  that was a super smart decision on Sony's part. Peak luminance with a 10% white window was  right at 2800 nits, with full-screen white   coming in just under 1000 nits. That's important  because it's a clue toward how intensely bright   this TV's APL can be. Now, when I ran the  Spears and Munsil peak HDR highlight test,  

HDR highlights came in at 1800 nits. However, you  have to think of that as an average. The TV did   provide HDR highlights above the 2000-nit  level; it just depended on the APL of the   scene it was working on. HDR color accuracy was  again outstanding. Color volume was excellent,   and predictably, the TV does great with Rec. 2020  color up to a certain color brightness level where   it peters out. That's just LCD technology for you.  2D OLED remains the king of Rec. 2020 coverage,  

but keep in mind there's precious little  Rec. 2020 color content out there today. Now,   what's more important is total DCI-P3  color coverage, and the Bravia 9 nails it. So, if you're just rejoining us because  you skipped ahead, the summary is:   by the measurements, the Bravia 9 comes in as  one of the top three 2024 TVs you can buy this   year. The LG G4 and LG C4 are its toughest  competition in the measurement department,  

but the Bravia 9 holds its own very  well considering it isn't an OLED. Now, I want to do a quick breakdown of some  key picture quality performance observations.   But first, let me just tell you what the Bravia 9  actually is. I mentioned it isn't an OLED killer,   but why is that? What is this TV? Well, in short,  the Bravia 9 is the best mini LED TV ever made,   in my judgment, and that's because it manages to  strike the best possible balance between what a   mini LED-backlit LCD TV can do and what an OLED  TV can do. The Bravia 9, at times, could pass   for an OLED TV. However, in very challenging dark  scenes and if you're watching in the dark, you can   see where it comes up short of OLED. But in most  scenes, its prodigious brightness power makes it  

clear that it is a better bright room TV than  even the LG G4 OLED. It's just got more muscle. Let me be crystal clear in the briefest way  possible: if you do most of your watching in a   dark room, an OLED is still the better choice.  But if you need your TV to be as flexible as   possible, and you want it to look amazing no  matter what the ambient conditions may be,   the Bravia 9 does that better than  anything else. Here's how and why. Now, the Bravia 9's brightness capabilities are  right up there with the brightest TVs on the   market. Now, that statement may not make sense  when I have reported on TVs that measured much  

brighter, but real brightness capabilities must  always be measured in real-world performance,   and that performance is determined by the  TV's processor. Sony's processing delivers   the brightness where and when you need it. The  Bravia 9 often comes off as brighter than TVs   like TCL's Q8, which measures in the 4,000 to  5,000 nit zone, and that's simply because it can   deliver high brightness in more real-world  scenarios. This TV is awesomely bright. I do want to be super clear here, though. The  brightness capabilities of this TV won't always   be apparent. It's highly content dependent. Like  here, we've got the Mad Max 4K HDR Blu-ray going   to both the Bravia 9 up top and the A95L QD  OLED on the bottom. Both are in the accurate  

professional mode; all the other settings are  about the same. You might expect the bright   flames in this scene to be notably brighter on  the Bravia 9 than they are on the A95L. However,   they aren't. In fact, they are very closely  matched. But what makes the Bravia 9 different   than other mini LED TVs that could be here in  this comparison is the subtlety in the contrast   that other mini LED TVs cannot pull off. That's  why it looks so OLED-like. But in other scenes,   particularly those mastered at 4,000 nits,  the tiny HDR highlights will be brighter   than the A95L OLED can pull off, and in very high  APL scenes with a lot of snow or maybe hockey or   something like that, it will not only be brighter  on the Bravia 9, but it isn't going to dim ever. So, that's the story with this TV's brightness.  It's there when it should be, there when it needs  

to be, and it gets out of the way at the right  times too. Which brings us to the next section:   high brightness is only impressive if  it's part of a high contrast image.   If you don't have deep blacks and  great overall contrast scene to scene,   that high brightness makes a picture look washed  out instead of pop. This right here is what makes  

the Bravia 9 so special. It makes the right  choices when managing its backlights so that   you get the right blend of deep blacks, high  contrast, and bright highlights, as well as   bright and punchy high-brightness scenes. And due  to the decisions Sony's processor executes on,   you also get blooming and halo that  is so minimized it's a non-issue. Now, that does mean that there are some  extremely challenging scenes in which you   can see the backlight doing something that you  might not expect. That happened to me during  

this evaluation. I referenced it actually  in a little YouTube short that I did. Check   this out. This is the end credits of Obi-Wan  Kenobi on Disney Plus. Now, as you can see,   we've got a starry space scene here, and  onto it splashes these bright credits. When   the bright credit comes up, you'll notice  that not just the bright credit comes up,   all of the stars get brighter too,  and then when the credit disappears,   the brightness of the stars goes back down. It  kind of looks like global brightening and dimming. Now, you may wonder, as I did, why Sony  didn't just juice up only the backlights   behind the credit. I mean, isn't that the point  of local dimming? But as Sony explains it to me,   there are two choices here, right? One is that you  do juice up just the backlights behind the credit,   which would leave the rest of the scene at the  same luminance, but the trade-off there is that   if you did that, you'd have a lot of blooming, and  we'd complain about that, right? That blooming is   not very OLED-like. Or you can choose to raise  everything in a challenging scene like this,  

and yeah, the stars brighten up and then dim  down, but you don't get any blooming. Guys,   there are only two choices here, and that's true  of any mini LED-backlight TV, anything other than   a dual-cell LCD TV that has basically pixel-level  dimming or an OLED TV. Those are the two choices,   and I think Sony made the right one. If you  have a particularly dark image on the screen  

and then a huge bright object comes up, you'll  notice the illuminated elements on the dark   background might get a little bit brighter.  But those instances are few and far between,   and the benefit of this approach is that when  those instances do happen, you don't get blooming.   And the really great news is that something small  and more localized to one portion of the screen,   like closed captions, they don't trigger that  decision. So, you get virtually blooming-free   closed captions on a jet-black letterbox bar  with no adjustment to the overall picture level.

Now, as I mentioned in the nit nerd section,  the color on this TV is tremendous. QD-OLED can   beat it mostly because it can have higher color  brightness, and that gives off a brighter-feeling   image, but for most of what you'll watch, the  color is top-notch both in terms of accuracy   and pop. For motion, well, it's an LCD TV, so  it's not going to have the instant response   time of an OLED, but I actually see that as  a benefit more than a liability. With OLEDs,   the pixel response time is so instantaneous  that bright pixels lighting up so quickly can   create a strobing or stutter effect. You won't  get that here, and Sony's processing reduces   judder as well as, if not better than,  others. You're getting top-quality motion  

with this TV. I didn't watch a ton of sports,  but what I did watch was fast-paced, and it   looked great to me without the aid of motion  smoothing, so that's a win for the motion section. Now, as for gaming, I think what makes this  TV great for gaming is the fact that it has   all the gaming feature support that most  people want and need. It offers some of the   best picture quality that you can get from  a non-OLED TV while not running any risk of   burn-in or running into auto brightness  limiter. You know, it doesn't do 144 Hz,  

so it isn't perhaps going to unlock that one  feature for those using high-end gaming PCs,   but it does support VRR, ALLM, and source-based  tone mapping, so it's a great companion to both   the Xbox and PS5 consoles. Again, pixel  response time isn't as quick as OLED, so   you may get a little more color smearing than you  do with OLED, but with picture quality like this,   no burn-in risk, no dimming, it's hard to imagine  most folks playing video games being disappointed. So, guys, the Bravia 9 is not trying to  be an OLED. It's trying to be the best  

of both worlds when that is nearly  impossible to pull off. Remember,   compromises are inevitable. It's always going to  be a question of were the right decisions made,   and I think Sony has made all the right decisions  here. That's a matter of personal preference,   but that's where I stand on the matter. Guys,  there's just no question that the Bravia 9 is  

a remarkable TV, and it's got a remarkable  price to match. I suppose you feel empowered   to do that when you're making something that  nobody else is making. But frankly, the high   price is the Bravia 9's only real weakness, and  it is a major one since that is what will stand   in the way of more folks owning such an amazing  TV. But at the end of the day, it is amazing, and   I'm glad about that. I wondered if it could stand  up to the hype, and I think it absolutely does. Thanks so much for watching, everyone. What's  your take on the Bravia 9? Have you seen it in  

action in person? Let me know your thoughts  in the comments. If you like this video,   do us a favor and smash that like button.  Subscribe if you want to see more. I'll   see you on the next one, and until then, here  are two other videos I think you might like. you know what you're going to timeout the  robot vac is in timeout can we start this thing

2024-07-26

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