Sony’s strategy for its 2024 TV lineup is about as bold and unconventional as it gets. While practically every other manufacturer has shown off a full range of brand-new TVs with an advanced OLED model taking the flagship spot, Sony has instead put its eggs in the Mini LED basket with the Bravia 9.
It’s just one of three new models for 2024, while the rest of Sony’s lineup comprises TVs released either last year or even the year before. Considering Sony’s near-perfect track record within the last year, we wouldn’t have blamed the brand for releasing a lineup of samey sets with modest upgrades and new model numbers for 2024, but it has grander plans.
Instead, it's making a huge gamble by leveraging its experience in the production of films and using that as the philosophy behind this new Bravia range. If Sony has a hand in producing the content – think Sony Pictures as well as the cameras and mastering monitors used to shoot and edit Hollywood films – then surely it should be able to deliver the ideal screen on which to watch said content.
That’s where the Bravia 9 comes in. Its heritage lies in the editing bays of multi-million dollar movie studios, and Sony hasn’t been shy in comparing this TV to its new 4000-nit mastering monitor, the BVM-HX3110. It’s also made direct jabs at OLED, hinting that this new Mini LED backlight could be the next evolutionary step in panel technology. So, has Sony’s big gamble paid off?
Price
Here is where we come across our first sticking point with the Bravia 9. Sony is only selling this TV in 75-inch (the model we have before us today) and 85-inch variants in the UK and Australia, priced at £4499 / $4000 / AU$6995 and £4999 / $5500 / AU$7995 respectively. A 65-inch version exists, but only in the US, where it costs $3300. This is problematic for those with smaller living rooms and tighter budgets, so you might want to consider another option if that applies to you.
Despite being Sony’s latest flagship TV, this isn’t replacing the spectacular A95L (£3699 / $3500 / AU$5995) in Sony’s roster – that TV is rightfully sticking around for a bit longer after launching later than anticipated last year. Instead, the Bravia 9 is positioned as a replacement for the X95L (£2199 / $2199), which was Sony’s high-end Mini LED TV for 2023.
In terms of competition, this TV is up against some tough rivals from the likes of LG and Samsung. The LG G4 (which we have in our TV testing room to compare to the Bravia 9) with its Micro Lens Array brightness boosting tech and the QD-OLED touting Samsung S95D have already scored highly in our reviews, and both are available in 77-inch sizes for less than the Bravia 9. However, the good news is that the Bravia 9 undercuts the 77-inch A95L, which launched at £5999 / $5000 / AU$9495.
Build
At 75 inches, it’s a sizeable opponent to the more conventional 65-inch LG G4 we have placed next to it. It’s also much thicker than the OLED sets we see; however, considering this is a backlit TV, the extra bulk can be somewhat forgiven. Elsewhere the Bravia 9 bears the marks of other Sony sets, including a crosshatched pattern across the back with Sony’s recycled SORPLAS material making up a claimed 65 per cent of the TV’s body – a nice touch for the eco-conscious.
Sony has also continued one of our favourite aspects of its 2023 models with the Bravia 9, and that has to do with the adjustable stand. The Bravia 9 sits atop two fairly flat and minimal feet, however, you can place them in either a wide or narrow configuration depending on the width of your TV stand. Better yet, you can choose between two heights, with a sleek, low-profile option or a higher position to accommodate a soundbar sitting beneath the TV.
Finally, Sony has packaged an updated remote with this new generation of Bravia TVs. The Bravia gets the usual button-heavy affair alongside a new Eco Remote, which is also made of recycled SORPLAS material. It features a new speckled green effect to hint towards its eco-friendliness, a USB-C socket for recharging the internal battery, and the backlit buttons from the previous generation remote also make a comeback. It also has a speaker built in for a handy “find my remote” function and a microphone for interacting with the Google Assistant.
Features
The headlining feature for this TV is Sony’s Mini LED-based backlighting system, which is making its grand debut on the Bravia 9. This is the only TV of the three new models to be graced with the advanced new backlighting system, which leverages Sony’s updated Bravia XR processor alongside more advanced LED drivers. These cutting-edge drivers allow for more granular control of the backlight compared with other Mini LED TVs; each driver consists of six channels, each comprising four LEDs. Each channel can be considered an individual dimming zone.
Sony remains coy with specific details, meaning we don’t know exactly how many dimming zones this TV has, however, it claims that it features three times the dimming zones of the outgoing X95L, as well as being 50 per cent brighter. While we haven’t got exact figures, a quick count during a hands-on event earlier in the year suggested that the 75-inch Bravia 9 has 7680 individual LEDs, 320 LED drivers and 1920 independent dimming zones – though we wouldn't want to bet the house on those figures being 100 per cent accurate.
Screen size 75 inches (also available in 85in, 65in in the US)
Type QLED
Backlight Mini LED
Resolution 4K
HDR formats HLG, HDR10, Dolby Vision HDR
Operating system Google TV
HDMI inputs x 4 – 48Gbps HDMI 2.1 x 2, HDMI 2.0 x 2
Gaming features 4K/120Hz, VRR, ALLM
Input lag 17ms (60Hz)
ARC/eARC eARC
Optical output? Yes
Dimensions (hwd, without stand) 96 x 167 x 4.8cm
Still, that’s a pretty big jump in the sheer quantity of dimming zones. However, Sony stresses that it's the role the drivers themselves play that’s truly the most important factor. The drivers have greater control of the current reaching the Mini LEDs, and therefore it has greater control over the brightness of each dimming zone. This should therefore have a huge impact on contrast and the effectiveness of local dimming, in turn reducing the appearance of blooming and halo effects.
There is, of course, the increase in brightness to account for; while Sony is playing its cards close to its chest in revealing specific figures, it’s been strongly hinted that a figure around 4000 nits might not be far off. Despite the increase in brightness, this backlighting system is supposedly more energy efficient than ever before – Sony claims that the Bravia 9 is 30 per cent more power efficient than the outgoing X95L. You can even track your usage with the Eco Dashboard feature baked into the software, which is also home to a handful of settings and useful tips for those who wish to save on energy consumption. However, if you’re after pure performance, you’ll want to disable those settings as they can limit the TV’s brightness capabilities.
Speaking of software, the Bravia 9 is running the Google TV operating system, which should come as no surprise considering Sony’s 2023 lineup used the same OS. App compatibility is great with no noticeable gaps, including worldwide streaming applications such as Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and, of course, Sony-owned apps such as Sony Pictures Core and Crunchyroll. Local streaming apps are also well supported, with BBC iPlayer, ITV X, Channel 4 and Channel 5 all present and correct. We didn’t come across any noticeable issues with streaming from these apps, with all of them correctly streaming in 4K HDR where applicable.
On the subject of streaming, another feature that’s new on the Bravia 9 is the Amazon Prime Video Calibrated mode. While watching supported Prime Video content, the TV will collect data stored in the cloud to adjust the picture of your TV to suit the content being shown. We took this mode for a quick spin with the macho punch-up blockbuster Road House (the 2024 version, not the 1989 original) and we mostly like what’s on show. It appears to tweak the colours and lighting slightly to capture the grungy and dark atmosphere of the film, however, it can be turned off if you’d prefer to do without this feature. It’s worth noting that calibrated modes for Sony Pictures Core (formerly Bravia Core) and Netflix already exist on previous Sony models, and these modes also return on the Bravia 9.
One thing that we aren’t as much of a fan of is how sluggish the set can feel at times. Despite Sony's super smart and powerful Bravia XR Processor running the show, we can’t help but feel that the settings menus and Google TV home screen could be a bit more responsive. Considering we spend quite a lot of time jumping in and out of the picture menu to fiddle with individual settings, it becomes a touch frustrating the more we test this TV. We don’t think it necessarily spoils the experience of using this TV entirely, though, and can likely be optimised via a software update.
Moving onto connectivity, there is one more minor frustration that we find it hard to believe we’re once again complaining about in 2024. This TV only features two HDMI 2.1 sockets, with one of those sockets doubling as the HDMI eARC connection. This will be an annoyance for avid gamers who own both current-generation consoles (and/or a gaming PC) and an AVR or soundbar. That said, the Bravia 9 supports 4K/120Hz gaming with VRR on both of those HDMI 2.1 ports, with the two remaining HDMI sockets still able to support 4K/60Hz gaming. All four sockets support ALLM. There is also an optical connection, ethernet and two USB ports.
The Bravia 9 is also well equipped where wireless connectivity is concerned, with wi-fi and Bluetooth 5.3 with the LE codec supported, alongside Apple AirPlay, Apple HomeKit and Google Chromecast Built-in.
Moving on to HDR support, the Bravia 9 sticks with the usual HDR10, Dolby Vision and HLG combo that we’ve come to expect from Sony. Once again HDR10+ is not supported, which is odd considering the new Prime Video Calibrated mode is a highlighted feature – Prime Video being practically the only streaming service to support the HDR10+ format. However, Sony does include an IMAX Enhanced picture mode, which will work with the small selection of IMAX Enhanced content available on Disney Plus.
Rounding things out is the new 70W 2.2.2 channel speaker system; Sony has attempted to emulate the actuator system found on its OLED models to continue the 'sound from the screen' experience. It’s not possible to vibrate the screen of a backlit TV in the same way as it does on the A80L and A95L, so Sony has cleverly addressed this issue by surrounding the screen with speakers. This includes two front-facing 10W midrange drivers, two 5W tweeters built into the sides and – in an apparent first – two upward-firing 10W beam tweeters built into the top edge, which have a hand in delivering Dolby Atmos height effects. These are backed up by the dual 10W rear-mounted subwoofers.
Picture
The most important aspect of any TV’s performance, of course, is the picture. Sony has made some seriously bold claims with this set, so expectations are high, especially for a TV at this price. We’ve paired the Bravia 9 with our trusty Panasonic DP-UB820EB 4K Blu-ray player, alongside a few of our favourite reference movies such as Oppenheimer, The Batman, Top Gun: Maverick and Blade Runner 2049, as well as some films mastered to a very high brightness such as Pan (mastered at 4000 nits) and Mad Max: Fury Road (mastered at 2500 nits).
Before we get into the full-picture analysis of the Bravia 9, we need to address a couple of pertinent issues. As you may have noticed, this TV hasn’t been awarded the full five stars, and unfortunately, that is due to a couple of unfortunate hitches in picture performance that we cannot seem to iron out. It’s worth noting that both appear to be software-related, so Sony could hypothetically fix them in a future update. But we have to review what’s in front of us now, particularly as the TV is already on sale.
The first issue appears to be a bug with the local dimming feature that creates noticeable jumps in brightness that are nothing short of distracting when watching a film such as Pan or Mad Max: Fury Road, both mastered to a high brightness. In the scene from Pan that leads into a dreadful rendition of Nirvana’s iconic track Smells Like Teen Spirit, we notice that the brightness jumps significantly when a floating pirate ship exits a cave and enters a brightly lit quarry. This happens a handful of times throughout the scene, and it appears regardless of the local dimming selection we choose. In fact, we run through a countless number of different setting combinations, including tweaking practically every setting within the picture menus – but the only way to entirely mitigate this issue is to turn local dimming off entirely, which presents its own issues.
Simply put, with local dimming switched off, the TV looks bad. It becomes flat, lifeless and dull looking, so the compromise here is that you’ll have to live with these infrequent brightness jumps unless you want to ruin the picture entirely. Strangely, setting the local dimming to different intensities (low, medium and high) slightly changes when these brightness adjustments occur, with the highest mode seemingly preempting the shift and doing it ever so slightly earlier.
With Mad Max (2500 nits), we come to an even stranger conclusion. This issue persists – noticeable in the first shot of the film, in fact – but not 100 per cent of the time. Switching picture modes will sometimes mean the issue doesn’t present itself, however, rewinding backwards and playing the shot again with a very small settings tweak will mean that the problem rears its head again.
After much investigation and looping the same scenes from Pan and Mad Max over and over again (the terrible “is this… Canada?” line from Pan is now our collective sleeper agent activation phrase), we simply have to chalk this up to being a bug that Sony has somehow missed. While it’s frustrating, especially as this TV is designed for high-brightness films, we also understand that most people won’t be buying this TV exclusively to watch the 2015 Peter Pan adaptation with a 26 per cent Rotten Tomatoes score. Furthermore, this issue wasn’t noticeable in films mastered at a lower brightness such as Oppenheimer and The Batman, which is a relief. That doesn’t give Sony a pass, however, particularly as the brand cites a supposed increase in the number of super-bright movies that will soon come out of Hollywood as the key reason that it has developed the next-gen backlighting system of the Bravia 9.
Our second big issue with the Bravia 9 is that we find it impossible to get the best out of it. Not only are the picture presets all quite heavily compromised in one way or another (something that is actually quite rare from a modern, premium TV), but even extensive tweaking leaves the TV short of where we feel it should be. It always feels as if there is untapped potential lying just out of reach, no matter which combination of picture settings we use.
We start off trying out the theoretically most authentic Cinema and Professional modes (the latter being Sony’s equivalent of Filmmaker Mode), and we find the image to be oddly disappointing. It’s fairly dull and flat, and edges are noticeably soft, which is strange considering Sony’s track record of delivering excellently sharp, strong contrasty TVs that ooze three-dimensional depth. Neither setting is satisfactory, but in an unusual twist, we find the standard picture mode gets the closest to delivering the experience that we expect.
It requires some fairly heavy tweaking, of course, most obviously changing the Colour Temperature from its rather cool default to the more cinematically authentic Expert 1 setting. We also switch off all of the noise reduction settings, adjust all of the Motionflow settings to 1 and reduce Reality Creation to 50. Finally, we feel we are seeing what the TV is truly capable of. Unfortunately, though, that’s not the end of the story, because while this mode looks stunning for Pan (more on that in a moment), when we switch to Mad Max we find it to be slightly over-sharpened, which results in us having to tweak more settings.
Ultimately, we could spend an eternity in the picture settings, adjusting each setting for every film we watch, but in all honesty that’s not something that we (or you) should have to do. Therefore, we find it best to get the TV looking as good as we possibly can with those settings, and live with the minor shortcomings when it comes to certain fine details looking oversharpened in favour of the bright and striking image that we eventually land on.
Thankfully, while this TV is fussy (and at times frustrating), it’s also dazzling. While it may seem from that lengthy disclaimer that we aren’t a fan of the Bravia 9, that is entirely not the case, as there are lots of things to like about the Bravia 9’s picture presentation. Back to Pan (we’ll move on from this movie in a moment, we promise), the highlights seen as the ship descends through space and glides into a dreamlike floating ocean are exceptional, with rich, impactful orange hues and noticeable detail in the very centre of the sun – something that we do not see in the LG G4.
Furthermore, floating bubbles ooze with gorgeous colour variation, nestling rich emerald greens within the centre of the bubbles which melt into sparkling blues. These bubbles also highlight the Bravia 9’s contrast capabilities, as they have wonderfully sharp outlines that present a striking, yet still natural three-dimensional effect that creates a real sense that we can reach out and touch said bubbles.
Onto some darker content, Oppenheimer is an equally impressive show, with a masterclass in local dimming on display. Black levels aren’t quite OLED level, as the pixel level control on the G4 is still superior; however, for a backlit TV, the Bravia 9 is mighty impressive. In the shot of a runway being lit up at night (the same shot that proved to be a challenge too far for the Samsung QN95D), the Bravia 9 doesn’t falter by brightening the surroundings of the spotlights. It keeps tight control over how the light is displayed with very little haloing, and the black depths are also very good by LCD standards.
Colours are also very well balanced, and while we would like to see an extra touch of warmth to skin tones, they come across as very natural. We’re in favour of the Live Colour Enhancer feature on this TV, as it adds a bit of needed richness to the colours. However, we’d say keep it to the medium setting for the best results, as high can look a tad overcooked. We also have to give the LG its dues for retaining colour volume in low-light scenes, as the Sony can look slightly pale in comparison.
Top Gun: Maverick continues the dazzling brightness as glints of sunlight reflect off cockpits and visors in spectacular fashion, and the Bravia 9 remains unphased by fast-moving fighter jets. We have dialled the Motionflow setting down, but that hasn’t introduced any noticeable judder, and in the picture presets with more aggressive Motionflow settings applied, we find movement to look off-puttingly smooth.
It's with Blade Runner 2049 that we settle on our opinion of this TV’s picture performance. Truthfully, it’s not perfect, but it is wholly impressive. Everything from the neon projections plastered across the grimy dystopian skyline to the detailed and impactful presentation of Officer K and Joi stepping out onto a rain-soaked roof is nothing short of mesmerising, we just wish Sony could iron those picture bugs out and make the experience more consistent so that we could give this TV our full stamp of approval.
Sound
As is the case with the Sony TVs that have come before it, the Bravia 9 is a very good-sounding TV. It bears a similar character to the X95L in this regard, however, the new height speakers add a greater sense of space and the frame tweeters improve the directionality of the sound. Using our go-to audio test disc, Blade Runner 2049, we deduce that while a soundbar (or, even better, an AVR and speaker package) will of course sound significantly better, the Sony's sound system is a cut above the norm.
Certain examples within the second chapter of Blade Runner 2049 include excellent (by TV speaker standards) vocal clarity and low-level dynamics within the “baseline test” scene, as well as a solid sense of direction to the sound. We can audibly place where Officer K is sitting and where the interviewer’s voice is coming from with our eyes shut, and it helps that the Bravia 9 can also go fairly loud and project sound well into our AV testing room. We also give the new Voice Zoom 3 dialogue-enhancing feature a go and find it to be effective in making dialogue more prominent without squashing the other effects too much.
That being said, we find that Sony’s tendency to not push its built-in speakers too far out of their comfort zone can lead to a slightly weak bass performance, as the thunderous Flight To The LAPD track that plays while Officer K drives back into the city is lacking a bit of weight. Heftier dynamics are also a touch damp, and a bit more punch would be appreciated. That said, Sony’s decision to tune the performance so that it stays well within the sound system’s natural limitations means we never hear any distortion.
Arguably the height channels are the most impressive aspect of the Bravia 9’s speaker system. The upward-firing beam tweeters are automatically calibrated during the set-up of the TV, with the sound directed to the seating position while also measuring the shape of the room. The TV has no issue adapting the sound to our testing space, and the result is genuinely impressive. The sound feels more spacious with the upward-firing drivers involved, and height effects such as rain falling and hitting the rooftops in Blade Runner 2049 sound very effective.
Verdict
So, has Sony’s big Bravia 9 gamble paid off? Perhaps not yet, but there’s every chance that it could. The next-gen Mini LED backlight is a technical marvel, even if the TV as a complete package isn’t perfect. A few frustrating bugs just hold it back from achieving true greatness, but they could possibly be ironed out in future updates if Sony decides to address them.
Even now, at its best, the Bravia 9 is sensational – serving up dazzling brightness, impressive blacks, gloriously vibrant colours and even an enjoyable (if slightly restrained) sound experience.
If Sony adjusts its picture settings to provide a more all-round experience and addresses the local dimming bug, the Bravia 9 will be a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps it could reconsider the decision to not bring the 65-inch model to the UK at the same time…
SCORES
- Picture 4
- Sound 4
- Build 4
MORE:
Read. our review of the Sony A95L
Also consider the LG G4
Read our Samsung S95D review
Best TVs: flagship OLEDs and affordable flatscreens tried and tested
