Sony BRAVIA 3 LED 4K HDR Google TV (2024)

I’ve been a loyal LG customer for over 10 years now. For many years, their TVs have topped the reviews and have some of the deepest black levels among LED and OLED displays. So I haven’t had a Sony display for some time (before the LG displays I had Panasonic plasma) but when this Bravia 3 showed up in my Vine feed, I thought why not give them a try? I wanted to replace my old HD Panasonic plasma in our bedroom anyway. The Panasonic still looks great, but it is a BEAST that takes two people to move and I never liked that it sat on a wall mount just above where our dog sleeps with so much weight behind it. When the Bravia arrived, I decided to compare it to my LG 77″ OLED which is about a year old. This LG is gorgeous with very deep blacks and excellent color and contrast. It’s kind of my bar to judge other displays by. Imagine my surprise, when side by side this (admittedly smaller) Bravia display at 1/5 the price point of the LG held its own! I did not do any complex setup on the Sony as I did with my LG, I just selected the ‘Cinema Professional’ setting. (NEVER set your TV to anything called ‘Vivid’ or ‘High Color’… those settings are designed to be used in a store when the display is among dozens of others to try to catch your eye. They are not advisable at home and look awful… when I used to sell TVs, we referred to this as ‘Torch Mode’) With just this built-in picture setting, the Sony was very comparable to the $3500 LG I spent a lot of time tweaking the settings on. There were subtle differences of course, but the color rendition and contrast were excellent. I am very impressed. Since this is on the low end of Sony’s lineup, the Bravia 3 does lack many of the specs and settings of the higher-end models such as 120Hz refresh rate (the Bravia 3 is only 60Hz which will likely result in some motion judder) It has direct backlight rather than local dimming of higher-end models, but to be honest I don’t see that much difference when compared to my LG. It does support Dolby Vision, HDR10, HLG, and Dolby Atmos, but lacks DTS. Again, not a dealbreaker by any means although the lack of DTS is a little disappointing, but most new productions are Dolby Atmos anyway. I have no idea what ‘Triluminous Pro’ is but the color on this display is very accurate and rich without blooming or chroma aberration. I’m not sure how I like the Google TV aspect yet, this is my first experience with it but it is nice to have the option of accessing my favorite streaming channels without going through my Roku. Granted, my LG displays also offer this feature but LGs interface is more clunky and I just like the Roku anyway. The Sony is incredibly lightweight, I was able to install this on the wall mount by myself which is no small feat for a 50″ display. The attached images are untouched from my cellphone. Not the most precise way to compare displays, but considering the average viewer is not a pixel-peeper I feel it’s a fair enough comparison. Note the similar color gamut, and the deep blacks in both that that result in a perfect contrast. For the price point, this display is a phenomenal buy, my only unknown so far is how much motion judder will appear at that refresh rate. Luckily, I’m one of those people who barely even notice it, but my wife is very sensitive to it so she’ll be my reference when she gets a chance to spend some time with it. But since she even sees it on my LG with 120Hz refresh, I’m not sure that will relate to much.

We are switching from an LG tv that the color is going bad and is a few years older.

Setup wasn’t difficult. Especially when connecting a Google account.

This tv is noticeably crisper image. And has a good, quick computer that changes the channels and streaming services easily.

Also, our Blue-Ray player from 10 years ago is sony and the TV remote works with the player!

My husband discovered he can play his PlayStation wirelessly from a different room by connecting a Sony controller to the TV. So tally that in the positive or negative category as you please 😅.

We just bought the Bravia 3 (50″) and it’s been very laggy, buggy, and has video and color issues that have required us to to a reboot, several times in the last 3 days, to rectify it.

We bought the Bravia 3 to replace our 50″ X80K (2022 model) and we thought it would be an upgrade.

We were very wrong.

The Bravia is very laggy. Sometimes, pressing the volume on the remove has about a one-second delay before the volume level appears on the bottom of the screen. Wow.

Menu navigation is also laggy, making it a real pain to navigate.

Yesterday, the screen suddenly became overly bright, with over-saturated colors. Nothing we tried (even doing a factor default reset) fixed the problem. The only thing that fixed it was unplugging the TV.

We are returning it to Amazon. Please buy a different model. The Bravia 3 has problems.

Yeesh… not 30 minutes after posting this review, it randomly booted my out of YouTube TV, in the middle of the Mavericks/Thunder playoff game. This is the worst TV we’ve ever bought.

I’ve added photos of some of the horrible problems, juxtaposed to how they should look (when the TV’s screen is not malfunctioning).

I have owned Sony TVs for decades. I continue to like the color and performance very much.

But I took off one star for Google TV. Setup requires Google Home which failed. It requires backdooring the security on your router. Thus, you have to turn off your router security. I refused so it didn’t work.
I installed regular TV instead. I noticed that the network came up fine without Google Home. Then I essentially did a manual install of Google TV. After an hour, it worked. Ordinarily I would not have bothered but you need Google TV to install the apps like Disney+. Now everything works and no Google Home and no security holes.

I strongly recommend Amazon Fire Cube instead. Much easier and it works with all of your Sony devices including your home stereo equipment. (Old DVD players not so much.)

I still like the TV part very much. The color is great, the 4k scaling is superb. And you can stream 4k to it.
The sound is a question mark. At my age, my hearing is not so good, so I just don’t know. Thought about a soundbar but that may be overkill.

This tv was on par with our older TCL in terms of price when we bought it new, so that is mostly what I will be comparing it to.

Despite being the same size, this tv feels smaller because it is both thinner, and has slimmer bezels. Unboxing and setting the tv up is easy and straightforward. The included feet for the tv just snap into place without the need for any tools. Once powered up it will ask you to connect it to your wifi and run through some system updates which is pretty standard for any smart tv nowadays. It will also ask you to connect a google account, which is optional. It will go ahead and start to add it to your google home and you can go through that process if you do add an account.

Sony will ask you which applications you would like to download so you can stream shows. This is pretty standard now as well, but I appreciate being given this option rather than a bunch of random streaming apps just automatically being installed that I may not use. Sony will also prompt you to make an account for their personal streaming service. They give you some free credits for movies when you sign up which is nice, but you can just ignore this if you don’t want to make another account or just don’t care.

Out of the box, I found the picture quality to be really good. I didn’t measure it, so I can’t give exact numbers, but no one in the house complained or commented on the color, saturation, sharpness, or anything else. We were able to jump right into movies and tv shows without needing to adjust anything. Of course, though, picture and color control are there if you want to adjust them.

The sound was one of the biggest differences I noticed. Despite them being built-in tv speakers, they were both louder and clearer than our previous LG. They still aren’t movie theatre quality or going to sound as good as a soundbar or dedicated speakers, but they are far better than our previous tv’s.

The last and biggest difference for us has been the smart tv part. This tv runs on Google TV. We have traditionally been a Roku house, but all of our Roku devices (including our TCL with Roku built in) have started to become glitchy and slow. We’ve only had this Sony a month now so time will tell, but so far it has been so much snappier and responsive when browsing apps and menus. We no longer randomly get sent back to the tv’s home screen because whatever streaming app decided to crash. Additionally, and this is just personal preference, Google TV’s layout and appearance just look so much better.

All in all, I am extremely pleased with this tv. Sony has always made premium televisions and even though this is a budget option, it still has that premium Sony feel to it.

Picture is excellent, sound is better than expected, brightness and viewability are absolutely TOP notch (almost impossible to tell the difference from our Samsung OLED) … Google TV takes some getting used to, but the more We play with it, the more versatile it is becoming. Network stays solid, TV takes a few extra seconds to boot over our Samsung but not a deal-breaker at all, maybe 3-5 seconds on initial power on.

All in all, I would give this TV 7 stars if it featured ROKU – although it’s a smaller TV You would never know it, the picture is RAZOR sharp and immersive (that seems to be a catchphrase they use for this sort of thing now, LOL) – And to be honest, on our Samsung 60hz we can tell the difference vs our 120hz as far as movement and action blur, this TV is literally as good as the 120hz.

If I had ONE complaint, the blacks are VERY good, but seem to be software enhanced or ??? and seem almost TOO dark at times – it’s hard to descibe and it VERY rarely shows itself (mostly in 4kUltra stuff like Nat Geo when it’s available at that resolution) but again, that’s just an odd thing that i noticed (nobody else in the family can see it or seems to care, story of my life, LOL) so I figured in all honesty i would mention it, You will likely not notice it, I guess,

SO – does this TV convert Me from Samsung to Sony? Hard to make a call like that when comparing diferent size screens, different LED tech, refresh rates, etc. What I WILL say is that for the money, this is hands down the best 4k 60hz native TV I have ever viewed, whether QLED, OLED, etc. I think the high end of the technology in this particular line (S30) is probably right about at this 50″ or maybe 55″ sizing, it’s really a BADA** set without the “Latest gimmick” pricing

I have been hooked on LG for some time now. My last purchase of a Samsung was a nightmare! This Sony had some impressive specs and so I gave it a shot. I wasn’t familiar with the Google TV platform, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out. Setting up this TV was almost as simple as taking it out of the box. The picture quality is superb! Even in mid-day when the sun is glaring in through my windows, this TV still shows a good enough picture to see what’s on. The sound is good, but I prefer my sound system that’s connected to the optical port of this Sony TV. We don’t currently have the new PS5, but it’s coming in the next month or so. I do have to mention the odd remote! Black with little blue speckles? There has to be a reason, I just don’t know what it is.

*I just have to say this about something said in a review. It was stated that this TV is “no good without internet or an outside antenna”. There are multiple HDMI ports and the coax port. I could name 30 different devices that would display something on the screen through the HDMI. Then with the coax there is even more. What were they trying to connect to this? Yes, this TV doesn’t work with your pet hamster!

🐻 *Statement/Disclaimer: This review is part of Amazon’s Vine Program which provides products at a reduced cost in exchange for sincere/frank reviews. The products are not offered completely gratis, as their value is taxed as income in the US. I take pride in writing honest, accurate reviews based on many product factors. I try, use, and test all products that I provide a review. No part of this review has been constructed using AI. (Note: AI may perform small grammar and spelling corrections.) Once a review is posted, I will not alter that review for any reason, even if contact from a Vine provider has been made to rectify a negative product experience through Amazon Messaging. The opinions and statements above are my own and may not reflect others’ experiences.

I’ve uploaded four photographs that show strong shadows on a white table that I’ve temporarily put this TV on while evaluating it. Notice the strong gray bars on the table. These are caused by blinds that I left partially open. Now, look at the picture displayed on the TV. You can see them well, even in the worst of viewing conditions.

The sound on the TV is very good. I’m going to get a sound bar to take it up to excellent quality.

It took me about 90 minutes to configure the TV without any cable or Over-the-Air (OTA) channels. To have a choice of many free channels, I had to sign up with a free version of Google TV. I hooked up to a wired high-speed internet connection, and it worked perfectly. I image that if I had hooked up to a wireless connection, it would have worked well too, but it probably would have taken another 10 minutes to input the wireless information. Also, if I wanted to take full advantage of my cable connection or OTA channels, it probably would have taken another 20 minutes.

Much of the install time is just waiting around for the latest version of the software to download, so I did other things while waiting.

There’s wide selection of free stuff that comes with this TV if you have access to a high-speed connection. This includes a one-year subscription to Sony movies and five free movie purchases. Also, you get free ad-based channels via Pluto TV and it’s easy for me to use my Netflix account or watch a Bluetooth movie.

This TV is perfect for our small family room because the 50″ does not overpower the room. We will, most likely, get rid of an old entertainment center and buy a oak TV table.

Going from a decade old TV with 120hz refresh rate to this TV is astonishing. I was fully expecting to be let down by the lower refresh rate but the technology simply makes up for it. The clarity and display of this TV made me unplug and donate my old TV to a rage room without hesitation.
The setup was a little quirky. I attempted to link my google account during the setup but it was buggy and did not work the first time through. It took me nearly an hour to get the TV setup this way. I opted to setup via remote then connect to my account later on for a more seamless experience. This TV will require a few updates upon setup and they can take some time. I believe mine were around 2.5GB.
The remote control is simple and easy to use without excessive buttons or features. It is a no frills experience. I do not like that some preprogrammed streaming apps are on the remote, what even is crunchyroll???
The TV display itself is amazing. The clarity and visual experience is definitely worth the price tag alone. The thing bezeled frame makes this almost blend into your wall when watching. There is a feature for light display to adjusts your TV’s brightness based on the ambient light in your room. Really nice feature. The included sleep timer is easy to access so you can fall asleep watching TV and not having to worry about sensor burn in or distracting lights.
Wonderful upgrade and an excellent TV. Setup time is a negative but once you are through that phase, everything else is a positive experience.

This Sony smart TV operates on the Google TV OS, allowing apps to be directly loaded onto it without the need for any additional devices, resulting in a cleaner installation requiring only a power source. The screen boasts exceptional sharpness, with vivid and naturally rendered colors. Whether viewed from various angles or dead center, the experience remains consistently clear and enjoyable.

The setup process is straightforward, involving only the input of WiFi credentials before accessing desired streaming services. The remote fits comfortably in hand, with easily accessible buttons for convenient one-handed operation. Once additional apps are downloaded, if necessary, the picture quality remains excellent, accompanied by superior sound compared to previous TVs, immersing the room in audio.

All inputs are located on the left side, while the power button is situated on the back right side. The initial setup, including downloading updates, takes about an hour, but the physical setup itself only requires a few minutes. The remote is ready to use straight out of the box, complete with included batteries. The picture quality is exceptionally sharp and clear, with color tones accurately represented across all picture filters except for Vivid, which intensifies colors to a vibrant but slightly piercing level. Connecting to WiFi is straightforward, and the subsequent setup process resembles that of a new phone, requiring linking or signing in to streaming apps. The Over-The-Air ATSC tuner efficiently captures channels, although the built-in guide may take some time to update. Sound from the built-in speakers is decent, though lacking in deep bass, suitable for basic TV viewing but capable of reaching loud volumes when needed. Overall, it’s a fantastic addition to any living room or bedroom, offering simple remote controls and pristine 4K picture quality, ensuring that 4K videos appear as stunning as possible.