Sony BRAVIA 8 OLED 4K HDR Google TV (2024)

I hooked up my new TV to my Apple TV 4K and sound system and I thought everything was fine. Then I started getting 1-2 second black outs every 10 minutes or so. I checked Sony support and there was no help there. I posted to the Sony Community and nobody there had any suggestions. But I did find another post about synchronizing video feeds so I set my Apple to 1080p Dolby Vision and got rid of the blackouts. But that didn’t feel right, so I bought a new high end HDMI 4K/8k cable, set my Apple back to 4K Dolby Vision and now everything is fine. Lesson learned, upgrade everything at the same time.

That said, this is a beautiful TV and I love it now that I’ve worked the kinks out of my setup. Big thumbs up.

OLED TV picture is amazing.
The TV interface and setup was relatively painless….

The reason for 4 stars rather than five is rather than asking you if you wanted certain apps, it preinstalled all sorts of useless crap and you had to go in a manually clean up the app list one bloatware app at a time.

Install NOTHING then prompt for what you want to have installed, would be way better.

This is an awesome TV! The sound out of the box is useable, though not great. You probably want to pick up some kind of sound bar to go with it. As far as picture quality, however, and integration with other apps and google home, it’s incredible. My last TV was 10 years old, so this was like coming into a new century almost. One thing I really appreciate about the TV is how glare resistant it is. The room I have it in is relatively bright, and I was afraid that would make it more difficult to use during the day, but the brightness and anti-glare/reflection glass does wonders, and makes it useable in any lighting.

I purchased the Bravia 8 55 inch TV to replace my 7 year old Samsung 4K TV that had intermittent pixel issues. I must say this Sony OLED has an amazing picture especially with the deep blacks it has. I paired this TV with the Sony Theatre 8 sound bar that has phenomenal surround sound. Of course gaming on PS5 with Dolby Atmos enabled speaks for itself. Highly reccomend this OLED TV you won’t be disappointed!

First off, I’m a big fan of my 55” Sony A80J Bravia TV. It’s got a rich image, beautiful blacks and an easy-to-use remote and on-screen menu. So as a Sony fan boy, I’m always eager to have the latest model of their flat screen TVs. In retrospect, I wish I would have held off on this upgrade.

There were a number of challenges.

1) Set up was nowhere as simple as just plugging it in and turning it on. For one thing, you are forced to scroll through page after page of legal copy and agree to things on screen that I don’t remember having to agree to on my A80J. I didn’t read it (just like I have never read my iTunes agreement), but it said it was about privacy, which lead me to believe that this TV must be infringing on my privacy in some way…and yet I agreed to it anyway, just so I could watch my new TV.

2) Something must be buggy in the software, because when I attempted (many times) to enter my email address for Google TV, it would NOT allow me to enter numbers. I turned on the voice assist, which was telling me it was opening the character keyboard (my Google email address has numbers in it), but when I hit select, as the TV voice was asking me to do, it would act as though I was entering my complete info and there’d be a screen notification that said I was not entering a proper email address—which I was quite aware of! I was never able to activate the Google TV features because I couldn’t figure out a way to enter my email address—despite Googling on my actual computer, “how to enter numbers on a Sony Bravia 8 in set up.” The information I found was for other Sony TVs and the menu names were not even the same. (I notice that a review from someone named Laura experienced this exact same problem. I have attached a video to demonstrate the problem we both have experienced. Thanks for sharing your experience, Laura. It’s good to know that I’m not losing my mind!)

3) I was comfortable with my A80J remote and the new one is significantly smaller and the options it offers are significantly condensed. Pushing buttons caused multiple screen menus to pop up that I didn’t need to see.

4) My first impression is that I like the picture on the A80J better. I will continue to try to tweak this Bravia 8 to make it more to my liking, but it seems to be darker than my old (well, not THAT old) A80J. I was trying to work with the Cinema and Professional picture profiles, but maybe I’ve been “spoiled” by a more contrasty image. (Not that that’s better, I’m just used to it.) When watching the Cinematic mode was on, I wanted to turn up the brightness, but it was already on a max setting. Also, I’m not sure if the picture is as sharp as my A80J. I’d like to do an A/B test between the two of them, but I only have one HDMI cable coming from my cable box and it’s going into my new Bravia 8.

5) Considering the expense—which is considerable—the Bravia 8 doesn’t really “wow” me, considering how happy I was with my A80J. I probably should have left well enough alone and stuck with the A80J. Also, I’m not a gamer, so any gaming advantages with the Bravia 8 are lost on me. If it’s your first Sony, you might really love it. I just have to figure out how to access the Google features, but not sure how if I can’t enter my email address. Perhaps I’m lucky I’m locked out because maybe that’s another way to take advantage of the privacy permissions I granted without reading the mountains of legal text on the screen.

6) Hopefully others will have a better experience. I think I would just like to go back in time and un-order this $2K TV.

And I love it!! Colors are great. Screen is bright with excellent dynamic range and super off angle viewing ability. The off angle is much better than the IPS 65″ it replaces. The 4k upscaling is a treat for the eyes coming from Xfinity at 720 or thru the Fire Stick. No regrets whatsoever! Buy it!! You can thank me later.

Compared this in store to other Sonys for almost an hour. It’s a lush screen with vibrant colors BUT the big negative here is the high contrast. Darker areas DEFINITELY lose detail even compared to the Bravia 7. Darks are too dark. So you lose part of the image. Big mistake in my opinion. The Bravia 9 is better but if you want real accuracy with color you must get the A95. And who wants to pay that much for an old model??? I’m disappointed overall altho I love Sony.

Review for: Sony 55 Inch OLED 4K Ultra HD TV BRAVIA 8 Smart Google TV with Dolby Vision HDR and Exclusive Features for Playstation®5 (K-55XR80), 2024 Model.

This Sony TV has a good picture and the sound is actually pretty good. I can’t comment on the feet since I mounted the TV on the wall. No problems mounting it to the wall. The feet look fine and can be attached in two different configurations (wide or narrow). Once you plug it in, it starts setup. Just follow the on screen directions right? Well that is what I did and all was going well until I tried to sign into my Google account. My password had a “=” symbol. There was no way to enter the “=” symbol. When I opened the symbol keyboard, it would appear and then Immediately disappear. The voice prompt would tell me the obvious “keyboard hidden”. OK, how do I get it back. I did this several times without success. I finally just changed my Google password. That was a big pain. I had to login to all my devices again. The strange thing is that when I logged into my apps, the symbol keyboard was available. The instructions were no help whatsoever. The instructions are not a booklet; they are a fold out sheet. They have some spec information and explain the buttons on the remote pretty well, but little else as far as operation of the TV. I’m sure it has a lot of features I don’t know about yet, because I have no real user manual. I may have missed it, but I didn’t see a link for an online user manual. I don’t mind clicking around to figure things out, but sometimes I like to have directions when I can’t find something. I deducted a star, and considered 2. I think a product of this cost shouldn’t skimp on a user manual.

7.16.24~ It’s been over a month.
Wanted to try to troubleshoot annoyances before sharing.
Not sure what’s Sony & what’s Google tv but here’s what I found & hope it helps.

Great picture. Stunning. True Black screen & incredible depth of color.
If you’re a gamer the clarity of graphics may be stronger than your will to walk away.
Screensaver of flowing water & chirping birds stopped me from chucking remote at the screen

Maybe it’s 1st Gen growing pains? Even though an upgrade of Bravia system.

* Apps

As a long time Firestick user the app use just isn’t as good.
Amazon has had it’s quirks with apps it didn’t want to use like Peacock.
But once an app is on Firestick it works like the TV.

This one, Google TV or Sony, does not.
It does not like Amazon, Or Peacock or Paramount.
I’ll get into the kind of deal breaking audio tantrums in a minute.

All 3 preferred streaming services and XM seem to not be recognized in action.
The latest is if I rewind in Amazon, the refresh button is marked on the video in motion.
Have to go back and hit resume to start again.

It also doesn’t recognize where I left off in a series.
Did a resume and tv went back to season one (I’m on 3) where it thinks I’ve been for weeks.
Peacock would freeze in the middle of my Office Superfan episodes or go bk to start.

** Audio

The TV speakers are better than the 12 yo Panasonic plasma this is replacing.
They are not better than the 3 yo Sony soundbar. A reason for choosing Sony tv.
Somehow the Sony soundbar was more intuitive with the Panasonic plasma than this Sony.

Had to change preference from Soundbar to TV bc everytime the screen timed out.
Our relaxing living room sounded like a war zone.
What I mean is, the TV speakers on 21 blared to 62 soundbar on time out screensaver.

This is the same tv whose promo videos say it sound calibrates for commercials and action scenes.
Not watching Prime or Peacock does it adjust to volume increase. Peacock actually is louder.

*** Video

The ‘Prime calibrated’ screen option dilutes the deep hues.
You have to calibrate everytime you change an app, a movie or stream a show.
Not a “smart” as the hype would have you believe.

Last note is~ it times out on music apps bc no movement then turns them off.
So if you don’t stay active while listening, your screensaver takes over your tunes.

Firestick is so much better.
Almost thought of getting a new one but why spend $2k tv when 50 bucks is smarter?

We do like the tv, if it would stop yelling at us and putting us in time outs. Mom is that you?

My fave Alfred Hitchcock movies are for lack of a more current word Splendid.
Not to mention all the Universal fantasy greats like HP.
Series only avail in SD, we like BBC & Canadian tv, look HD clear on Sony that Firestick 4k failed.

It’s just so much darn work. Not one night has been sit down and stream.
It’s sit down, adjust the audio, adjust the video then stream. Fight with the soundbar.
Hopefully Sony will update, Google will loosen the strings and a potentially great TV will Shine.

Sony doesn’t disappoint. This 55″ OLED 4k is just the perfect size for my cabinet and the dimensions worked out perfectly to fit the entire space. Also, my family room is not huge, so the 65″ or 77″ is a bit excessive for my space. The picture quality is amazing – the blacks are deep velvety black. My TV is in a very brightly lit room where glare has been a constant battle for me– this screen greatly reduces my glare issue.

I have a soundbar that has an optic audio port -which is the only way to feed sound out of the TV, but I do not yet have the appropriate cable (sold seperate). So for now I’m using sound straight from internal speakers and have to say – the sound is Way better than I expected. Pretty impressive sound for internal speakers. I love that the sound will Auto-Calibrate for my room size, that was pretty cool.

*Hiccup on WiFi Connection. Firstly, I use a 4K Roku as my streaming device, which works with this TV beautifully– and I have to make sure to change the Roku settings to stream in 4K, and it’s just stunning. BUT – I couldn’t get the internal WI-FI to connect to my Netgear Nighthawk router, even though my older TV had no issues. I could get it to connect to my Android Phone as a Wi-Fi Hotspot, so I knew the Wi-Fi component was working, but I haven’t been able to connect to my router even though it could see my SSID. Had to do a lot of research and turns out it may be because Sony Bravia might not play well with my dual band (2.4ghz and 5ghz) which shares a single SSID. After much research, it seems it might require I configure my router to either split the SSID out, or create a SSID guest connection for just the TV. The suggestion was to enable Simple IP Control, which is a TCP Protocol using IP commands, and not how I want to spend my weekend since I don’t know yet how to configure that. So for now- I’m using my Roku the way I always did- and not yet using the built-in Wi-fi features. The 4K Roku is working beautifully with the TV. No manual included other than quick setup sheet. But the Sony site offers a bit more help docs