When plasma TVs left the scene, for some time the uncontested realm of liquid crystal panels came. But the era of low contrast is still not endless - TVs with elements that independently emit light without the use of separate lamps are still gradually occupying their niches. We are talking about panels based on organic light emitting diodes. Today, they do not surprise anyone in the screens of a small diagonal - in the same smartphones, smart bracelets or even household appliances. But large panels have been treated for childhood diseases for a long time - and they are conquering the mass market very slowly. First of all, this is due to the increased cost of producing OLED screens, especially those with a large diagonal - their prices at the start of the era reached millions of rubles. Today you will not meet them in the budget segment either, but we are talking about other orders of amounts.
- just an example of a representative of the "upper middle class". This is a model that is extremely close to the elite, which stops at the threshold of the branded MASTER series, but produces a picture and sound of a very high level at a relatively reasonable cost. Yes, you can raise an eyebrow when you see the words “reasonable cost” next to the price of 200-300 thousand rubles, which are asked for this TV depending on the diagonal (55 or 65 inches), but remember about flagship smartphones that easily step over the 100 thousand rubles - such is the order of prices now. Moreover, having become acquainted with the A8 model closer, you fully understand that it is worth its money. We understand how this is possible.
| Sony BRAVIA OLED A8 | |
|---|---|
| Panel type | OLED |
| Panel Diagonal | 55/65 inches |
| Panel Resolution | 3840 × 2160 |
| Panel refresh rate | 100 Hz |
| Sound system | 2 × 10W (speakers); 2 × 10W (subwoofers) sound comes through the screen |
| Operating system | Android 9.0 (Android TV) |
| Interfaces | USB x 3, HDMI x 4, Composite x 1, Ethernet x 1, 3,5mm x 1, Digital Optical Audio Out x 1 |
| Wireless modules | Wi-Fi 2,4/5 GHz + Bluetooth 4.2 |
| Digital television | DVB-T2+DVB-C+DVB-S2 |
| Dimensions | 144,8 × 83,6 × 5,2 cm (without stand, 65" version) |
| Weight | 21,8 kg (without stand) |
| Price | |
This review is about Sony BRAVIA OLED A8 65 inches.
Design and construction
In addition to being able to achieve near-infinite contrast by controlling the brightness of individual pixels as precisely as possible, LED panels are remarkable in that they can be made almost arbitrarily thin. In fact, the declared TV thickness of 52 mm is formed by an acoustic system hidden in the case, various connectors and a cooling system. The panel itself is thinner than most modern smartphones. According to the company representatives, its thickness is 5,9 mm.
But even with the protrusion for connectors, the Sony BRAVIA OLED A8 will take up little space both when mounted on legs and when placed on the wall. The legs here, by the way, are adjustable in height so that you can easily install a soundbar under the TV. It is very comfortable.
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The exterior of the Sony BRAVIA OLED A8 is designed so that the TV at the same time attracts as little attention to itself as possible for a black rectangle with a diagonal of 55 or 65 inches, and at the same time fits into more or less any interior. Bezels are minimal, dark gray metal edging, minimal glass interlayer for panel mounting. There are neither physical keys on the front face (they are not provided in this model at all), nor any indicators.
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Interfaces are displayed on the rear panel. Two mini-jacks, two USB and one HDMI look sideways. The main unit has one more USB, three HDMIs, Ethernet and a composite output for the audio system. There is also a connector for the power cord. Not a single connector is brought out to the back - you don’t have to bend the cables at an implausible angle if the TV is hanging on the wall or standing close to it.
Android TV control
Sony uses “pure” Android TV in its TVs, in this case Android 9.0 Pie. This solution has its advantages: the abundance of applications, the simplicity and stability of the operating system, and the logic that is understandable to most users. But the shortcomings of the television “robot” are right there - for example, you can’t scroll through applications and select content while watching television. It is necessary to return to the main screen every now and then.
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Any customization for Sony is at least a line with services recommended by Sony for the local market (there is a familiar set of Okko, Megogo, ivi, and so on) and a branded browser with the Sony start page. Voice input is supported, a Google account, you can install additional applications - everything is like with people.
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The TV connects to the Internet both via Wi-Fi (here the dual-band module is 802.11a/b/g/n/ac) and via cable. There is Bluetooth 4.2 - with its help, the TV interacts both with the complete remote control and with external sound sources (headphones, speakers) or additional controls (mouse, keyboard).
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The control panel is used standard, without additional screens, touch panels and something like that. Only the good old mechanical keys, and their set betrays a strong emphasis on Android TV - there are shortcuts to Google Play, a navigation circle and a shortcut to the inevitable Netflix. The remote control is convenient, simple and understandable.
The built-in media player allows you to both play files from an external drive connected via USB, and upload them to the TV's memory. Of the declared 16 GB, 6,7 GB are available to the user - you can’t turn around with 4K content, of course. Basically, this memory is needed for equipment sellers - upload demo videos. The list of codecs is extensive, all important common formats are present.
There is support for both Chromecast (which is logical for Android TV) and Apple Airplay/Apple HomeKit.
Picture and sound
The image is exactly that, in fact, the only reason why it is worth paying for the OLED panel the money that is asked for it. But it’s not enough just to install a matrix based on organic light-emitting diodes in a TV, it still needs to be correctly configured and “cut” to meet modern standards.
Sony has no problem with this. Even just looking at the image settings, you are amazed at the number of parameters that can be adjusted. And the clarity with which this is all done - each parameter is not only described in detail, but also provided with an image that conditionally demonstrates the effect of the changes. Rare scrupulousness - even a person who is far from working with professional video equipment can adjust the picture for himself.
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At the same time, there are a lot of settings, both familiar (color temperature adjustment, including for individual color components; gamma; saturation; brightness, and so on), and unusual ones - in particular, the Sony BRAVIA OLED A8 offers the ability to adjust to ambient lighting ( yes, there is a corresponding sensor) not only brightness, but also color reproduction. Unfortunately, it did not work out how it works under changing lighting - the testing conditions did not suggest such a possibility.
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A few other specific settings: smart contrast enhancement due to the analysis of the current image, adjustable sharpening by software methods, image smoothing in dynamics.
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Of the claims against this TV, which do not allow it to join the "elite" club, we note the lack of support for the HDR10 + standard (only HDR10) and the lack of HDMI 2.1 support (all four inputs work with HDMI 2.0 - but there is support for the HDCP 2.3 protection system). That's all with claims.
The native resolution of the panel is Ultra HD (3840 × 2160). The system works confidently with original content in this resolution, plus it demonstrates very good upscaling capabilities. The image in this case is almost no noise and is quite sharp. On TVs with high native resolution, it is working with a lower quality image that can become a stumbling block - the A8 model does not have such problems, including due to the very fact of using organic LEDs - color recalculation occurs pixel by pixel.
The TV uses the already famous X1 Ultimate processor, which, in particular, does a good job of processing HDR content - the dynamics look natural, and the noise that is often inherent in the image in this mode is almost invisible. The same applies to SDR-pictures, "reached" to HDR. Super Bit Mapping technology works great.
As for the compliance of the panel itself with the HDR10 standard, there are no problems here either. The maximum measured in test conditions (brightly lit by artificial light room), the brightness of a static image was 778 cd / m2 (standard display mode, turned to maximum brightness). There is no doubt that the peaks of 10 cd / m1000 declared in the HDR2 standard when working with the corresponding content, the panel in dynamics achieves without problems. Contrast conditions are met by the OLED panel by default. It is impossible to talk about any light in relation to a panel of this type. With possible traces (“burn-in”) from static images, the TV fights on its own, shifting the picture pixel-by-pixel from time to time. There shouldn't be any problems with this.
The TV offers several picture presets at once: Bright, Standard, Movie, Game, Graphics, Photo, Custom, Dolby Vision Bright, Dolby Vision Dark, Netflix Calibrated Mode. I measured color reproduction in vivid and cinematic modes, as well as in graphics mode, which is best suited for working with a PC.
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The "Bright" mode, in fact, is needed to demonstrate the TV in the window, it can be called a demo mode. The picture is as bright as possible, very cold (the temperature goes off scale over 10 K), there is no question of color accuracy, but everything looks saturated and as juicy as possible. Also in this mode, you can watch the broadcast or sports in bright daylight.
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"Cinema" also works with a wide color space (DCI-P3), but it does it much more calmly (color temperature - 7 K). The average DeltaE deviation for the extended Color Checker palette (greyscale + wide range of color shades) is 100 - it is small and quite forgivable for the conditions in which the testing was carried out. In "Graphics" mode, the color space already corresponds to the most common (sRGB), the color temperature is the same (note the most even line), and the average DeltaE deviation is 4,22. As a professional graphics tool, I probably wouldn't recommend the BRAVIA OLED A4,38, but if you take into account the possibilities for manual image adjustment, you can recognize the panel as finely tuned.
Working with contrasting scenes, even in the most complex scenes, is only pleasing - the transitions between light and dark shades are perfect, there is no residual glow. Hardware noises in dark scenes are imperceptible. The Dolby Vision standard is supported, the panels of the A8 series TVs (both diagonals) are IMAX certified. Viewing angles are free.
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The Sony BRAVIA OLED A8 is equipped with Acoustic Surface Audio, which essentially turns the screen itself into speakers - behind it are special drives that vibrate, thereby emitting sound directly from the display. Due to this technology, the positioning of the sound source is achieved unprecedented for the built-in sound system. And this applies to what is happening both on the screen and beyond - the system perfectly fulfills such scenarios. The acoustics, consisting of two 10 W tweeters and two 5 W subwoofers, cannot boast of high power, but it will definitely be enough to sound a medium-sized room. When located one and a half to two meters from the screen, the sound is perceived perfectly. I did not notice any serious restrictions on the dynamic range, both high and low frequencies are perfectly processed. Subjectively - this is one of the best sound systems in TVs in the "flat panel" era that I have seen.
Conclusion
- a TV with a rather narrow specialization, and this is definitely worth understanding when choosing. It is designed primarily to be a key part in a small home theater - in a medium-sized room, with or without an additional sound system (the built-in sound is very good). For a large-scale home theater, the diagonal may not be enough - the limit for this model is 65 inches. For the gaming center of the near future, 4K / 120p mode and HDMI 2.1 operation are not enough - however, for the current generation of consoles, the TV's capabilities are quite good: the response time is normal, the motion processing is of high quality.
But within its framework, this is perhaps the best offer to date. Watching a movie on the Sony BRAVIA OLED A8 is really a thrill: very accurate work with contrasting scenes, high-quality display of dynamics, support for HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Good brightness even allows you to rely on the A8 series TVs to a certain extent in bright sunlight, which is not always possible for LED TVs, so it will please you with normal “on-air” work.
Thanks to the Sony Center store for helping us test the device.
Source: 3dnews.ru