Just when you thought OLEDs is the direction all TVs are going towards in our immediate future, someone decides to shake things up. In this case, that will be the new flagship Sony Bravia 9, which puts the outfit’s new mini-LED technology front and center.
Sony calls it “our brightest TV ever,” which, we guess, is something they probably wouldn’t have been able to claim if they decided to go with an OLED flagship. All that brightness, of course, comes on top of the fantastic image processing the outfit is known for with their TVs, making this a really interesting option for folks not quite sold on the promise of OLED panels.
The Sony Bravia 9 boasts 50 percent more brightness than its previous top-of-the-line X95L TV, along with a 325 percent increase in dimming zones. That means, this is not just brighter, it will also allow for significantly more detailed contrast than the last flagship, which makes it quite the promising TV. However, the big change here is the outfit’s XR Backlight Master Drive system, which handles the management of how to utilize all the LEDs on the TV, along with a new silicon that the outfit made specifically for the TV’s mini-LED structure.
Of course, Sony also claims vibrant color performance with their XR Triluminos Pro tech, which allows the TV to reporudce over a billion colors with subtle differences in saturation and hue to enable those natural-looking shades in every detail. It also has a scene recognition system that detects and analyzes picture data, then optimizes it for the most realistic reproduction. For upscaling, the outfit claims they can convert lower-res content to a near 4K picture with minimla noise, courtesy of the outfit’s new zone division and dynamic frame analysis algorithms.
The Sony Bravia 9 comes equipped with numerous third party tech to ensure premium-quality viewing for any kind of content, including Dolby Vision for HDR, Sony Pictures Core Calibrated mode, Netflix Calibrated mode, and Prime Video calibrated mode, with the latter two probably being very attractive additions for folks who stream most of their movies and shows from those services. You also get all the usual tech found in Sony TVs, such as XR Wide Angle (for consistent viewing angles), X-Anti Reflection, XR Motion Clarity (which synchronizes backlighting with on-screen motion), and more.
Even with the most expensive TVs, installing a soundbar just makes the experience so much better. While we don’t know much about this TV’s audio quality yet, Sony says it’s the very first TV ever to be equipped with an upward-facing beam twitter, along with two frame tweeters on the sides, so sound emanates directly from the screen instead of a speaker, which should better emulate the cinema experience. Other features include Voice Zoom 3 (which amplifies or reduces volume for dialogue as needed), 3D surround sound upscaling, built-in Chromecast, Apple AirPlay 2 compatibility, and built-in Google Assistant support.
The Sony Bravia 9 is available now, priced at $3,299.99 for the 65-inch, $3,999.99 for the 75-inch, and $5,499.99 for the 85-inch.