Sony Bravia 7 mini LED TV Review: A Lovely Screen From Center Stage

If you’re much hands-off, the TV offers immoderate precocious auto-calibration features, including the caller Prime Video auto-calibration which pulls metadata from videos. It looks beauteous akin to the Professional mode for filmlike contented specified arsenic Jack Ryan oregon The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but erstwhile I enactment connected the caller Patton Oswalt crippled amusement The 1% it brightened the representation importantly without looking oversaturated oregon washed out. I couldn’t trial the diagnostic for sports connected Thursday Night Football, but it already seems among the champion specified options I’ve tried.

Solid Spoils

The Bravia 7 is reasonably good appointed elsewhere, particularly for gaming. The TV offers class-standard features similar HDMI 2.1 enactment for VRR (variable refresh rate) astatine up to 120 Hz to supply tear-free gameplay, and ALLM (auto debased latency lode) for speedy response. Sony’s crippled barroom lets you adhd crosshairs and optimize respective options connected the fly, including a split-screen mode to ticker YouTube walk-throughs onscreen. PlayStation 5 owners tin besides entree Auto Genre Picture Mode and Auto HDR Tone Mapping to further optimize performance.

One notable drawback is, similar the overmuch pricier A95L, lone 2 of the TV’s 4 HDMI ports enactment 4K astatine 120 Hz, 1 of which besides harbors HDMI eARC for connecting a soundbar oregon different audio device. Cheaper options similar Hisense’s U8N connection 2 discrete HDMI 2.1 ports, portion step-up models similar LG’s C4 OLED and Samsung’s QN90D and S90D OLED connection four. Inputs aside, I emotion utilizing the TV for gaming. Its pristine clarity is astir distracting, evoking good details similar golden rivets glowing successful the prima connected a worn leather enarthrosis brace.

The 7’s built-in audio strategy is serviceable, acknowledgment to dual woofers, dual side-mounted tweeters, and features similar Voice Zoom 3 integer optimization designed to pinpoint dialog, but it’s besides alternatively bladed and sharp. I urge buying an outboard audio instrumentality similar 1 of our best soundbar oregon best bookshelf speaker picks for dependable connected par with the ocular experience.

Other cardinal Bravia 7 features see enactment for aggregate HDR modes, including Dolby Vision, HLG, and HDR10 (but not its much precocious HDR10+ version), streaming implicit AirPlay 2 and Chromecast, and the caller Eco Dashboard 2 for deep-dive vigor monitoring.

Punch, Poise, and Positioning

I was instantly impressed by the Bravia 7’s close yet engaging picture, and successful astir respects, I lone grew much enamored with it implicit time. There’s a beauteous subtlety to the mode Sony’s apical TVs grip everything from good details and colors to acheronian corridors and gleaming HDR. The Bravia 7’s premix of quantum dots for expansive colors, precocious mini LED backlighting for fantabulous control, and Sony’s latest XR representation processing assistance it to thin into that bequest with saccharine results.

The 7 doesn’t connection the full-throttle, hair-on-fire brightness of lauded worth options similar the Hisense U8N (8/10, WIRED Recommends) oregon TCL’s latest QM8 (which I person yet to test). The 7 taps retired astir 2,000 nits, but that benignant of brightness is inactive plentifulness potent for SDR (standard dynamic range) and HDR contented alike. Laser shots successful sci-fi films blaze, explosions pop, and quality scenes similar sparkling coral reefs are rendered with sun-drenched realism.