Sony Bravia 8 MK2 vs LG OLED B6

Thanks to its new QD-OLED panel, the Sony Bravia 8 II can reach an astronomically high peak brightness of around 2000 nits, which translates to near-reference quality for films and series mastered in HDR. In test material such as Life of Pi or Sicario 2 the effect is simply stunning – detail in bright areas remains perfectly visible, and night scenes impress with depth and contrast. It's not perfect, though. Compared with its fiercest rivals the Bravia 8 II shows a noticeable drop in brightness on full-screen, very bright frames. If you compare peak point luminance with the 100% white level in HDR, the Bravia 8 II can be two to three times dimmer than the LG G5 or Samsung S95F. This was particularly clear in a scene from The Meg – the screen became noticeably darker than the competitors' TVs. Despite this drawback the Bravia 8 II still ranks among the market leaders. Credit is due for the absolutely top-tier coverage of colour gamuts – DCI-P3 at almost 100% and BT.2020 close to 90%. Those are the specs that let HDR content reach its full potential and deliver a cinema-like experience at home.

LG B6 is a moderately bright OLED. After calibration it reaches around 800 nits, roughly 200 nits more than last year's B5. That's down to LG Display's new budget OLED SE panel. In practice this simply provides a bit more headroom and makes HDR look fuller in many scenes than on last year's lower-end OLEDs. That doesn't mean the B6 has no limitations. In very bright shots, when a large part of the screen is brightly lit, brightness can fall below 400 nits. This behaviour is typical of OLED TVs (especially in this segment), and it's then you see the biggest difference compared with pricier models. All the same, we rate the B6's results as really solid. It's still not a TV built to break brightness records, but the HDR effect is strong enough that films really feel like a step up from ordinary SDR picture.

Colour gamut

Using the OLED SE panel has had some impact on wide colour-gamut coverage. Compared with last year's model the figures have dropped by a few percentage points. DCI-P3 reaches about 96%, and BT.2020 around 71%. That doesn't mean the colours on the LG B6 are weak. In most films and TV series they look vivid, well saturated and simply pleasing to the eye. You only notice the difference in very bright, highly colourful scenes. Then colours lose some intensity compared with QD-OLED panels. This is due to the WOLED panel structure. In addition to the red, green and blue subpixels it also uses a white subpixel that helps boost brightness. This comes at a cost: at very high luminance some of the colour is effectively 'diluted' by the white light, so saturation of some hues can be slightly lower. Day-to-day it's not a big problem, but you can see it in the most demanding scenes.

Straight out of the box, the Bravia 8 II performs very well. In its best IMAX® Enhanced mode the TV renders colours pleasantly and naturally, though "good" here doesn't mean "best in class". The white balance definitely needs adjustment — skin tones tend to lean slightly pinkish to cool, in both SDR and HDR material. We also noticed that the EOTF curve shows a tendency to brighten the darkest parts of the image. This likely stems from the manufacturer's desire to reveal as much detail as possible, even in deep shadow. Is that a good approach? It's hard to say definitively, but one thing's certain: it's not an ideal solution.

We tested the LG B6 in Filmmaker Mode, the best picture setting available straight out of the box. ISF modes give very similar results, but in our tests we always stick to Filmmaker Mode for better comparison with other TVs. Each of them is a far better starting point than Vivid or Eco, where the picture is heavily boosted and noticeably less natural. For SDR content the factory settings perform really well. Colour errors are small, gamma behaves correctly, and the picture looks natural during regular viewing and does not seem overly enhanced.

It's a bit worse with HDR. Once you start playing that kind of content it's quickly apparent the white balance isn't perfectly set. Too much blue and red makes the image take on a slightly pink tint. Colour gamut measurements and the ColorChecker confirm this, with samples clearly shifting in that direction. It's not a defect that completely ruins the picture, but you can notice it with HDR films. So anyone who wants the most faithful image should consider calibration, which we cover later in the review.

After calibration we were mainly able to eliminate the excessive coolness of the picture caused by an overly strong boost to the blue channel. Reds became deeper and skin tones took on a natural, healthy look. Actors who previously seemed 'cold' now appear much livelier and more convincing on screen. One thing hasn't changed: analysis of the EOTF curve still shows the Bravia 8 II tends to brighten the darkest parts of the image. It's hard to tell whether this is an intentional choice by the manufacturer or an effect of the panel design and software. In practice this means scenes that creators intended to remain in deep shadow can reveal more detail than intended. Despite this, the picture after calibration is clearly better, with warm, natural colours and realistic skin tones making viewing on the Bravia 8 II simply more pleasant to the eye.

During calibration we focused mainly on HDR material, because that’s where the factory settings needed the most correction. We didn’t neglect SDR, though. After tuning it was brought almost to perfection. Colours are very accurate and brightness is controlled as it should be. The biggest change in HDR came from improving the white balance. After removing excess red and blue the pinkish tint disappeared and the image became much more natural. Skin tones, whites and all colours that had previously leaned towards pink improved. After calibration most errors fell below Delta E 2-3, the threshold at which an average viewer stops noticing differences with the naked eye. So the LG B6 can produce a very accurate picture, especially for the manufacturer’s entry-level OLED model.

Upscaling and digital image processing are a real showcase for the Bravii 8 II. Sony has long been seen as a master in this area and this only confirms its reputation. The proprietary XR processor can extract almost the maximum from lower-resolution sources – whether it's broadcast TV or an old DVD movie, the picture looks crisper, with more detail and better depth. Of course, if you feed it exceptionally poor-quality material (like our archival shot of the Model), don't expect miracles, but in everyday viewing there's little to complain about.

The smooth gradation function also performs very well. On the "Medium" setting it effectively smooths tonal transitions, removing banding in colour and grey gradients, while not destroying film grain or fine image detail. It's this balance between subtlety and effectiveness that keeps Sony TVs among the best on the market in this category.

LG B6 copes very well with lower-quality material. Much of that is down to effective digital image processing, which can mask some source imperfections without excessively smoothing the whole scene. The "Smooth Gradation" feature proves particularly useful. It lets you noticeably reduce posterization mentioned earlier, especially in dark parts of the image. The safest choice is to set it to Low or Medium. The feature still effectively smooths out harsh tonal transitions, but doesn't yet interfere too much with fine details. Die-hard purists can of course leave it off. Upscaling to 4K also performs very well. Full HD and 720p content retain a fair amount of detail, and the image is neither overly sharpened nor heavily blurred. Some limitations are only noticeable with very poor sources below 720p, where the smallest text and fine elements aren't always perfectly sharp, but this is true for almost every other TV on the market.

Motion handling is essentially sorted on the Bravia 8 II. The OLED panel with a 120 Hz refresh rate naturally delivers a very clean, sharp picture in fast-moving scenes, so there's little to complain about. What really deserves praise, though, are its motion smoothing systems, among the best on the market. They let you precisely tailor film motion to your preferences, from subtle smoothing to an almost "soap-opera" effect, without the risk of artificial stutter, frame tearing or annoying artefacts. It's one of those features you'll appreciate both during film sessions and when watching sport.

One of the biggest advantages of OLED panels is their very fast pixel response time. That keeps the picture sharp and prevents visible smearing that often appears on LCD TVs. It does have a downside, though. During slow camera pans motion can look a bit choppier than on LCD screens, where the slower panel naturally masks some of that effect. Fortunately, on the LG B6 this is easy to tame with TruMotion. With the motion smoothing set correctly you can get smoother motion without giving the picture an exaggerated soap-opera effect.

Sony has really done its homework and with the Bravia 8 II put together a package of features for gamers that’s hard to call anything other than 'almost perfect'. It has everything you expect in gear of this class – VRR, ALLM, a Dolby Vision Gaming mode, HGiG, and even a handy Game Bar that lets you quickly check parameters and change settings without leaving the game. It’s also a plus how smoothly and hassle-free these features run, with no latency and no odd stutters. You just fire up a game and everything looks as it should. Unfortunately, there are a few caveats. The maker still gives us only two full-bandwidth HDMI ports, so if you have a console, a PC and another device, for example a soundbar on eARC, you end up having to swap cables. It’s also surprising there’s no support for 1440p at 120 Hz, which is particularly important for Xbox gamers. Overall though, it’s one of those TVs you can confidently put at the centre of your gaming living room and enjoy gameplay without major compromises.

LG OLED B6 has plenty going for gamers; it's a complete base for the PS5, Xbox Series X/S or a solid PC. It comes with four full-size HDMI 2.1 ports with 48 Gb/s bandwidth, so you can forget about annoying cable swapping when you want to connect several newer devices at once. We get a full package of sync technologies, from classic VRR to G-Sync and FreeSync. The panel effortlessly syncs its refresh rate to the frame pacing produced by your console or graphics card. Of course ALLM is present: the B6 automatically recognises when a game is running and immediately cuts latency to a minimum. HDR support is also excellent. The TV supports Dolby Vision, and a correctly implemented HGiG means that after an initial calibration in the console settings the picture won't suffer from blown-out whites or lost detail in bright areas. The icing on the cake is the Game Bar. Instead of digging through the full menu mid-game, a single click lets you correct shadow visibility, tweak chosen parameters or simply check the display's current mode. All of this makes the LG B6 a great choice for gamers.