Sony Bravia 8 (XR80) vs Samsung The Frame 2026 (LS03H)

Sony Bravia 8 performs reasonably well in terms of HDR brightness. A maximum brightness level of 880 nits is satisfactory and allows for well-rendered lighting effects in most scenes. In the tested segments of the films Life of Pi and Sicario 2, the TV presents itself quite well, offering vibrant and detailed images that fully capture the atmosphere of these productions.

However, a greater challenge arises in a scene from the film The Meg, where the screen is entirely very bright. In such situations, the limitations of OLED technology become apparent, as the TV loses brightness, dropping to around 450 nits. Such a drop is less satisfying, especially when the entire scene requires intense lighting. Despite these limitations, Sony Bravia 8 remains a competitive model, offering excellent coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut and 74% coverage of the BT.2020 standard. This results in rich colours and precise details, significantly enhancing the quality of HDR content viewing and making for a pleasurable experience.

The Frame 2026 is a genuinely bright TV. Its peak brightness reaches around 650 nits and, importantly, it maintains similar levels regardless of the type of scene being displayed. It doesn’t really matter whether we’re watching a very bright full-screen image or just a small highlight occupying part of the screen. The backlight remains powerful, allowing bright parts of the image to stand out clearly.

This gives The Frame a solid foundation for HDR. Bright highlights can look impactful, and the picture doesn’t appear flat or overly dim. Unfortunately, there is a compromise. Without local dimming, the TV cannot darken the black areas surrounding very bright objects.

This is clearly visible in scenes 2 and 4 of our test procedure. Bright elements look impressive, but at the same time, the blacks around them become noticeably raised. As a result, the image loses some of its depth, especially when watching in a dark room. This is why The Frame performs best with HDR in bright and moderately bright scenes, where its high brightness works to its advantage. In darker scenes, the situation is quite the opposite.

Colours

The Frame also performs well when it comes to colour reproduction. As a QLED TV, it can display a wide colour gamut and produce rich, saturated colours. DCI-P3 coverage reaches around 94%, while BT.2020 comes in at around 72%. These are good results, and you can see the difference in actual content.

Colours look vivid without appearing washed out, particularly in bright and colourful scenes. Animations and other content with plenty of saturated colours can look really good on The Frame. With this type of material, the TV shows one of its stronger sides.

The best factory mode available on the Sony Bravia 8 television is IMAX Enhanced, which provides the most cinematic experience, although it is not set up perfectly. The TV tries to replicate cinema settings as faithfully as possible, however, certain shortcomings are noticeable. Starting with white balance, both for SDR materials and 4K, there is a clear dominance of blue. This makes the picture appear too cold, taking away its naturalness. Tests using Colour Checker show that colours shift towards cooler shades, which may lead to less accurate colour reproduction and makes the image less realistic.

As for brightness and contrast characteristics, gamma shows a significant drop at the end of the graph. This means that dark details may be too dim, while bright elements are too bright, causing them to lose subtlety and become less visible. As can be seen in the sky - in the comparison photo. Meanwhile, the EOTF curve is significantly above the reference value, causing the bright elements of the image to be too intense. As a result, users may perceive the image as unnatural, and bright areas may lose detail, negatively impacting the overall viewing quality.

For assessing the factory colour setup we chose the Filmmaker Mode. If you’re encountering it for the first time, it’s a mode designed to reproduce films and TV shows as faithfully as possible. The TV then turns off most additional image enhancers, and the colours and luminance response are intended to be as close as possible to what the creators intended. And it must be said that The Frame 2026 performs quite well in this respect straight out of the box. The biggest deviation is seen in the white balance. As brightness increases, blue starts to fall short and there’s a slight increase in green. As a result, the image shifts towards warmer tones. So white isn’t perfectly neutral, and in some scenes you can notice a subtly warmer cast.

The luminance response, both gamma and EOTF, looks pretty good. Through most of the range they stay fairly close to the target, although larger deviations are visible in the darkest parts of the image. In practice, some shadow details emerging from black may therefore be a bit more pronounced. However, it’s not an error that jumps out during normal viewing. Overall, Filmmaker Mode is a good starting point here. However, the factory picture is a bit too warm and not all hues land exactly where they should.

The calibration process of the Sony Bravia 8 television has brought significant improvements in image quality. The white balance has been distinctly enhanced, both for SDR content and 4K HDR, with minimal errors in the middle section of the graph. Gamma proved to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the calibration – it has been completely stripped of previous drops, which significantly affected brightness stability and better detail reproduction in dark parts of the image. The EOTF curve has also been levelled out, making bright elements of the image appear more natural, and the overall tonal dynamics are now more balanced.

However, the most attention should be paid to colour reproduction, where despite the calibration, there are still some issues. Sony has omitted the use of a CMS system in this model, which allows for very precise control over colours. Consequently, the Colour Checker test for 4K materials still shows significant errors in colour samples. Despite these difficulties, we recommend carrying out the calibration, as the effects are noticeable and significantly enhance image quality, especially in terms of brightness and contrast.

After calibration we mainly managed to remove that warmer tint and better even out the white balance. We also smoothed the brightness response a bit, which made the picture more neutral and predictable. There are, however, things calibration won't fix. It's mainly the black performance, which comes from the backlight design and the lack of local dimming. In some scenes the blacks will therefore still be slightly lifted, and you just have to accept that. It's more a characteristic of this model than something you can fix with the settings. HDR is also somewhat limited. Samsung doesn't give full freedom to work across the widest colour gamut here, so not all colours can be reproduced perfectly. In normal viewing it will probably be hard to notice, but it's worth being aware of.

The fluidity of tonal transitions in low-quality materials on the ChooseTV 8 is lacking. Unfortunately, the gentle gradation feature (which was available in previous models) is missing, which is a significant downside. The digital noise reduction function can improve tonal transitions quite well, but it also tends to remove some details, such as clouds in scenes from the film The Martian, which may not appeal to everyone. When it comes to digital processing, the Sony XR80 TV performs quite well. The model in the test scenes is displayed without noticeable errors, and the branches in the background are not overly jagged. This shows that ChooseTV 8 is capable of processing complex image details at low resolution well.

As with many of Samsung’s newer TVs, this one also uses the NQ4 AI processor, albeit the older, second-generation version. I must admit it handles digital image processing quite well. Lower-resolution material is sharpened effectively, and when upscaled to 4K it still looks natural. The TV can also tidy up weaker sources a bit, such as older recordings or lower-quality broadcasts. That doesn’t, of course, mean it will suddenly turn poor footage into true 4K, but at close viewing distances the difference compared with simpler models with weaker processors is easy to spot. Edges are clearer and fine details aren’t lost as much to signal compression.

Samsung also provides a few extra picture-enhancing features, but as usual it’s best to use them sparingly. At stronger settings, noise reduction can very effectively reduce posterisation, but it also noticeably interferes with the image. The picture then starts to look quite artificial, for example by heavily smoothing faces. So these features make most sense with really poor sources when all the noise is very distracting.

Sony Bravia 8 offers a maximum refresh rate of 120 Hz, which lays the groundwork for smooth viewing of dynamic content such as sports and games. As a result, movements are sharp and fluid. For more demanding users, the Sony XR80 television is equipped with an advanced motion smoothing system, which is divided into three segments: Smoothness (Film), Smoothness (Camera), and Clarity. The first two are responsible for adjusting the level of blur and smoothing of the image. The third option, concerning clarity, will be described in more detail below. Each of the parameters can be tailored to personal preferences, allowing users to find the optimal setting suited to their individual needs.

Samsung again used a panel here with a maximum refresh rate of 144 Hz. Refresh rates up to 120 Hz mainly offer greater flexibility with high-motion content. The TV can use additional motion smoothing systems that can improve smoothness in sports and other fast-paced content. However, a high refresh rate alone does not solve everything. The Frame still uses a VA panel, which has a fairly slow response time, resulting in quite pronounced motion blur. With fast-moving objects, especially against dark backgrounds, the trails are easy to notice. There's also a slight double-imaging of edges, which can be visible even after turning off additional motion enhancement systems. We already saw similar behaviour in last year's The Frame 2025, and it's a shame Samsung hasn't fixed this. The 144 Hz itself provides a good foundation, but the panel's response time still limits this TV.

Sony Bravia 8 has significantly improved its compatibility with consoles compared to earlier models. The TV supports variable refresh rate (VRR), which eliminates screen tearing, and is compatible with graphics cards, ensuring smooth visuals. The auto low latency mode (ALLM) reduces input lag, which is crucial in fast-paced games. Dolby Vision with low latency additionally provides impressive HDR effects that look fantastic during gameplay.

The Sony XR80 TV also features a Game Bar, which allows quick access to settings and monitoring parameters while gaming. An interesting option is the ability to enable a virtual crosshair on the screen, which can provide a slight advantage in shooter games.

A downside is the lack of support for 1440p@120hz resolution, which could make gaming easier for users with less powerful graphics cards. Additionally, the Sony XR80 only has two HDMI 2.1 ports, one of which is typically used to connect an audio system via eARC, limiting the number of available ports for connecting next-gen consoles.

When it comes to gaming features, The Frame is practically on par with Samsung’s flagship TVs. Once a console is connected, the TV automatically switches to Game Mode thanks to ALLM, so there’s no need to change the settings manually every time. There’s also VRR, which matches the screen’s refresh rate to the frame rate generated by the console or PC. When the frame rate drops, this helps prevent the characteristic screen tearing that can otherwise occur.

The Frame naturally supports 4K at 120Hz, allowing you to take advantage of higher frame rates on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. HGiG also works correctly. Once HDR has been properly calibrated on the console, the TV doesn’t try to additionally brighten the image on its own, so bright highlights in games are displayed as they should be.

Samsung also includes its Game Bar. This quick-access menu can be opened without leaving the game and lets you check things like VRR operation or the current frame rate, while also giving you quick access to the most important gaming settings. PC users get even more flexibility, as the Full HD mode mentioned earlier allows the refresh rate to be increased all the way up to 240Hz.

There is really only one feature missing, and by now it’s something we’ve come to expect from Samsung TVs: Dolby Vision Gaming. Xbox owners will notice this the most, as Xbox consoles can actually use Dolby Vision in supported games.

There is one more limitation worth mentioning that applies specifically to this model. The One Connect box has only one HDMI 2.1 port, so this is the only input you can use for a console or PC if you want to play at 4K 120Hz. Fortunately, Samsung hasn’t combined this port with eARC. This means you can connect a soundbar separately to HDMI 3 and still keep the full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 port available for your console.