TCL P89K / TCL P8K vs SONY BRAVIA 3 II (XR35M2)

The maximum brightness of the TCL P8K peaks at around 300 nits, although in real film scenes the television typically maintains closer to 250 nits. These are values that cannot be considered sufficient to achieve a true HDR effect – they are more aligned with a solid base for SDR content. Therefore, we won’t see spectacular flashes, bursts of light, or moments where the screen actually “blinds” as is the case with more expensive models. The image is consequently a bit flat, and the differences between light and shadow – more symbolic than realistic. Fortunately, TCL has a few aces up its sleeve that save the overall impression. One of these is the coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut at around 93-94%. Thanks to an additional QLED layer (PFS LED), colours gain depth and intensity, clearly surpassing standard LCD panels. As a result, while the typical “wow effect” associated with HDR brightness is lacking, the image itself can impress with its richness and vibrant tones, making the film scenes pulse with colour and not appear significantly washed out.

The Bravia 3 II isn't exactly a TV that tries to impress with brightness. In our measurements it reached around 450 nits, so it's well short of the brightest models on the market. That doesn't mean HDR is just a paper feature here. Compared with standard SDR material, the brightest parts of the image can already punch through noticeably, and highlights, light sources and stronger exposures have a bit more energy and stand out better from the rest of the scene. You can see this best in simpler shots where the screen contains lots of bright elements. Then the Bravia 3 II can give a taste of a higher-dynamic-range picture. The problem only starts with more demanding content, where much greater brightness headroom is needed. There the TV quickly shows its limits and instead of bold, spectacular HDR we’re left with a merely competent picture.

Colours

The Bravia 3 II uses a QLED panel, although technically it doesn't employ a traditional quantum-dot layer. Instead Sony has used a PFS phosphor-based solution, which performs a very similar role: it allows for more saturated reds and greens, and thus reproduces a much wider colour gamut. In our measurements coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut was about 94%, and of the very wide BT.2020 around 74.4%. Those are good results for this class of hardware, which means the Bravia 3 II has no problem showing suitably saturated colours in HDR material. Colours don't look washed out, and the more intense hues can look really attractive.

In Filmmaker mode, the TCL P8K revealed certain imperfections in image reproduction from the start. We noticed that the TV had a tendency to slightly brighten scenes – its gamma was somewhat lowered, which made the image appear softly "washed out," lacking depth, as if the contrast had slipped out of control. This was most noticeable in HDR content, where the EOTF brightness curve clearly deviated from reference values. As a result, darker areas of the image looked too gloomy, and brighter ones did not always reach the correct level of luminance. The second noticeable issue was a slight blue overdrive – the TV stubbornly boosted this colour, causing some parts of the image, especially skin tones and reds, to have a slight purple tint. It is not a major flaw, but to a discerning eye – noticeable. Fortunately, most of these errors could be adjusted during calibration. You can see the results of this calibration in the charts and photos below.

In Professional mode the Bravia 3 II delivers a fairly good level of colour reproduction straight out of the box. In SDR the most noticeable issue is a slightly low gamma, which makes the midtones a little brighter. The white balance isn't perfect either; as brightness increases a bit of blue and red drops away, so whites can sometimes appear a touch warmer with a faint greenish tint. These aren't mistakes that immediately jump out when watching a film. Average error values hover around 3, so the factory setup can be considered quite good. The situation in HDR is similar. Here too there's a slight lack of blue, so the picture is marginally warmer than the reference, but the difference isn't large enough to be distracting during normal viewing.

After calibration, the TCL P8K revealed a completely different side. It managed to achieve nearly perfect, even reference-level colour reproduction for both SDR and HDR content. The screen no longer had a tendency towards a cool tint, and the white balance was perfectly aligned. The gamma values for SDR materials finally look as they should – the image has the right depth and no longer appears washed out. The only concern that can still be raised about the P8K pertains to its "Chinese" traits, known from most TCL models. The TV still likes to manipulate saturation in HDR content in its own way – sometimes it gently boosts it, other times it smooths it out, making the effect not always fully predictable. Nevertheless, after calibration, the colours look stunning, and their accuracy is truly impressive. In most cases, measurement errors dropped below values of 1–2, which is a performance that much more expensive models would not be ashamed of.

After calibration you can get a lot out of SDR material. The white balance was set almost perfectly, gamma practically matches the reference value, and average colour errors fell from around 3 to about 1. That’s already the level at which differences from the reference image are very hard to spot in practice. The Bravia 3 II therefore shows that despite its place in Sony’s range it has quite a bit of potential for precise picture tuning. Improvement is also visible in HDR, although here you can’t avoid all the limitations of the TV itself. Once the colours are evened out it’s easier to notice that the EOTF curve in film material runs slightly below the reference value in places, meaning the Bravia 3 II gently darkens parts of the image. That isn’t ideal from a reference point of view, but in this particular TV it also has an advantage. With no local dimming and average black levels this behaviour slightly reduces the visibility of the backlight in darker scenes and helps preserve a stronger sense of contrast. You could say Sony is partly masking the limitations of the panel this way, rather than trying at all costs to stick to the reference brightness.

The TCL P8K performs somewhat weaker when it comes to the fluidity of tonal transitions in lower quality materials. The television does offer a feature to smooth out unwanted bands, but its effectiveness leaves a lot to be desired. Even at the highest setting, it's hard to speak of a real improvement—at times, the effect is even opposite to what was intended, as the feature can introduce small artifacts and unnatural blurring on the screen.

On the other hand, the upscaling, which involves scaling the image to 4K resolution, looks definitely better. The P8K handles this task surprisingly well—HD content, and even SD, is enhanced in an aesthetically pleasing way without excessive loss of sharpness. There are indeed slight “hard” edges typical of this class of equipment, but this can be easily adjusted using the sharpness slider according to personal preferences. The final effect is more than satisfying, especially considering the price range this model is in.

Bravia 3 II is Sony's first TV to use the new MediaTek Pentonic 800 chip, and you can see a few changes in the image processing. Starting with the basics: the upscaling itself is decent. The TV can sensibly upscale lower-resolution material and doesn't have a strong tendency to over‑emphasise jagged edges or other source imperfections. With regular broadcast TV or lower-quality streaming material the picture therefore remains quite attractive.

We have more reservations about the digital image processing. In this model Sony has replaced the well-known "Smooth Gradation" function with a new setting called "Digital Noise Reduction". Its job is basically the same: to smooth out ugly tonal transitions and artifacts caused by heavy compression. Unfortunately, this function performs noticeably worse than before. At the "Large" setting (the only one that had any visible effect) the TV can smooth away too many image elements at once, which causes film grain to disappear and object textures or even skin to start looking unnatural. Worse still, the effect is not particularly stable. When there's more motion in a scene, the function's effect noticeably weakens and at times it looks as if the TV stops intervening in the image altogether. So for everyday viewing we wouldn't recommend using it at a high level. It can help on static shots, but the trade-off is often too much loss of detail.

TCL P8K is one of the cheapest televisions offering a 144 Hz refresh rate, which in itself is a significant advantage in this price segment. Thanks to the fast panel, this model can confidently be recommended to both sports fans and gamers – the image is smooth, and the movements of the ball or dynamic actions look natural. However, this does not mean that the P8K is suitable only for sports. On the contrary – it can also maintain the right dynamics in movies without introducing an artificial 'theatrical' effect, as long as the settings are adjusted thoughtfully. The television is equipped with a motion smoother called 'Motion Clarity', which features two sliders: blur reduction and flicker reduction. The first is responsible for smoothing the image by generating additional frames, which increases fluidity but can cause a slight soap opera effect. The second, on the other hand, reduces flicker and improves sharpness in motion, although it may slightly dim the screen. Properly adjusting these two parameters allows for a truly good balance between natural motion and fluidity. The 60 Hz screen is good for dynamic content, though more discerning users will notice that it is not a top-tier panel in terms of motion clarity.

Motion handling is definitely one of the Bravia 3 II's strongest points. The TV uses a 120 Hz VA panel, a solution that by nature, despite the high refresh rate, doesn't always cope well with motion blur. Sony has, however, managed that issue very well here. Fast-moving objects remain sharp, and the characteristic motion trails and blur are reduced to a very low level, if not to zero. It's one of the least motion-blur-prone LCD TVs we've had the chance to test. Interestingly, in this respect the Bravia 3 II can even outperform the much more expensive flagship True RGB series, the Bravia 9 II.

Although the TCL P8K is a budget television, it absolutely cannot be said that it is unsuitable for gaming. On the contrary – this screen can pleasantly surprise any gamer. On board, we find two HDMI 2.1 ports, which allow us to effortlessly send a 4K image at 120 Hz. If someone plays on PC, they will also be pleased to know that the television can operate even with a refresh rate of 240 Hz at a lower resolution – a small thing, but it’s appreciated. Additionally, there is a full set of gaming-specific features: automatic game mode, a Game Bar with quick parameter previews, VRR, HGiG, and support for Dolby Vision in games. All of this makes gaming on the P8K a truly enjoyable experience – the image is smooth, the response is quick, and the television works well with next-gen consoles. The TCL P8K shows that a cheap screen doesn't have to mean giving up on fun. Definitely not when it comes to gaming.

The Sony Bravia 3 II is a very good TV for gamers, although not everything has been solved the way we’d like. The biggest change concerns the connectors. For the first time in a Sony TV we get four full HDMI 2.1 ports with 48 Gb/s bandwidth, thanks to the new MediaTek Pentonic 800 chipset. That removes one of the problems that has hung over this manufacturer’s TVs for years. You can connect several devices at once and on each input use the device’s full capabilities, including VRR and ALLM. There’s also a simple Game Bar that lets you check the key signal parameters and change a few useful settings, such as black level, when you want to improve visibility in darker parts of a game.

There are, however, two limitations worth knowing. The first is the lack of support for 1440p at 120 Hz. That won’t be an issue for everyone, but people using that resolution on a console or PC—for example to get higher frame rates in certain games—will have to choose 1080p. We have more reservations about HGiG support. Sony doesn’t let you disable tone mapping on the Bravia 3 II, so the TV keeps processing HDR even when you’d prefer to leave that task to the console. It’s easiest to spot during HDR setup—the checkerboard test pattern doesn’t disappear at the point where it should based on the TV’s actual capabilities. That doesn’t mean HDR in games will look bad. You just need to set up a little differently and, rather than relying on the pattern, manually set the peak brightness to about 450 nits. So the issue can be worked around, but you should know about it before you start configuring your console.