Samsung DU7192 (VA) vs Sony BRAVIA 7 II

In the luminance charts, the peak brightness of the television is around 280 nits. Unfortunately, this value is too low to fully enjoy HDR effects, which require significantly higher luminance. In the tested materials, such as The Meg and Gemini Man, the lack of adequate brightness severely limits the magic of HDR, and the details in the brighter parts of the image are not sufficiently highlighted. For users primarily consuming SDR content, this level of quality may be acceptable, but it is definitely not enough when it comes to HDR. Additionally, the coverage of the DCI-P3 colour palette at 82% does not favour presenting HDR content in its full glory. The limited colour gamut makes it difficult for the television to reproduce vibrant and diverse colours, which is crucial for achieving a cinema-like experience.

The Sony Bravia 7 II handles HDR very well and, above all, is simply a bright television. In the correct viewing mode, Professional, we measured around 2,000 nits of peak brightness, so the panel’s capabilities are truly significant. Of course, with Mini-LEDs a test pattern result is only part of the story, because a lot still depends on how the TV controls the backlight in real scenes. Here Sony’s algorithms perform very well. Depending on the scene, the brightness we measured in films ranged from roughly 1,100 to as much as 1,700 nits. That’s already a level at which HDR has proper punch and bright highlights can be genuinely impressive. It isn’t perfect in every situation, though. With small bright elements on a very dark background the Bravia 7 II clearly favours maintaining good blacks, which can cause their brightness to drop to around 500 nits. It still looks good, but you can see the TV does not always manage this without compromise.

Colours

The second thing that has a huge impact on HDR is, of course, colour. And this is precisely where True RGB technology was meant to bring one of the biggest changes. Looking at the panel’s capabilities alone, the Bravia 7 II performs very well. We measured about 98% DCI-P3 coverage and 88% BT.2020, so the potential to show strongly saturated colours is really large. In RGB TVs, however, the situation is a bit more complex. When we repeated the same measurements with a film background applied, palette coverage fell to around 92% DCI-P3 and 78% BT.2020. Those are still good figures, especially for an RGB Mini-LED TV, but they clearly show that the final result largely depends on how the algorithms control the three backlight colours. In most scenes the Bravia 7 II handles this well and colours retain high saturation. The biggest differences are visible in shades of blue, where samples begin to deviate more noticeably from reference values and coverage is weaker than for the other primary colours. True RGB therefore offers genuinely greater potential here, but, as with brightness, much depends on what is happening on screen.

The best factory mode we relied on during testing turned out to be "Filmmaker". Although this mode is the closest to the creators' intent for films, it is not without certain imperfections. The white balance chart in both SDR and HDR clearly shows a dominance of red, resulting in significant yellowing, particularly noticeable in whites and on actors' faces. In HDR mode, there is also a slight dominance of green, which, however, does not have as much impact on the perception of the image. The gamma, which is responsible for brightness in SDR materials, performed quite well, but with one serious caveat. In the darkest parts of the image, it was too low, causing excessive brightness in those scenes, depriving the film of drama and contrast. For HDR, the white balance remains at a similar level; however, the EOTF curve chart draws attention. At the beginning, the curve clearly bulges, leading to a strong brightness in the darkest scenes. Then the result suddenly drops below the reference line, resulting in an overly dark image and a loss of dynamics in the brighter parts.

In summary, the "Filmmaker" mode, despite its advantages, requires refinement – especially regarding white balance and proper management of brightness in the darkest and brightest parts of the image. In its current form, it may be acceptable for less demanding users, but for viewers expecting precise image reproduction, it may leave much to be desired.

To evaluate the factory colours we chose the Professional mode, because it performs best among the available settings. However, it is not perfect. In SDR the white balance drifts slightly towards magenta, making some scenes look a little warmer and less neutral than they should. A bigger problem is the gamma, which sits closer to 2.5 than to 2.4. This makes the image a bit too dark in places, particularly in the midtones. In HDR the situation is better. As brightness increases a little too much red appears, but this is not an issue that is highly noticeable during viewing. Overall the Professional mode is a good starting point, although you can get a bit more out of it after calibration.

Even for its lower models, Samsung offers advanced image calibration tools, which allow for significant improvement of the factory settings. We undertook this task, and the results turned out to be more than satisfying. The white balance, which previously exhibited a strong yellowish tint in both SDR and HDR, was significantly improved. Although slight deviations from the norm can be noticed, the overall effect is much cleaner and more natural than before calibration. As a result, whites and skin tones look much better. We also managed to properly shape the gamma in SDR materials, which allows for achieving the maximum contrast that this television can offer. The EOTF curve, responsible for HDR materials, was also improved – the image is no longer brightened or darkened as drastically as it was before calibration. Despite these successes, HDR materials still struggle with high deltaE error values. The main reason lies in the limited brightness of the television, which does not allow for a complete representation of the dynamics of HDR content. Nevertheless, after calibration, the image is clearly better and more aligned with the creators' intentions. For users seeking the best possible quality in this class of equipment, calibration is definitely recommended.

After calibration the Bravia 7 II can look decidedly better. Above all, we managed to set the white balance very well, both in SDR and HDR. Gamma can also be improved, which after correction runs very close to the reference value. And in fact, for most users these changes will have the greatest impact on the picture. There is, however, a limitation when it comes to the colours themselves. In the Bravia 7 II Sony does not provide access to a classic CMS that would allow us to correct individual hues separately. A lot is therefore left in the hands of the algorithms controlling the True RGB backlight. If the TV misrepresents a particular colour, we are not always able to do anything about it. In our measurements this is most visible in certain reds and blues, where errors can still be quite large. This does not, however, undermine the point of calibration itself. Correctly setting the white point and gamma strongly affects the whole picture, so even without the ability to precisely correct every colour the difference compared with the factory settings is noticeable.

The tonal smoothing function operates in two modes – "off" and "auto". Turning it off causes gradation issues, while the "auto" mode ensures smooth transitions, but at the cost of grain and detail, which are often blurred. Due to these limitations, we do not recommend using this feature, as confirmed by our tests conducted with it turned off.

Scaling of lower resolution materials in this model is not impressive. Details are blurred, and the edges of objects may contain artifacts. This limitation makes the television perform better with higher resolution content.

Scaling and digital processing are among the strongest points of the Bravia 7 II and one of the bigger reasons to choose Sony over the competition. The manufacturer has been handling digital image processing well for years, and it shows here too. First and foremost, the 'Smooth Gradation' function works very well and can smooth out weak tonal transitions in lower-quality material. The safest setting is Low, but we would comfortably recommend Medium as well. The effect is stronger then, yet the TV still treats details very gently. Some fine details may be slightly smoothed, but Sony does this much more subtly than many other brands. The upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution material is well upscaled to 4K, the image looks clean and retains a lot of detail. Of course the TV will not magically turn native HD material into true 4K, but what can be extracted from such a source is handled really well by the Bravia 7 II.

Although the Samsung DU7192 is the lowest model in the manufacturer's range, it is equipped with motion smoothing technology. While the functionality of this solution is significantly limited compared to more expensive models, its presence alone distinguishes the television amidst competitors in this price bracket. The TV supports a maximum refresh rate of 60 Hz, which is sufficient for comfortable viewing of films and series, but may be inadequate for dynamic content such as sports. In the motion smoothing menu, we can find, among other things, the "Judder Reduction" feature. Unfortunately, its performance leaves much to be desired – regardless of the setting, the picture exhibits the characteristic stutter known from materials recorded at 24 frames per second, making this feature practically ineffective.

The Bravia 7 II uses a 120 Hz panel, so in terms of motion handling it delivers everything you would expect from a TV of this class. With sport or games at 120 fps, the picture is suitably smooth, and for films Sony provides an extensive motion interpolation system. You can therefore adjust the interpolation level separately and decide whether you want to preserve a more cinematic character to the motion or obtain noticeably smoother movement. The issue of motion blur itself is a little worse. The VA panel used is not among the fastest, and you can notice a slight trail behind moving objects, particularly on darker backgrounds. It is not at a level that greatly bothers during normal viewing, but last year’s Bravia 7 fared better in this respect and had a noticeably faster panel.

Samsung DU7192 is equipped with HDMI 2.0 ports, which is expected in this price range. This limitation means there is no support for the full capabilities of the latest generation consoles, such as VRR technologies. The television only offers a basic feature for gamers – automatic switching to low latency mode (ALLM), and support for basic HDR for games in the HGiG standard. HGiG allows for the display of HDR content in games according to manufacturers' guidelines; however, the limited brightness of the television does not allow for full enjoyment of the effects that this standard offers. Unfortunately, there is a lack of conveniences such as GameBar, which is increasingly found even in cheaper models and greatly facilitates quick adjustment of settings for games. The presence of this feature could significantly enhance user comfort, especially for those who frequently change display modes.

Bravia 7 II has basically everything you’d expect today from a good console TV. It supports 4K at 120 Hz, VRR from 48 to 120 Hz and ALLM, so when you start a game the TV automatically switches to a low-latency mode. It also has properly working HGiG, which means that after configuring HDR on the console the TV won’t try to brighten the image further on its own. You just need to remember to turn off tone mapping in the TV’s menu. Dolby Vision in game mode is also a plus, especially useful for Xbox owners. Sony adds its own Game Menu. From it you can quickly check key signal information, verify VRR operation or change gaming-related settings without digging through the whole TV menu. The only thing missing from the feature list is support for 1440p at 120 Hz.

Our biggest reservation is not really about the functions themselves, but about the connectors. The Bravia 7 II has four HDMI ports, but only two of them support full HDMI 2.1 at 48 Gbps. One of those is also an eARC port. So if you connect a soundbar or AV receiver to the TV via HDMI, in practice you’re left with only one full HDMI 2.1 for a console or PC. With a single console that’s no problem, but with a PS5, an Xbox and an audio setup it starts to get tight. And this is hard to excuse for Sony. In cheaper TVs two HDMI 2.1 ports can still be acceptable, but in a model of this class, especially in 2026, we would expect a full set of four such ports.