Samsung M80H vs Sony BRAVIA 2 II (S25M2)

The M80H is not among the brightest TVs. Its peak brightness is around 350 nits and we saw similar results in most of our test scenes. That is not enough to achieve truly striking HDR; bright highlights lack the necessary punch and the overall image is a bit too dark. In practice HDR on the M80H resembles a well-presented SDR image more than noticeably more dynamic material with a wide brightness range. The image can still look acceptable, but it is hard to speak of strong specular highlights, clearly glowing light sources or an effect that immediately distinguishes HDR from ordinary content.

Colours

One of the M80H's stronger points is its colours. The TV uses a filter based on PFS backlighting, which allows it to display a much wider colour gamut than a standard LCD screen without filters. Our measurements confirm this – the M80H covers around 96% of the DCI-P3 gamut and 72% of BT.2020. Those are really good figures, which allow colours to be deeply saturated. Samsung's approach here is interesting. The M80H is not part of the QLED family, even though in terms of colour it is practically indistinguishable from models carrying that badge. From an image-quality point of view it doesn't really matter though — the colours are simply good.

The Sony Bravia 2 II is not a very bright TV and unfortunately that is immediately apparent in HDR. In our measurements brightness stayed around 300 to 330 nits, which is clearly too low for the brightest parts of the image to look truly impressive. In practice, HDR here does not differ that much from standard SDR. Bright highlights, the sun or lamps are of course visible, but they lack the intensity you would expect from HDR material. The Bravia 2 II therefore performs much better with standard SDR content, and in that use its limited brightness will be least noticeable.

Colour gamut coverage

The Sony Bravia 2 II is also not impressive in terms of colour. The TV does not use any additional gamut‑expanding filter, such as the quantum dots found in QLED TVs or a PFS phosphor layer. In our measurements coverage of the DCI‑P3 gamut was about 78%, and the very wide BT.2020 roughly 57%. That's definitely too little to talk about truly saturated colours in HDR material. More intense reds, greens or turquoises will simply be less striking than on TVs with an expanded colour gamut. The Bravia 2 II therefore performs much better in the Rec.709 standard, the gamut used for films, series and television in SDR.

Filmmaker Mode is set fairly well out of the box, although it falls short of perfection. In SDR material the most noticeable issue is an excess of red in the white balance, which makes the image appear a little warmer than it should. HDR content has a similar character. As for the brightness response, in SDR the gamma stays close to the target value for most of the range. Small deviations are mainly visible in darker areas, which in places are a bit too crushed. In HDR the darkest details are slightly lifted, while from around 65% brightness the image begins to be slightly darkened. This is largely due to the way the TV controls its brightness. Overall, Filmmaker Mode looks pretty good straight out of the box, but the picture can still be improved.

The out-of-the-box colour reproduction in Cinema mode was actually quite good, at least for ordinary SDR material. The Bravia 2 II had a slight tendency to boost reds, so some colours shifted to slightly warmer, at times faintly pinkish, tones. However, this wasn’t a major fault and during normal viewing the picture still looked fairly natural. There was a bit more happening with image brightness. Looking at the gamma curve, you can see Sony doesn’t stick perfectly to the reference value. The darkest areas are slightly lifted, while as brightness increases the gamma gradually rises and a larger part of the picture becomes darker than it should. That said, it’s not such a large difference as to be very distracting in everyday viewing. Overall, SDR straight out of the box performs quite respectably.

The situation is considerably worse in HDR. We’ve already mentioned the limited colour gamut, but in addition the Bravia 2 II noticeably manipulates image brightness here. The EOTF curve sits below the reference value for a large part of its range, which means the TV renders most mid and brighter parts of a scene darker than the source material intends. Only towards the very end of the range does the curve flatten out, as the panel reaches the limits of its capabilities. Combined with a peak brightness of around 300 nits, this results in HDR that not only lacks much brightness, but can also simply look too dark.

After calibration, the M80H fares very well, especially with the most ordinary SDR content. Regular broadcast TV, YouTube and films watched without HDR can look very good on it. After correcting the white balance the errors are small, although sometimes we can still see that the TV tends to overdo the most saturated reds. In HDR it is also possible to improve the picture and correct its main faults, but it is not at the level of pricier models. Samsung quite heavily restricts colour adjustment in HDR, so in many areas we have to accept what the TV offers out of the box. Calibration lets us improve some parameters, but we are no longer able to change the overall character of the M80H's image.

Calibration did a lot for the Bravia 2 II, particularly with SDR content. Above all, we managed to even out the white balance and tidy up the gamma, which now follows the reference value much more closely. As a result, the image no longer has the previous pink cast, and the brightness across different areas is much better organised. You can also see this in the colour errors, which after calibration fell to a very low level (with slight issues in the most saturated reds). We also partially managed to rein in the Bravia 2 II in HDR, especially in the way the television handles image brightness. However, there is one thing no calibration can fix: the capabilities of the panel itself. A narrow colour gamut means the television is physically unable to reproduce the most saturated colours present in HDR material. On top of that, the low contrast of the IPS panel means darker scenes are veiled by a grey haze, which robs colours of some of their depth. So we can improve how the Bravia 2 II makes use of its capabilities, but unfortunately we cannot overcome the panel's inherent limitations.

Although the M80H is positioned fairly low in Samsung's range, the manufacturer equipped it with one of its stronger processors, the NQ4 AI Gen2. The same chip can be found, for example, in Neo QLED TVs and the lower-tier S85H OLED. That is good news, because when it comes to improving weaker sources the processor performs really well. Upscaling is the strongest point. Low-resolution content is displayed correctly and edges do not look overly jagged. Of course the TV will not create details that are not present in the source, but regular broadcast TV and older recordings look decent on it. One drawback is the overscan effect, that is edge cropping, which cannot be completely turned off. The tonal transition smoothing function, the so-called noise reduction, also works well. The processor can effectively reduce visible traces of heavy compression, but it does not do this without side effects. At higher settings it may over-smooth the image, remove some fine detail and even eliminate film grain. For that reason we recommend using this function mainly for content that really suffers from strong compression and posterisation.

The upscaling on the Bravii 2 II is quite good and, in that respect, the TV matches the standard Sony has set. Lower-resolution content is sensibly upscaled to 4K, and the image is slightly smoothed in the process without excessive edge sharpening. The situation is worse when it comes to improving footage with visible compression artefacts. This is handled by the "Digital Noise Reduction" function, which at the "High" setting can indeed smooth out some unpleasant tonal banding. The problem is that it does this rather aggressively and, along with the imperfections, it also removes a lot of fine detail, including natural film grain. What is more, when there is more motion on screen its effectiveness drops sharply and any improvement is then minimal. For everyday use we therefore tended not to use this function.

The M80H performs very well for watching sport and for gaming. The TV is fitted with a panel offering a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz at 4K, and when the resolution is lowered to Full HD it can even support 240 Hz. PC gamers will benefit most from the latter.

The panel also handles content displayed at 120 Hz well, which is particularly important for console gaming. The high refresh rate is also useful when watching sport, and motion blur is relatively limited. That matters because VA panels are not known for top results in this area. With the M80H, fast-moving objects do not show pronounced smearing.

Bravia 2 II uses a 60 Hz panel and, given its capabilities, handles motion quite well. However, bear in mind that it is a basic panel and its limitations are already clearly visible, especially during sports. The TV cannot interpolate 50/60 fps material to a higher refresh rate, so it cannot further improve the sharpness of fast-moving objects. For films and series, however, it offers a conventional motion smoothing feature that can reduce the characteristic judder of material shot at 24 fps.

The M80H could be a very good choice for gamers on a slightly smaller budget. In terms of features it offers essentially the same as far more expensive Samsung TVs. All three HDMI ports support the 2.1 standard, so even if one is taken by a soundbar connected via eARC there is still room for a PC and consoles. There is also VRR that runs up to 144 Hz at 4K and up to 240 Hz at Full HD. Samsung has also correctly implemented HGiG, so after performing HDR calibration on a console games are properly matched to the screen’s capabilities. This won't make the M80H any brighter, but at least it won't unnecessarily crush the brightest parts of the image. There's also a Game Bar for quick access to key settings and a Gaming Hub that lets you play in the cloud without a console. The M80H also offers Game Motion Plus, which creates additional frames and improves the smoothness of games running at 30 or 60 fps. Input lag then rises to around 59 ms, but is still roughly three times lower than with ordinary motion smoothing on TVs from other manufacturers. We wouldn't really recommend it for online gaming, but in more relaxed titles it can perform very well.

The Bravia 2 II is not a television that lends itself well to gaming, and the list of features shows that quite quickly. You essentially only get the automatic low-latency mode ALLM and a simple Game Bar that lets you view basic signal information and change a few settings. But that is where the list of strengths ends. The TV does not support VRR or 120 Hz (not even at lower resolutions), and on top of that it has problems with a proper implementation of the HDR HGIG format. It is suitable for occasional console gaming, and thanks to low input lag controls remain responsive, but if someone is looking for a TV primarily for games, the Bravia 2 II will simply be a rather limited choice.