Sony Bravia 7 (XR70) vs Philips OLED820

Since we know that the television performs well with contrast, let's check how it fares in terms of HDR effects. The luminance graph shows the very high capabilities of this model – 1500 nits is truly an impressive result. HDR effects are particularly striking in scenes where most of the screen is covered in light, as seen in the 1st, 3rd, and 5th test scenes. Minor shortcomings, typical of this technology, are still noticeable with very small light effects, such as in the scene from the movie "Sicario 2," where brightness drops to 500 nits. Although these are not stunning results, they can be considered decent. Additionally, it is worth praising the television for its high coverage of a wide color gamut – DCI-P3 at 96%, which allows for vibrant, saturated colors.

When it comes to HDR quality, the Philips OLED820 uses the same class of WOLED panel that we find in its biggest competitors – LG C5 or Samsung S90F. This means we can count on truly solid performance. This year, mid-range OLED panels are capable of exceeding the threshold of a thousand nits, and the model tested reaches around 1300 nits in some films. This is an outstanding result that allows for an extremely precise depiction of the director's vision, as contemporary productions are mastered in such brightness ranges. Of course, there are situations where even the OLED820 has to compromise. Full-screen scenes flooded with white, like those in the movie The Meg, can drop brightness to 400–500 nits, which clearly weakens the effect. This is a characteristic of OLED technology that has not yet been fully eliminated. Despite this limitation, it is hard not to appreciate the HDR in this model – high luminance and wide coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut at 99% make the picture simply look great.

The IMAX Enhanced mode on the Sony BRAVIA 7 television is definitely the best mode available on this model, although it is not without its flaws, as its name might suggest. The biggest issue is white balance – both in HD and 4K HDR content, there is a noticeable dominance of red color, which makes the image take on pinkish shades. This is particularly evident on the tested snow screen, where the pinkish hue becomes very noticeable. Errors in the Colour Checker test also confirm these deviations – although they are not catastrophic, there is a tendency to lean towards warmer tones. As for brightness characteristics, gamma remains at a decent level with a slight bump but without major issues. However, the biggest challenge is 4K materials. It is clear that the EOTF curve is significantly above the reference chart, which causes the image to become too bright.

The color reproduction in the factory settings really surprised us, and positively so. The Philips OLED820, switched to Filmmaker mode, immediately showed that it was quite well tuned in terms of color. The white balance was relatively accurate, though with a slight lack in the blue hue, which sometimes gave the image a slightly yellowish tint. However, this is not a flaw that particularly interferes with everyday viewing. A larger problem arose with the brightness characteristic. The gamma chart clearly deviated from the ideal, with the line being below the expected values, causing the image to be overly brightened, and the colors looked as if they were covered with a light milky filter. This effect was also noticeable in tests using the Colour Checker pattern, where more pronounced errors appeared.

Sony BRAVIA XR70 offers a wide range of tools that allow for customizing the picture to personal preferences, which has enabled us to make significant adjustments to the settings. The white balance has been free of the issue of red hue dominance – snow no longer ends up with pink shades, which was previously noticeable. Although one can detect minor deviations at the end of the white balance chart concerning a drop in blue color, they are acceptable and hard to notice in everyday use. The Colour Checker test confirms that color reproduction errors are no longer as pronounced and rarely exceed a value of 2, which is a very good result. As for brightness, gamma, while not requiring significant improvement, has been slightly adjusted. However, the most notable change has been observed in the EOTF curve – the television no longer has issues with overly brightening the entire image in 4K content. However, upon closer analysis and enabling EOTF characteristics in films, certain limitations of the television arise due to the previously discussed dimming algorithm. Some small elements may be slightly more illuminated, but these errors are so minor that most users will not notice them. Overall, the calibration results are very, very positive.

After calibration, both the Filmmaker mode and the game mode gained quite a lot. A slight adjustment of the white balance and an improvement in brightness characteristics resulted in excellent outcomes for SDR content – the image looked almost perfect, natural and very close to the reference. In the case of HDR materials, the situation was similar; the colors looked stunning and it was hard to find anything to criticize. However, we noticed a certain feature that we had already pointed out when comparing scenes from the movie Billy Lynn. An analysis of the EOTF curve revealed that the television has a slight tendency to dim details in the blacks, which means that the darkest sections are not always displayed exactly as the director intended. Nevertheless, the effect after calibration is remarkable, and the OLED820 stands out as one of the more interesting screens in its class. It just needs a little bit of fine-tuning, and there's really nothing to be afraid of.

Since we know that the television performs very well with high-quality materials, it is worth checking how it fares with lower-quality content. Here the television shows its potential, and the applied graphics processor works really well. On the test board with the light bulb, there are no visible issues with color transitions, and the smooth gradation function works very well – we recommend setting it to "Medium".

When it comes to digital processing, or so-called upscaling, the television sharpens the image quite a bit, which leads to slight aliasing, for example on branches in the background, but it does not remove desired details. Nonetheless, the overall appearance is truly attractive and may appeal to most users. However, if we prefer a softer, more plastic image, this effect can be reduced in the settings by adjusting the sharpening level to our personal preferences.

Fortunately, the earlier effects of the aforementioned posterization can be quite effectively mitigated. The "distortion reduction" feature set to medium handles unwanted color banding, improving the smoothness of tonal transitions. It does happen, however, that it works a bit too aggressively and smooths out some details – such as minor skin imperfections of the actors – but despite this, it can be considered worth using without major compromises. The upscaling in the OLED820 also performs well. The test image with the model is exceptionally soft, sometimes even too much so, although this can be alleviated by slightly increasing the sharpness in the picture menu – it’s a matter of personal preference. The lack of overscan issues with very low-resolution content is also commendable, meaning we don't have to worry that the image will be unnecessarily cropped.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 television with a 120 Hz panel will satisfy most users in terms of motion smoothness. Additionally, Sony offers the Motion Flow feature, which allows for the selection of three different picture settings, adjusting them to personal preferences: Smoothness – Film: This setting improves motion smoothness, giving the image a more cinematic or theatrical character. Smoothness – Camera: This setting provides even greater smoothness, useful when watching dynamic scenes such as sports broadcasts. Clarity: This setting focuses on minimizing noise and motion artifacts, resulting in a more stable and clear image.

Motion fluidity is an area where OLEDs always shine, and the Philips OLED820 confirms this rule. The panel itself offers a refresh rate of 144 Hz, which will mainly benefit PC gamers, but even with standard television sources or consoles, where 120 Hz is used, the motion is fast, sharp, and simultaneously smooth, without traces of ghosting. This is thanks to the outstanding response time between pixels, which ensures the image retains clarity in every dynamic scene. The manufacturer has also added its own smoothing feature called "Motion Style." In the menu, we find two sliders – the first, responsible for fluidity, allows us to adjust the amount of artificially added frames in movies. This way, we can choose a raw, cinematic character with a clearly visible film frame or a more theatrical image with smooth motion. The second slider is for reducing blurring, especially useful in sports broadcasts. Here, we definitely recommend setting it to the maximum value, as the effect is truly excellent.

Sony Bravia 7 has significantly improved its capabilities for cooperation with consoles compared to previous models. The TV supports variable refresh rate (VRR), which eliminates screen tearing, and it is compatible with graphics cards, ensuring smooth display. The auto low latency mode (ALLM) effectively reduces input lag, which is crucial in fast-paced games. Dolby Vision with low latency additionally provides impressive HDR effects that look great during gameplay.

Sony Bravia 7 also offers a Game Bar feature that provides quick access to settings and allows monitoring of parameters during gameplay. An interesting option is the ability to enable a virtual crosshair on the screen, which can give a slight advantage in shooting games. However, compared to the Bravia 9 model, the HGIG feature in the Bravia 7 does not perform as well, which may be noticeable for more demanding gamers – especially since the HGIG mode is becoming more popular in the gaming world as the preferred method for reproducing HDR effects.

A downside is the lack of support for 1440p@120 Hz resolution, which could make gaming easier for users with less powerful graphics cards. Additionally, the Sony Bravia 7 is equipped with two HDMI 2.1 ports, one of which is often used to connect an audio system via eARC, limiting the number of available ports for connecting next-generation consoles.

Philips OLED820 is one of the most complete televisions for gamers. It practically has everything you could expect: two HDMI 2.1 ports with full bandwidth of 48 Gbps (too bad there aren't four), variable refresh rate VRR, automatic game mode ALLM, support for Dolby Vision in games, and a good implementation of the HGiG mode. The television also handles lower resolutions at 120 Hz without any issues, so you can count on great flexibility when choosing different picture modes on the console. Philips also adds Game Bar – a panel that allows you to change picture modes, add a crosshair, or view parameters. Although it looks quite clunky and is less polished than that of the competition, it serves its purpose. In practice, therefore, the OLED820, besides having a full set of four HDMI 2.1 ports, offers almost everything a gamer might need.