Sony Bravia 9 (XR90) vs Philips OLED820

The brightness performance of the Sony Bravia 9 is exceptional. Each scene reaches over 1500 nits, and the television can shine even brighter during movie playback. This level of brightness provides an extraordinary viewing experience, allowing for immersive interaction with high-quality video content. Thanks to its extensive coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, the image is vibrant, and when combined with such high luminance, it almost feels alive. With its impressive peak brightness, viewers can fully appreciate the colour range, even in the most challenging scenes involving dynamic lighting changes. The Bravia 9 also supports Dolby Vision and HDR10 formats, further elevating the viewing experience.

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" factory mode has remained the best option in Sony televisions for years, and it was used throughout the entire testing process. While it aligns closely with the reference compared to other predefined settings, improvements could be made for a better viewing experience.

In SDR materials, the gamma shows a noticeable boost, which leads to over-contrasting the image. Additionally, the beginning of the graph deviates significantly from the reference, resulting in merged details in the darker areas, creating an unpleasant uniform blotch. The EOTF curve in HDR content, on the other hand, appears mostly correct, with only minor deviations from the reference.

However, the most prominent issues affect the white balance. There is a persistent green colour dominance, leading to problems with grey tones and overall colour misalignment. This imbalance in the white balance gives the image an unwanted greenish tinge, negatively impacting the overall visual quality.

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.

The colour reproduction after the calibration process on the Sony Bravia 9 is nothing short of excellent. Regardless of the signal, whether SDR or HDR, the image comes remarkably close to the director's intended vision. Nearly every flaw in the image has been meticulously modelled and corrected to a high degree.

This impressive result can be attributed to the advanced tools available for calibration, which Sony has been offering in its televisions for years. Notable tools include the 2- and 20-point grayscale calibration and a very comprehensive CMS (Colour Management System). These features allow for precise adjustments, ensuring that the colours and overall image quality are as accurate and faithful to the source material as possible.

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.

When analysing the quality of tonal transitions and image scaling, especially for lower-quality materials, the improvement after activating the function for tonal transitions is clear. By default, the quality is quite average, but once the function is turned on, even at the lowest setting, the results are among the best we've seen. This feature can be enabled without worrying about negative side effects, such as film grain blur.

Sony's "XR" processor, which the brand has been touting for several years, lives up to its reputation for image scaling. The image quality is incredibly sharp while maintaining a very natural look. This reinforces that Sony's processing technology is one of the best available, particularly when handling lower-resolution content.

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 maximum refresh rate of the Sony Bravia 9 is 120 Hz, the minimum for those primarily watching sports or other high-motion content. This refresh rate ensures the image remains sharp and smooth, even during fast-paced scenes. For more demanding users, Sony has implemented an advanced motion smoothing system, divided into three distinct segments: Smoothness (Film), Smoothness (Camera), and Clarity. These settings can be adjusted to various degrees, allowing users to fine-tune the picture to their preferences. For example, a setting with slight smoothing can be used to avoid the "soap opera effect," delivering a more natural and cinematic viewing experience. This level of customisation ensures that viewers can find their ideal balance between smoothness and clarity.

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.

The Sony Bravia 9 television is equipped with four HDMI ports, but what is puzzling for a device of this class is that only two of them operate in the 2.1 standard. Despite this, it should not detract from the fact that nearly all features work excellently, providing a positive experience when using them. Games running in HDR10 or Dolby Vision benefit from low input lag, ensuring a comfortable gaming session. The solid implementation of the HGIG mode is a noteworthy feature, as, after proper calibration, it closely aligns with Dolby Vision.

Sony introduced the GameBar feature to its televisions last year, a standard for many manufacturers. This feature allows for quick adjustment of settings without exiting the game. Its implementation has been seamless, offering conveniences such as a crosshair grid, black level adjustment, and reducing the screen to gaming monitor proportions.

The Sony Bravia 9 will find its fans, particularly among PlayStation enthusiasts. It is a natural pairing since the console and the television share identical capabilities. However, more broadly speaking, despite the minor issues with Dolby Vision in games, the Bravia 9 remains a very good television for gaming overall.

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.