TCL A400 PRO vs SONY Bravia 9 II XR95M2

The TCL A400 Pro is a moderately bright TV. Its peak brightness reaches about 600 nits. That level already allows for a real HDR effect and in many movies it does produce a noticeably more attractive picture than SDR. However, it is not a level that overwhelms by brightness alone. The A400 Pro is not one of those TVs that "attack" the viewer with a powerful flash in every dramatic scene. The biggest limitation is visible with small bright elements on a dark background. Due to rather aggressive control of the dimming zones, the TV can significantly reduce their brightness — in extreme cases down to around 100 nits. That means small lights, sparks, stars, or single highlights can be much less visible than they should be. That said, this is not done without reason. The A400 Pro does this to keep blacks as deep as possible and to limit haloing around bright objects. It's a deliberate compromise: the TV more often chooses deeper blacks over maximally bright, point-like highlights. On one hand this is understandable, especially with a limited number of dimming zones, but on the other hand you should be aware that the HDR effect will not always be as strong as the peak brightness alone would suggest.

On the plus side, the colors are worth noting. The PFS LED filter used here, marketed by the manufacturer as QLED, produces suitably saturated colors. Our measurements showed about 94% coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut and about 74% of BT.2020, which is a solid result for this class.

The real showcase of the new backlight architecture and Sony’s processor is the reproduction of HDR content. At the official launch engineers at Sony said (not officially 😉) that the Bravia 9 II’s brightness would be almost identical to the capabilities of their professional director’s monitor BVM-HX3110, which is priced at astronomical sums. Our lab tests confirmed these were not empty promises. During synthetic measurements on the L20 test pattern the TV easily exceeded the 4000 nits peak brightness barrier. More importantly, these remarkable results translate directly to real movie scenes. In most of the demanding shots we tested the screen easily maintained brightness around 2500–3000 nits. Regardless of the scene, whether the light was small and pinpoint or flooded nearly the entire screen, the HDR effect was incredibly intense.

Colors

Color is another key pillar of RGB Mini LED technology (True RGB as implemented by Sony). Specifically for testing these kinds of screens we added a permanent new testing section to see how TVs handle colors in real-world conditions. Traditional synthetic test patterns are no longer enough to confirm real color-gamut coverage. From now on we also measure color saturation directly in selected movie scenes by overlaying measurement points. So how do the colors perform?

In synthetic tests the Bravia 9 II posts excellent results. For the popular DCI-P3 color space for HDR the color-gamut coverage was almost 98%, while for the very wide, demanding BT.2020 space the instrument indicated nearly 90%. However, in real, varied scenes these values drop by a few percent. This is directly due to the nature of zone-based RGB backlighting. When differently colored elements or bright white highlights appear side by side, light from the zones starts to mix slightly, creating a white backlight. This of course affects color saturation, slightly reducing it. This shows that despite Sony’s brilliant RGB LED control algorithm, the number of zones is still too small to eliminate this effect entirely.

Is this a reason to complain? Of course not. The Bravia 9 II’s color coverage ultimately matches that of a very good QLED TV, and it’s important to remember: the vast majority of HDR movies and series are distributed in the DCI-P3 gamut. In that standard Sony easily maintains very high color saturation, regardless of the scene.

As standard, we carried out color measurements in the best-calibrated mode, Filmmaker Mode, the one that is supposed to be closest to the creators’ intent. The A400 Pro, of course, also offers other picture modes, but in practice they suffer from much larger color errors and alter the image character more strongly. We won’t go into those modes in detail in this part of the test. So how does the factory color reproduction perform? In short: really very well. In fact, looking at our measurement results, it’s excellent. Both the white balance and the luminance response were set surprisingly precisely. The errors were so small that during testing we genuinely rubbed our eyes in disbelief. Such good out-of-the-box settings don’t happen often, even in TVs operating in Filmmaker Mode. All the more reason to praise TCL, because the A400 Pro right out of the box can produce an image very close to how the source material should look. The results were so good that you could easily think someone had already paid extra attention to that unit and tried to calibrate it.

Our nitpicking really comes down to just one thing. In SDR content the image was slightly brighter than the reference for a dark room, because the factory gamma was set closer to 2.3 than to 2.4. It’s not a big error and most viewers probably won’t even notice it.

However, it should be noted that we’re talking about our specific review sample. With factory colors there can always be some variation between units, production batches, or screen sizes. So we don’t assume that every A400 Pro will look identical straight out of the box.

Contrary to appearances and high expectations, the Bravia 9 II we tested showed some issues with its factory tuning straight out of the box. Looking at the white balance charts, you can see it is not perfect. In SDR content the red component was primarily lacking, causing the picture to shift toward cooler, bluish tones. In HDR the white balance in this respect looked much better. So where do the visible errors in image reproduction come from? They result from unexpected tuning of the gamma and the EOTF curve. In both cases the Bravia 9 II straight from the factory showed a clear deviation from reference standards.

In SDR content the gamma was definitely too high; at its most extreme it hovered very close to 2.8 instead of the reference 2.4. In practice this meant the image was artificially darkened and appeared washed-out, with details in dark areas (shadows) completely disappearing. The opposite occurred with HDR material, where brightness reproduction is handled by the EOTF curve. That curve was pushed too far above the correct value, resulting in the image being artificially brightened across most luminance ranges. As with every TV we test, we subjected this unit to professional calibration. You can see the results and how we managed to correct these factory errors below.

Despite its excellent factory tuning, we couldn't resist checking how the TCL A400 Pro would respond to a professional calibration. Since the starting point was so good, we were even more curious whether we could squeeze even more out of this TV. And here we have to boast: we managed to bring our unit to absurdly low color errors. Results below 1 are something you don't see every day, even on very good TVs. Such results are more often associated with professional reference monitors than with a lifestyle TV for the living room. In terms of white balance and color reproduction, the A400 Pro after calibration simply performed outstandingly. The only thing we can pick at after a deeper analysis concerns the brightness behavior. The TV can manipulate luminance levels depending on the content being displayed, and quite often the image is a bit darker than it should be according to the standard. This most likely stems from the way the Mini-LED backlight and local dimming algorithms work in this model. However, that doesn't spoil the overall impression, because in terms of color precision alone the A400 Pro after calibration reached a level we really didn't expect.

Fortunately, with professional calibration, most of the Bravia 9 II's factory missteps can be effectively eliminated. We were able to precisely correct, above all, the white balance and the gamma curve and EOTF. After these adjustments, in everyday use and during movie sessions the TV looks much better. The image gained proper depth, the cool tint in the whites disappeared, and shadow details that had previously been lost due to too-high gamma finally became clearly visible. Although we ultimately rate color accuracy as very good, as specialists we must point out one fairly serious design flaw in this model. The Bravia 9 II could look even better if not for the complete lack of an advanced color management system in the TV's menu.

While basic white balance correction can be performed here without issue, the settings lack options for adjusting specific colors. We tried to tackle this in every possible way: both the traditional method using the remote and via dedicated calibration software for Bravia TVs. Unfortunately, that function has been completely locked. We suspect this may stem from the specifics of the new RGB architecture, which imposes its own limitations. It's a real shame, because without it you can't refine color reproduction to perfection. The inaccurate red still stands out, for example. One can only hope Sony will fix this shortcoming over time with an update.

Digital video processing is unfortunately one of the weaker points of the TCL A400 Pro. That doesn't mean the TV performs badly, but it's hard to call it anything clearly above standard. The upscaling itself is adequate: edges are smoothed fairly well, the image doesn't look overly sharp or pixelated, and lower-quality content can be watched without major discomfort. At the same time the overall look is slightly soft and it lacks the precision that the best image processors in more expensive TVs can deliver.

Much worse, however, is its handling of tonal transitions caused by heavy compression. TCL equipped the A400 Pro with a "Gradual Smoothing" feature that in theory should reduce visible color banding and artifacts in lower-quality content. In practice its effectiveness is very limited. It does not improve tonal transitions in any noticeable way, and at higher settings it can also smooth out image details, giving the picture an artificial, slightly blurred character. For that reason we think it's best to leave this feature off. The A400 Pro handles basic image scaling decently, but if you often watch heavily compressed content with visible posterization, this model won't be one of the best choices.

Digital processing and upscaling have long been Sony’s signature strength, and after testing the Bravia 9 II we can confidently say nothing has changed on the market in that respect. Sony is still at the forefront. Their proprietary XR image processor, which in this model works with the main MediaTek Pentonic 1000 chip, deserves the highest praise. That combination delivers excellent results. The upscaling of lower-resolution content is extremely effective and precise.

However, what most deserves praise in the XR processor’s performance is the tonal transition smoothing feature. The system can reduce posterization in heavily compressed material to virtually zero. Crucially, the algorithm does this in a very intelligent way. It removes only the annoying digital "steps" in gradients without blurring fine texture details or creating an artificial, "plastic" look that lacks film grain. The image remains sharp, natural, and cinematic.

The TCL A400 Pro is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, but in practice we're most interested in how it performs at 120 Hz. That's the refresh rate used by most consoles today, as well as many sports broadcasts and high-frame-rate content. In this range the TV performs quite well. Motion clarity is really good, especially after properly configuring the motion smoothing. The "Motion Clarity" feature improves smoothness. Its settings include two sliders that let you tailor the motion smoothing to your preferences — separately for lower- and higher-frame-rate material. That way you can achieve either a more cinematic look or a noticeably smoother picture. If you don't want to tweak settings manually, you can use presets such as low, medium, high, cinema, or nature.

The Sony Bravia 9 II's specifications don't list staggering refresh rates above 120 Hz, which some more demanding PC gamers may view as a drawback. However, in everyday use, during movie sessions, playing console games, or watching sports, it's really hard to find any complaints about motion smoothness. The VA-type panel used here does show some slight, inherent smearing typical for this panel type, but excellent Motionflow motion smoothing algorithms come to the rescue. In the system menu you'll find sliders for blur reduction and smoothing that let you precisely tailor the motion characteristics to your preferences.

When it comes to features for gamers, the TCL A400 Pro performs excellently. The TV has practically everything you can expect from a gaming TV today: 4K support at high refresh rates, VRR, ALLM, correct implementation of HDR formats in games, including Dolby Vision, and HGiG. Because of that it works well with both next-gen consoles and PCs. Another plus is the inclusion of a Game Bar, a special panel with the most important settings for gamers. From it you can quickly check basic signal information, refresh rate, and active features, and also adjust the look and behavior of some settings to your own preferences. This is a solution that may not change picture quality by itself, but it greatly improves the convenience of using the TV while gaming.

The only thing to complain about is the number of full HDMI 2.1 ports. The A400 Pro has only two such ports out of four, and one of them also functions as eARC. In practice this means that if someone wants to connect two next-gen consoles and a soundbar, they may hit some limitations. In that scenario you'll have to either swap devices or use extra equipment, for example an AV receiver or a soundbar with HDMI inputs. Despite this, it's hard not to rate the A400 Pro very highly as a gaming TV. The gaming feature set here is really powerful.

Apart from a fairly serious design oversight, limiting the platform to just two full HDMI 2.1 ports, the Bravia 9 II offers almost all key gaming features available on the market. Sony has already accustomed us to such a rich package in its previous models. The list of supported technologies is very long. It includes automatic low-latency mode (ALLM), variable refresh rate (VRR), as well as a proper implementation of the HGIG standard and the Dolby Vision format specifically designed for gamers.