TCL C9K vs SONY Bravia 9 II XR95M2

As we mentioned with black and contrast – the C9K can make a huge impression in synthetic tests. Our measurements showed that on a screen 10% filled with white, the television is capable of squeezing out… 4000 nits of brightness! It sounds astronomical, but – and here, unfortunately, the pattern repeats – the numbers say one thing, and practice says another. In real movie scenes, the situation looks different. At best, when the light effects occupy a large part of the image and the local dimming algorithm does not have to think too hard about what to do with thousands of zones – the effect is really good. At that point, the C9K can reach around 1500 nits, which provides a pleasant, intense flash and can indeed make a positive impression.

The problem starts with smaller elements – such as stars in the sky, the moon, or single reflections. That’s when the proverbial cat comes out of the bag: the algorithms are not yet refined, and brightness drops to even 400–500 nits. That’s a huge difference compared to the potential 4000 nits we saw in laboratory tests. Why does this happen? Most likely, the television is trying to protect the blacks in this way and minimize the halo effect around bright objects. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of details – some details simply vanish, and the scene loses its nature.

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.

For color tests, as always, we reached for the Filmmaker mode – a new feature in TCL TVs for 2025. And while the direction itself is a step in the right direction, the execution leaves much to be desired. The white balance in SDR content turned out to be too warm – there was an excess of red. On the other hand, in HDR, it went in the opposite direction: the image became excessively blue. The Colour Checker test revealed quite a few color errors that were noticeable to the naked eye. An even bigger problem turned out to be what we mentioned above – brightness management. Regardless of whether we were watching SDR or HDR content, the image tended to blow out the entire scene, giving it an unnatural, even grotesque character. It's hard to call this a "director-created" mode – because the director has certainly never seen such an image.

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.

After calibration, we finally managed to tame the white balance – and it immediately translated into a more natural image. Colors finally started to look the way they should, and the overall presentation was incomparably better than in the factory settings. In other words – it’s worth taking a moment to improve this, as the gain is truly significant. The gamma responsible for managing brightness was also brought into order in SDR content, and the effect was more than satisfying. Unfortunately, when we turned on HDR materials, the situation quickly became complicated. No matter how we set the local dimming, the television had a tendency to do what it liked with the image – either it overexposed everything or dimmed the darkest parts too much. Exactly as we saw in the scene from the movie Billy Lynn. So, the color improvement after calibration makes a great impression, but brightness management in HDR remains the Achilles' heel of C9K and presents a certain technological limitation.

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 image processing in TCL C9K is quite mediocre. The tonal smoothing feature seems to be present, but turning it on practically changes nothing – color bands are still visible, and it can unintentionally highlight elements we would prefer to hide, such as textures of objects. Fortunately, it doesn’t remove film grain, but that’s small comfort since the effects are still poor. Therefore, it's hard to recommend using this option.

On the other hand, image scaling performs much better. Lower quality materials look quite decent – characters and backgrounds are presented clearly, although, of course, with sources at 576p, physics cannot be fooled. Sometimes, characteristic aliasing on objects appears, but that’s the fault of the source itself, not the algorithm. A plus for not having issues with overscan – the image is not artificially cropped or enlarged.

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.

Like the C8K, the C9K is also a really fast television – both figuratively and literally. It features a 4K panel with a refresh rate of 144 Hz, and at lower resolutions, the display can even ramp up to 288 Hz. This speed translates into practice – when watching sports or playing games, the image looks very smooth and clear. Additionally, in films, we get an extra motion smoother called Motion Clarity, which allows us to adjust the fluidity to our own preferences – from the cinematic "judder" frame to almost theatrical smoothness.

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.

For gaming, the TCL C9K is a complete tool. Here we have two (out of four) HDMI 2.1 ports with full bandwidth of 48 Gbps, so all key technologies work: VRR (variable refresh rate) and ALLM (automatic low latency mode). Additionally, the manufacturer added a really intuitive Game Bar, which allows you to quickly preview the most important parameters and adjust settings without digging through the menu. Also, TCL's policy is a plus – the TV is not afraid of any HDR formats, even in game mode. Whether it's HGiG or Dolby Vision for the Xbox Series S/X console – everything works as it should, giving the player wide freedom.

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.