Sony 65 Inch OLED 4K Ultra HD TV (K-65XR80)

I was unable to set up the TV, as it would not go any further than the welcome page. Called Sony Tech Support on 9/8/24. The rep did not have me try anything on the TV itself, just the remote and attributed my issue with the remote. He ordered another one and I received it today, 9/11/24. Same problem. Called Sony again and it was immediately escalated to a tech supervisor. He had me go through multiple steps on the remote as well as the TV. He also did some further investigation regarding the remote and found no issues that would cause the problem, after which he determined that it was a defect in the TV. He then told me he could order the part to correct the issue, which would indicate that this problem was found in Sony’s system. How else would he know which part to order? I’m not having a repairman tear the brand new TV apart to fix the problem. Will be returning the TV. I will say that Sony’s customer service seems to be good, and have read many reviews about other TV manufacturers’ being terrible. Still not going to re-order a Sony.

OLED TV picture is amazing.
The TV interface and setup was relatively painless….

The reason for 4 stars rather than five is rather than asking you if you wanted certain apps, it preinstalled all sorts of useless crap and you had to go in a manually clean up the app list one bloatware app at a time.

Install NOTHING then prompt for what you want to have installed, would be way better.

The Bravia 8 was a replacement for a 16-year-old Sharp 52-inch, which abruptly perished on night. With that large leap in technology, the improvement in visuals was breathtaking. Sony’s build quality is impressive as well. This was a great purchase.

However… I do have a few general industry-wide caveats, which are the reason I can’t honestly give my Bravia 8 the full 5 stars it would otherwise easily qualify for.

* The Bravia 8 doesn’t get along with the rest of my system as well as the ancient Sharp it replaced. I’m sure this isn’t a Sony thing, nor a Bravia 8 thing. It’s the move toward ever-‘smarter’ components – each of which wants to run things it’s own way. Going through the inevitable ‘control my other devices’ setup only makes the conflicts worse – I wish there was a setting to tell all the devices to just mind their own business. I’d still be using four remotes, but at least I wouldn’t have my control inputs being constantly over-ridden.

* Along with the uppity built-in smarts, there’s a serious dearth of available technical over-rides and read-outs. For instance, I’ve got a PC hooked up, and it’s hit or miss whether the TV will recognize the correct resolution – and there’s no manual setting to brute-force the resolution. At the same time, while my cable (IPTV) box is delivering a superb image, there’s no way to confirm that it and the TV are in fact doing the promised 4K, or just getting by on really good 1080p – and, again, no easy way to enforce that outcome.

* The TV really wants individual HDMI devices to be plugged directly into it. And yet, after a full agonizing day, I was unable to get Audio Return Channel working – either via HDMI or optical connection – to provide full surround sound through my receiver. So I wasted another sweaty hour putting things back the way they were in the first place – everything plugged into the receiver, with a single HDMI connection to the TV. That setup is still quirky and mysterious (as much the fault of the receiver as the TV), but nonetheless, things feel a lot more rational this way.

* On the positive side, the TV has not been overbearing about Internet connectivity. I get an occasional warning popup to the effect that my Ethernet cable is disconnected, and so far that’s it. On the negative side, I did need to enable GoogleTV at least once for the purposes of configuration (see next point). But back on the positive side, GoogleTV is quite functional, and obviously benefits from Google’s extensive Android experience. If my TV simply *must* have an OS, I guess it’s just as well to have a good one.

* In order to properly set up the picture, I needed to run a professional calibration app in GoogleTV – this instantly enabled a full range of picture settings in the Bravia on-screen menus. Having worked in computers and consumer electronics for decades, I do not enjoy being ‘protected’ from using my lifetime of know-how. The full settings could be disabled by default, yet made safely accessible behind a simple warning message.

* Accessing the full settings is important, because even in Professional mode I found the image drastically over-saturated. Once I’d turned the saturation down (and boosted the gamma very slightly to compensate for the fact that I run at low brightness), the image became astonishingly life-like. Watching talk-shows and the like, I often feel that the presenters are in the room with me.

Bottom line: Bravia 8 – full marks, it’s a terrific TV. The OLED blacks are miraculous, the color gamut is gorgeous, and even older DVD-quality content looks better than ever before. Consumer industry: continuing failing grade, you need to wise up a bit!

I purchased the Bravia 8 55 inch TV to replace my 7 year old Samsung 4K TV that had intermittent pixel issues. I must say this Sony OLED has an amazing picture especially with the deep blacks it has. I paired this TV with the Sony Theatre 8 sound bar that has phenomenal surround sound. Of course gaming on PS5 with Dolby Atmos enabled speaks for itself. Highly reccomend this OLED TV you won’t be disappointed!

I have never purchased a television that wasn’t from a big box retailer. Researched and this was the best size and reviews for my needs. Amazon delivered quickly and were nice enough to not just leave it on my porch. It was easy to unbox and set up thanks to a You Tube video. I couldn’t set up Google TV so had to call and Sony had to update it. I decided to just keep it as standard TV since I have cable and a few streamers that were directly on the remote. I also had to adjust the picture to Vivid and adjust the blackness on the picture but that was easy to do. 55″ was the right size as I was replacing a 14 year old Sony 46″. Sony seems to have the best picture quality, find others way too vibrant and unnatural. The sound is also quite good on this set. I would recommend it as a good tv especially since I went by reviews only and did not see it in store. The picture is vibrant and looks so crisp, clear and natural. Amazon delivered!

🤙🏼