Sony Bravia 8 II

The picture is what keeps people happy well past the first week. Owners describe the image as gorgeous and say it holds up against competing brands they have owned before, and for at least one owner it is good enough to make them curious about pricier sets in the same lineup.

Settling in also means routine adjustment: some owners keep tweaking picture settings for different lighting rather than trusting auto mode, which they say can introduce its own quality issues. A few mention plasticky build quality and awkward port placement as things they got used to rather than loved.

Firmware has been the main reliability issue owners describe. Several report a firmware update causing audio to fall out of sync with video, and in some cases HDR or Dolby Vision content going to a black screen while audio kept playing. One owner found a workaround by setting connected devices to enhanced HDMI mode and switching from auto to pass-through audio processing, and another said their unit was still working fine after the same update.

The long-term picture on this issue is thin: with four accounts on audio sync, there is not much evidence yet of whether Sony has fixed it for good or owners are still working around it months later.