TECHWEEK
The Sony Bravia 7 QLED is a premium TV that, thanks to its Mini LED backlight, sits below the Sony Bravia 8 OLED but above the entry-level Sony Bravia 3. This is Sony’s cheapest TV in 2024 with local dimming. Packed with a wide range of features, it offers hands-free voice control and the latest gaming features.
Bravia 7 uses the smart Google TV 12 platform with an easy-to-use interface and a variety of apps available for download. It is equipped with a Sony XR image processor and a MediaTek Pentonic 1000 chipset. In our Sony Bravia 7 K-65XR70 QLED 4K HDR review, we will check which content the TV performs best with.
Sony Bravia 7 review
Design
The Sony Bravia 7 K-65XR70 QLED TV has a sleek, premium design that looks great in any room. The screen is framed by frames that are thin on three sides (0.8 cm), and the slightly wider lower frame with a matte metal finish houses switchable voice control microphones and the company logo.
Thin metal legs (flat, not vertical like the Sony X93L ) hold the TV very well. There are four mounting options to suit your needs (same as the Bravia 9). A wide or narrow position is selected based on the size of the furniture. The low or high position is selected based on the need to install the sound bar under the TV without covering the screen.
The rear panel of the Sony Bravia 7 65XR70 TV has a nice, clean look with the typical checkerboard pattern found on all the latest Sony models. Unfortunately, there are no cable management facilities. The maximum case thickness is 5.5 cm, the build quality is excellent. Plastic panels go well with metal legs and metal edging around the TV.
The remote control is small in size, since there are still no number buttons. Voice control can be done both through the TV itself and through the remote control. Sony slightly enlivened the appearance of the plastic box by adding colored dots to the plastic. Functionally, the remote control is no different from the 2023 models.
Backlight contrast and bloom
The Sony Bravia 7 XR70 TV has a high native contrast ratio of over 5700:1 thanks to the mini-LED backlight. Turning local dimming to High generally produces the best results: deep blacks and very bright highlights (100,000:1 contrast ratio). There is some noticeable blur around bright highlights on dark backgrounds, especially in subtitles, but overall it’s excellent.
The full-array direct backlight provides good local dimming zone transitions, but there are a few distractions. There is no flickering, which is good, except that there is a noticeable halo effect when moving bright objects across the screen. And it gets stronger the faster objects move, since local dimming switches can’t keep up with the subject.
Brightness and colors
What distinguishes the Sony Bravia XR70 TV from previous versions of this line is its noticeably increased brightness. The peak brightness of HDR content is top notch. It’s bright enough to bring out the brightest highlights and flashes of light even in the brightest scenes. In a 10 percent white window, the TV achieves 1,950 nits. And in game mode there is even an increase in brightness to 2100 nits.
With regular SDR content, the XR70 series also achieves high peak brightness values of up to 1820 nits. Color accuracy is equally excellent in all preset picture modes. The TV has excellent color gamut. It displays almost the entire DCI-P3 color space (97%) used by most HDR content. All this is mainly the result of using XR Clear Image technology.
Covering a wider range of Rec. 2020, typically used in nature films and animated content, is also decent (78%). Sony’s color saturation is traditionally excellent. Colors are bright and vibrant, and dark tones are rendered well thanks to the high contrast ratio. Although the Sony XR70 TV has excellent accuracy out of the box, after calibration it can be improved a little.
Matrix uniformity and viewing angles
When watching sports, it’s important how evenly the midtones appear on the screen. Here we can say that the gray color uniformity on the Sony 7 XR70 TV is good. There are a few dark spots across the area and some slight vignetting in the corners, but not that noticeable. When you are watching a movie in a dark room with a lot of dark scenes, the uniformity of black color throughout the matrix is important. And in this case, the XR70’s black uniformity is almost perfect.
It must be said that the viewing angle is significantly worse than that of the Sony X95L , since the Bravia 7 series lacks X-Wide Angle technology. In 2024, only the Bravia 9 QLED has this feature. And this TV is not suitable for wide seating arrangements, as anyone sitting off-center will see a washed-out, washed-out picture. And we also note that the semi-gloss surface of the VA matrix copes well with reflections.
Motion Processing
The Sony XR70 TV has a good response time of about 12 ms. Behind fast-moving objects, only a faint blurry trail is visible on the screen. Shadow transitions are handled well, there is not much black wash, and there is very little outlier. Mini LED backlight uses PWM to control intensity. The flicker frequency is very high (720 Hz) and is not noticeable to most people.
To improve motion clarity, the matrix uses black frame insertion at a frequency of 60 or 120 Hz, depending on the video frame rate. And to smooth out motion, interpolation is traditionally used up to 120 frames per second. But it doesn’t work well even when panning the camera slowly. Artifacts and stuttering are noticeable when frame rates fluctuate. But the TV automatically removes judder from 24p sources such as a Blu-ray player or streaming video.
Games
Can the TV change the refresh rate in real time? Yes. With a native refresh rate of 120 Hz, the Sony B7 TV supports variable frequency to reduce screen tearing. Compatible with HDMI Forum VRR and G-Sync works across the entire refresh rate range. Sony still refuses to add FreeSync. And there’s no support for 1440p, with the TV upscaling it to 4K instead.
For gaming, the Sony Bravia 7 has excellent low output latency in Game mode (10ms at 120Hz), delivering smooth and responsive gameplay. That’s a bit higher than competing models from LG and Samsung, but still good enough for casual gaming. The TV also supports Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM). It can be used with any devices such as PS5 and Xbox consoles.
Smart TV
Sony Bravia 7 TV uses version 12 of the intelligent Google TV platform with a huge selection of streaming applications and a modern, optimized interface. Google TV is still Android TV, but with an extra layer on top of it. Navigation through the interface works perfectly smoothly. All applications open almost instantly.
There are many apps available for download on Google Play Store and they are very stable. Bravia 7 has Google Chromecast built-in, which means you can cast content from your smartphone to the big screen. You can also connect a Bravia webcam for video calls.
Sound
The audio system of the Sony Bravia 9 TV with a power of 40 W is represented by a pair of 2 x 10 W full-range speakers (Bass Reflex) and a pair of 2 x 10 W high-frequency speakers. Acoustic Multi-Audio™ technology creates the effect of sound coming directly from the screen, precisely matching the image you watch to the sound you hear.
You can use Voice Zoom version 3 with a compatible Sony soundbar. It improves dialogue intelligibility. Sony Acoustic Center Sync option pairs your TV with a Sony soundbar for fully synchronized sound. 360 Spatial Sound Personalizer combines with other speakers to create surround sound.
Connections
All ports on the Bravia 7 TV face sideways. These are a USB port (one version 3.0) and four HDMI ports – two each of version 2.0 and version 2.1. One of the HDMI supports eARC . Then there is an optical audio output (also known as a center channel input), antenna jacks and a LAN port. Wireless connectivity is dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth version 5.3. There is a switch on the bottom of the TV to turn off the built-in microphone.
Conclusion
This is an impressive TV for most purposes. In a dark room, it actually shines when watching movies or TV shows in HDR. Both the games look great and the support for gaming features is good. It’s not so well suited for watching sports in large groups, as its narrow viewing angle means you’ll need to sit directly in front of the screen to get the best picture. And in a brightly lit room, its anti-glare coating does not reduce glare well enough. But thanks to the MiniLED backlight, the Bravia 7 TV is extremely competitive in its price category.
Specifications:
| Display | |
| Size | 65″ / 164 cm |
| Panel type | LCD VA QLED (Triluminos) |
| Aspect Ratio | 16:9 |
| Permission | 3840 x 2160 |
| Backlight | Mini LED FALD (direct full matrix) |
| HDR compatible | HDR10, Dolby Vision, Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) |
| Local dimming | Yes |
| Number of dimming zones | 480 |
| Update frequency | 100 / 120 Hz |
| Viewing Angle (H x D) | 178° x 178° |
| Video | |
| TV tuner | 2 (digital) / 1 (analog) |
| TV system | DVB-T/T2, DVB-S/S2, DVB-C |
| Processor | XR Processor |
| Improved Contrast | XR Backlight Master Drive, XR Contrast Booster 20 |
| Improved clarity | XR Clear Image |
| Color enhancement | XR Triluminos Pro, Live Color |
| Improved movement | XR Motion Clarity |
| VRR | Yes, G-Sync |
| ALLM | Yes |
| Connections | |
| Input ports | 4 x HDMI type A (of which 2 x HDMI 2.1) |
| Antenna sockets | |
| Output ports | Digital audio output + S-Center Speaker |
| Wireless connection | Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) |
| Bluetooth v. 5.3 | |
| USB ports | 2 x USB (2.0 and 3.0) |
| Ethernet | 1 x LAN |
| Sound | |
| Power | 40 W (Full-range speakers 2 x 10 W + High-frequency speakers 2 x 10 W |
| Functions | Acoustic Multi Audio+, Acoustic Center Sync |
| Dolby format support | Dolby™ Audio, Dolby™ Atmos |
| DTS | DTS-HD Master Audio, Hi-Resolution, DTS:X |
| Auto calibration | Yes |
| Smart TV | |
| Virtual assistant support | Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant |
| Platform | Google TV 12.0 |
| Built-in memory | 32 GB |
| Camera | Bravia Cam |
| Eco Dashboard | Yes |
| Built-in microphone | Yes |
| Remote voice control | Yes |
| Nutrition | |
| Operating / max. consumption | 66 W / 223 W |
| Pending consumption | 0.5 W |
| Dimensions and weight | |
| Dimensions without stand (W x H x D) | 1445 x 832 x 57 mm |
| Dimensions with stand (W x H x D) | 1445 x 856 x 345 mm |
| Dimensions with stand in soundbar position (W x H x D) | 1445 x 910 x 345 mm |
| Standard stand width | 121.7 cm |
| Weight with stand | 28.3 kg |
| Weight without stand | 27.1 kg |
