Sony BRAVIA 7 QLED TV Review

The peak brightness in HDR is excellent. It's bright enough to bring out the brightest highlights and flashes of light in most HDR content.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:

• HDR Picture Mode: Professional
• Brightness: Max
• Contrast: 90
• Color Temperature: Expert 2
• HDR Tone Mapping: Gradation Preferred
• Peak Luminance: High
• Auto Local Dimming: High

Switching to the low-latency Game Mode results in slightly brighter small highlights, but it's barely noticeable.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:

• HDR Picture Mode: Game
• Brightness: Max
• Contrast: 90
• Color Temperature: Expert 2
• HDR Tone Mapping: Gradation Preferred
• Peak Luminance: High
• Auto Local Dimming: High

The peak brightness in SDR is superb. There's some variation in brightness with different content, but it's not noticeable with most content. This is a TV that overcomes glare from indirect lighting with ease.

These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Professional
• Brightness: Max
• Contrast: 90
• Color Temperature: Expert 1
• Peak Luminance: High
• Auto Local Dimming: High

The Sony BRAVIA 7 has very good contrast thanks to its Mini LED backlight. The native contrast with local dimming disabled is decent, but bumping Auto Local Dimming to 'High' delivers the best results overall, with deep blacks and very bright highlights.

There's some noticeable blooming around bright highlights, but it's very good overall. It's especially noticeable around subtitles or bright lights in fairly dark scenes. Note that the larger sizes have more local dimming zones, so they likely have even better local dimming performance, with less blooming than the 55- and 65-inch models.

The local dimming zone transitions are good overall, but there are a few distracting issues. There's no flicker, which is great, but there's a noticeable halo effect as bright objects move across the screen. The halo effect gets worse the quicker objects move, as the local dimming can't quite keep up with it.

After firmware 112.626.140.1, there's pretty much no difference in local dimming performance, as seen in this video comparison. On the top left is the old result in the Professional Mode, and on the top right is the old result in Game Mode. The bottom left is with the new firmware in the Professional Mode, and on the bottom right is the new result in Game Mode.

Unfortunately, there's a bit more noticeable blooming around bright objects when you're in the low-latency Game Mode with Auto Local Dimming on 'High.' Zone transitions are also slightly more noticeable, but it's not a big difference.

The TV's black uniformity is great. With Auto Local Dimming enabled, there's no noticeable backlight bleed or bright spots across the screen.

The Sony BRAVIA 7’s SDR color volume is very good overall. It has excellent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, with consistent coverage across the board. Its coverage of the wider BT.2020 color space is more limited, but it's still decent overall, and it does well with very light colors.

The TV's HDR color volume is excellent. Colors are bright and vibrant, and dark tones are displayed well, thanks to the high contrast ratio.

With just a few quick settings changes out of the box, this TV has excellent SDR accuracy. The overall white balance is great, and its color temperature is nearly perfect. Gamma in SDR is slightly above the target, so bright scenes are a bit crushed. Color accuracy is amazing, with no noticeable issues outside of minor errors in whites.

The calibration system on this TV is extremely effective and easy to use. Although it already has excellent accuracy out of the box, it's even better after calibrating it, and there are no noticeable issues after.

See our full settings used for calibration.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 TV has good HDR pre-calibration accuracy. Its white balance is decent overall, but there's either too much or not enough blue, red, and green in most shades of gray. However, its color temperature is incredibly close to 6500K. Colors have okay accuracy, but there are errors throughout, and reds are undersaturated.

HDR accuracy is very good after calibration. White balance is very good now, but there's still a bit too much blue and red in most shades of gray. Color temperature is still incredibly close to 6500K. Colors are more accurate now, but they're not perfect, and there are still some mapping errors throughout.

As is typical for Sony TVs, the Sony BRAVIA 7 has outstanding PQ EOTF tracking. Blacks aren't quite true black, but other than that, it's nearly perfect. There's a slow roll-off for content mastered up to 4000 nits, which helps to maintain detail in highlights that are brighter than the TV's capabilities.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 does a great job smoothing out low-quality content. Compression issues like macro-blocking are smoothed out well without causing any significant loss of fine details.

Similar to low-quality content smoothing, this TV also upscales low-resolution content well. Fine details in low-resolution content like DVDs are preserved well.

These results are with the following processing settings:

• Sharpness: 60
• Reality Creation: Auto

The gradient handling on this TV is impressive overall. There's some noticeable banding in brighter shades of green and very slight banding in everything else, but it's not very noticeable.

This TV has low input lag when in Game Mode, ensuring a smooth and responsive gaming experience. It's higher than competing models from most other brands but still low enough for non-competitive gamers.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 supports most common resolutions, up to 4k @ 120Hz with HDMI ports 3 and 4. Chroma 4:4:4 and RGB signals are displayed properly with 1080p and 4k signals, which is essential for clear text when using it as a PC monitor. HDMI ports 1 and 2 are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth and don't support 4k @ 120Hz inputs.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 supports variable refresh rate technology to reduce screen tearing. HDMI Forum VRR and G-SYNC compatibility work over the entire refresh rate range, but it doesn't support FreeSync.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 has disappointing pixel transitions at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. Its response time is very slow in Game Mode, so fast motion is blurry. However, there's no overshoot, so you don't see inverse ghosting.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 has disappointing pixel transitions at its maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. Its response time is very slow in Game Mode, so fast motion is blurry. However, there's no overshoot, so you don't see inverse ghosting.

It has disappointing pixel transitions at 60Hz. There's a lot more overshoot at 60Hz, which leads to inverse ghosting. There's also persistence blur due to the nature of a slower 60Hz refresh rate. Combined with the TV's lackluster pixel transitions, motion in 60Hz games is quite blurry.

With the exception of 1440p, the TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, like 4k @ 120Hz, as well as HDMI Forum VRR. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to manually switch to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.

With the exception of 1440p, the TV is fully compatible with everything the Xbox Series X|S offers, including 4k @ 120Hz, HDMI Forum VRR, FreeSync Premium Pro, and Dolby Vision gaming. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to manually switch to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.

Due to the TV's quick response time, there's some minor stutter when watching movies or TV shows, and it's most apparent in slow panning shots. However, not everyone will notice this.

This TV removes judder automatically from 24p sources, like a Blu-ray player or an external streaming device with a 'Match Frame Rate' feature. For 60Hz sources, like a cable box or the native apps, Motionflow has to be enabled, with both sliders at 'Min' and CineMotion set to 'High' to remove judder.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 has a quick response time. There's a faint motion blur trail behind fast-moving objects, but it's not very noticeable when watching movies and shows.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to control the backlight intensity. It flickers at 720Hz in all picture modes, which is high enough that it isn't noticeable, but it can still bother those sensitive to flicker.

With local dimming disabled, the TV is flicker-free at backlight settings between 15 and 50.

There's an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion, which you can enable to improve the appearance of motion. It works at both 60Hz and 120Hz.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 120 fps, but it's not great. It struggles even in slow panning shots, resulting in noticeable artifacts and stuttering as the frame rate fluctuates.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 has inadequate direct reflection handling. Direct light sources like a lamp or window opposite your screen are very noticeable since the TV barely reduces the intensity of those reflections.

There's only some minor black level raise in a room with ambient lighting, so you still get deep blacks with your lights turned on.

The total reflected light of this TV is sub-par. You easily see reflections on your screen during dark scenes when viewed in a bright room, and there's some obvious light banding present, which is distracting.

The TV's perceived color volume in a bright room is great. Colors barely lose any saturation when the TV is exposed to light, so you can still enjoy punchy colors in a well-lit room.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest downsides of the Sony BRAVIA 7 is its viewing angle, which is significantly worse than that of both the Sony X93L and the Sony X95L, as it lacks Sony's 'X-Wide Angle' technology. Only the step-up Sony BRAVIA 9 QLED has that feature in 2024. This TV is unsuitable for a wide seating arrangement, as anyone sitting off-center will see a faded, washed-out image.

The gray uniformity on this TV is decent. There are a few darker splotches across the screen, a bit of vignetting in the corners, and some minor dirty screen effect towards the center of the screen, but most of these minor issues aren't noticeable with most content.

This TV uses a BGR subpixel layout. It doesn't affect picture quality but can cause blurry text in some applications when using it as a PC monitor.

The TV has great separation between colors, which helps with its color purity and its ability to display a wide range of colors.

HDMI ports 3 and 4 support the full 48Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, while HDMI 1 and 2 are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth. However, because HDMI 3 is an HDMI 2.1 and eARC port, you lose an HDMI 2.1 slot if you connect a soundbar.

This TV supports eARC, which allows you to pass high-quality, uncompressed audio to a compatible receiver through an HDMI cable. It supports all major audio formats, so you don't have to worry about compatibility with external sources.

The Sony K65XR70 has a sleek, premium design that looks great in any room. It has thin bezels on three sides, with a slightly thicker bottom bezel that has a brushed metallic finish.

The slim metal feet hold the TV very well, and there are four mounting options depending on your needs. The feet can be set in either a wide or narrow position depending on your cabinet, and both options offer a low or high setting, so you can place a soundbar in front of the screen without blocking it.

Footprint of the 65-inch stand in the narrow, low position as shown: 18.8" x 13.6" x 1.7". The wide position increases the stand's width to 47.8 inches, and setting it to the high position increases the height between the table and the screen to 3.8 inches, so almost all soundbars fit in front of the screen without blocking the image.

The back of the TV has a nice, clean look, with the typical checkerboard pattern found on all other recent Sony TVs. Sadly, there's nothing for cable management, so it's hard to get the clean look you could achieve with other recent Sony TVs, like the Sony X93L/X93CL.

The build quality of this TV is excellent. The plastic panels feel solid and well-built, and there's a good mix of premium materials, with the metal feet and the metal border around the TV.

Unfortunately, like most TVs, the interface contains ads. You can opt out of personalized ads, but this doesn't change the number of ads you'll see; they just won't be personalized to match your search and viewing history.

There's a single button on the back left side to turn it on/off, change channels, adjust the volume, or switch inputs. If you're concerned about privacy, there's also a switch to turn off the TV's mic.

• Remote
• 2x AAA batteries
• Power cable
• VESA mount extenders
• Manuals and user guides

Even though it's significantly brighter than the Sony X93L, it draws roughly the same amount of power. Sony has considerably improved their power efficiency without sacrificing picture quality or brightness.

The Sony BRAVIA 7 has a decent frequency response. There's very little bass, which is normal with modern TVs, so the low-frequency extension is quite high. Above the LFE, the frequency response is well-balanced at moderate volume levels, but it's a bit worse at max volume. Speaking of, the TV can't get very loud, and there's noticeable compression and pumping at max volume.