You read that correctly; after a year of singing the Sony A80L OLED TV's praises and recommending it as our favourite TV on the market, the time has come for us to withdraw that unwavering support in favour of a newer model. While we are often advocates of opting for an older TV to save some of your hard-earned cash, there are rare occurrences when the new model is within touching distance of its predecessor.
Case in point, the 42-inch LG C4 has just been discounted to £879 – just £20 more than the outgoing C3 model. And we have spotted an absolutely stellar deal in the same vein as that LG offer, though this time it concerns the five-star Sony Bravia 8 OLED TV.
The 55-inch model, which launched at £2199, is now down to just £1619 at Amazon; we're struggling to find reasons not to call this an absolute bargain. The 55-inch A80L (which is beginning to dwindle in stock) is currently £1599; for £20 more, you would be crazy not to spring for the latest model.
Sony's step-down OLED TV has been our favoured model both for recommending to prospective buyers and for benchmarking TVs in our AV testing room; but all good things must come to an end. Fortunately for us, we have found that the Bravia 8 is a worthy successor to the A80L, even if it is a subtle upgrade.
In our full review, we find that the Bravia 8 builds on the A80L's favourable picture performance with slightly brighter highlights, a touch more warmth to the colours and even better motion. It retains the crisp details and excellent contrast from its predecessor too, leaving us with a balanced and immersive image. The Bravia 8 manages to feel even more three-dimensional than the A80L too, which is no small feat; especially as that was one of our favourite aspects of the A80L.
Furthermore, the Bravia 8 sounds good (by TV standards, of course – a soundbar is still preferable) thanks to its 50W actuator-based speaker system. Sony continues to take its "sound from the screen" mission deadly seriously and, while we wish it had a bit more low-end presence, the Bravia 8 delivers a controlled sound that accurately reflects what is happening on the screen while also making a decent attempt at recreating larger spatial effects.
Finally, we deem the Bravia 8 to have a solid feature set, even if it can't compete with LG or Samsung's latest sets where connectivity is concerned. The Sony TV has two HDMI 2.1 sockets (alongside two HDMI 2.0 connections) which support 4K/120Hz signals with VRR and ALLM. PS5 gamers also get some exclusive features, including Auto HDR Tone Mapping and Auto Genre Picture Mode. If you're not a gamer, then you can use the built-in Google TV system to stream from the likes of Netflix, Disney Plus and Amazon Prime Video.
The Bravia 8 also has the usual suite of picture and sound features we expect to see on premium TVs of this stature. HDR is supported in the HDR10, Dolby Vision and HLG formats, while immersive audio is delivered via Dolby Atmos. Sony's new XR Processor also handles a plethora of picture upgrades, including analysing the picture to enhance depth-mapping, contrast, colour, motion and more.
While we have stated that the Bravia 8 is a small upgrade over the excellent A80L, we certainly consider that upgrade to be worth the additional £20. If you're looking at either of these Sony OLEDs, we urge you to opt to spend the extra cash and net yourself the newer of the two.
MORE:
Read our full Sony Bravia 8 review
Check out the best OLED TV deals
And find our picks for the best TVs here
