The Sony Bravia 7 Mini LED TV is a strong contender in the premium 65-inch TV market, striking an impressive balance between performance and price. With its refined mini LED backlighting and Sony’s XR image processing, this TV offers high peak brightness for an impactful HDR experience along with excellent colour accuracy. You also get rich and clear audio, along with well-designed software. Solid build quality and a gaming experience that hits the mark, are other perks that make Bravia 7 Mini LED TV very appealing.
When it comes to picking a premium TV, buyers are often torn between the allure of OLED and the dependability of Mini LED TVs. While white OLEDs and QD-OLEDs are known for their deep blacks and excellent contrast, their high price point makes them a stretch for many, especially when you are considering a 65-inch or larger size. That’s where the Sony Bravia 7 Mini LED TV steps in, offering a more accessible, high-quality alternative. The combination of the mini LED Quantum Dots display and Sony’s image processing is a very alluring option for those seeking a flagship-level experience in larger screen sizes. Let’s answer all your questions related to the Sony Bravia 7 Mini LED TV in this review, starting with the specifications.
The Sony Bravia 7 K-65XR70 has a very premium design and feels quite substantial. There are no distractions on the front – the bezels are extremely narrow on three sides and even the brushed metal bottom bezel is sans any branding. The back of the TV also has a clean look, with Sony’s signature checkerboard pattern. The TV doesn’t ship with a stand in the box. After purchase, you can request a table-top installation for Rs. 2500 or a wall-mount installation for Rs. 1000. The metallic tabletop stand that we opted for feels very premium and is also height-adjustable. The power chord has a tie for power cable management.
Ports are side-facing and easily accessible. Out of 4 HDMI ports, you can access full HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports due to the limitations of the MediaTek chipset. One of these two can be used for eARC output to external sound systems. While LG and Samsung offer four HDMI 2.1 ports in comparable models, two should meet the needs of most users. Personally, I’ve never found a need for more than two HDMI 2.1 ports.
The Sony BRAVIA 7 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. Sony’s eco remote is made of flame retardant and recycled Sorplas plastic. It’s an ergonomic remote that is comfortable to hold and operate and has all the necessary buttons.
Our review sample employs a good-quality VA panel for the price. On a 10% Window, the Bravia 7 can get almost 2000 nits bright, even in the Professional mode with an accurate white point! This enables the TV to deliver impactful HDR.
Gamut’s coverage is also impressive. The panel can reproduce almost 100% of Rec. 709 colour space used for SDR content. As for HDR, the Bravia 7 supports 97% DCI-P3 coverage and 79% of BT2020 coverage in UV terms.
One of the most impressive features is how Sony handles the mini LED backlight and the local dimming to enhance contrast while minimising dimming-related artefacts like halos and blooming. The LED LCD panel is reflective, but that also helps a sense of depth if you are watching in a relatively dark ambience (as is recommended for HDR).
The colour volume, which takes into account the range of colours a TV can produce at different brightness levels, turned out to be lower than expected. We recorded 100% rec 709 colour volume for HDR and around 76% P3 colour volume.
We did notice a slight loss of luminance and shifting of colours off-axis. While this is common for affordable VA panels, wider viewing angles are expected in the premium segment.
We tested the colour accuracy of the display using Spectracal C6 HDR2000 Colourimeter, Videoforge Pro pattern generator, and Calman Ultimate software. All measurements are taken in the Professional mode which is meant for purists.
The great thing is that the colour temperature in both the Professional mode and Cinema mode is close to standard D65. The colour accuracy in both the SDR and HDR mode is excellent on Bravia 7. Since the TV supports auto-cal, enthusiasts can calibrate it further for a tighter response.
In SDR, we recorded an average delta error of just 1.8 and a maximum delta error of 4.3 out of the box, which is indeed impressive. The maximum brightness is limited in SDR and goes up to 500 to 600 nits which is because SDR content is mastered for 100 nits and it won’t make any sense to go any brighter.
Skin tones are accurate and the TV can render dark and mixed SDR scenes rather well. Critical memory colours like skin tones, colours of the sky and foliage are rendered accurately.
The TV supports Dolby Vision and HDR10. Dark scenes in HDR are rendered beautifully. The TV also handled high dynamic range scenes with both bright highlights and shadows like the above scene from Crimilar Records nicely.
In HDR10 we recorded an average Delta Error of just 2.2, which is above average. Once again the movie mode is warmer than the standard D65 out of the box. Peak brightness can go close to 2000 nits in HDR on a 10% window and the full field brightness goes up to 800 nits.
Sony Bravia 7 has a Prime Calibrated Mode that is enabled by default. The mode may appeal dim but is actually quite accurate. There is also a Netflix Calibrated Mode which isn’t enabled by default. Motion clarity felt really impressive while watching content and also while gaming. Sony also does a great job with upscaling legacy content.
Overall, if you are looking for reliable colour accuracy out of the box, the Bravia 7 Mini LED TV won’t disappoint.
Sony Bravia 7 is a snappy TV as you’d expect at this price point. The content we played almost instantly switched to high-resolution settings and playback controls worked smoothly. We did not notice any unexpected jitters while switching between apps. The XR processor is backed by 32GB of storage, which gives some assurance that the performance shall remain snappy after a period of use.
Casting and screen mirroring work seamlessly across Android and iOS devices since the TV supports Apple Airplay, Apple Homekit and Chromecast Built-in. The far-field microphones work well and the Bravia 7 could consistently respond to our voice prompts.
The software is based on Google TV and is perhaps the best version of Google TV that we have experienced. Sony has invested considerable effort in offering a wide range of customization options on the Bravia 7, with default settings optimized to provide the best experience for everyday users who may prefer not to risk toggling the wrong options. So, both casual viewers and tech enthusiasts can enjoy a tailored experience, with the flexibility to tweak further if desired.
We tested the gaming prowess of the Sony Bravia 7 with Sony PS5 and games like Ghost of Tsushima, Witcher 3 and Spiderman 2. The TV has a low latency game mode and supports HDMI 2.1 gaming features like ALLM. The gameplay was perfectly smooth. The HDR impact fell a tad short of what you’d get on an OLED TV, but it was still pretty great for an LED LCD TV.
Sony has always done well with audio quality on its premium TVs. The audio from the Bravia 7 is well-balanced, rich and vibrant. The soundstage is wide and dialogue clarity is great. Sony’s Acoustic Audio Tuning feature offers the option to calibrate audio specifically for your room setup, tailoring the sound to your unique space. In our testing, however, the difference was subtle, though it may provide a more noticeable enhancement in rooms with unique acoustics.
The Sony Bravia 7 Mini LED TV strikes a compelling balance between performance and pricing for those looking for a 65-inch or larger TV in the premium segment. With its refined mini LED backlighting and Sony’s XR image processing, this TV offers high peak brightness for an impactful HDR experience along with excellent colour accuracy. You also get rich and clear audio, along with well-designed software. Solid build quality and a gaming experience that hits the mark, are other perks that make Bravia 7 very appealing.
The closest competitors to the Bravia 7 are LG QNED 90T and Samsung Neo QNED 85D.
