Sony Bravia 5 Review

The Bravia 5 is Sony's 2025 replacement for the long-serving X90L, and it sits in the middle of the range, above the entry Bravia 2 II and below the Bravia 7 and Bravia 8 II. The 65-inch runs a VA Mini LED panel with about 384 local dimming zones, roughly six times what the X90L carried, tops out near 1,000 nits on HDR highlights, and supports Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG on Google TV. Sizes climb from 55 all the way to a new 98-inch.

The reason to buy a Sony at this price has never been the spec sheet, and it is not here either. It is the XR processor. Upscaling of ordinary broadcast and streaming, motion handling, and the tone mapping of badly mastered HDR are all a clear step ahead of the Hisense and TCL sets that outgun it on paper. This is the panel that makes a mediocre source look considered rather than smeared, with accurate color straight out of the box.

The compromises are real. Around 1,000 nits is modest in 2025, when rivals at the same money push 1,500 to well over 2,000, so a sunlit room blunts the HDR punch. Only two of the four HDMI ports are 2.1 with 4K120 and variable refresh, which stings if a PS5 and a gaming PC both want a seat, and Google TV can still feel sluggish. The 384 zones are competent rather than class-leading, so some blooming survives on hard edges against black.

At $1,499 for the 65-inch, and often closer to $1,300 in practice, it is the sharpest all-rounder in its bracket for anyone who values processing over raw brightness. Chase the brightest picture per dollar and you will look elsewhere, but nothing near the price makes everyday content look this settled.