Sony Bravia 7 II review: RGB Mini LED Magic, But OLED remains a tough rival

Sony’s new true RGB Mini LED TVs aim to offer a more Red, Green and Blue-based dedicated LED backlight instead of an all-blue-based backlight with quantum dot technology in place. The new (Mark 2) series has been unveiled for the Indian market, and I have been using the new Bravia 7 II in its 55-inch variant. It’s currently priced at Rs 2,21,990 — taking on existing Mini LEDs as well as some OLEDs from established players.

The TV looks and feels quite premium at first impression. The centre-mounted flat stand is sturdier than the near-corner cheaper plastic stands that are pretty commonly bundled with TVs these days; however, you don’t get a bundled wall mount in the box. Though the TV is a little thicker than usual, it isn’t a deal-breaker by any means. The back houses clips for latching onto cables plus side-facing ports — an Ethernet port, four HDMI ports (two are HDMI 2.1, one with eARC, and two with Variable Refresh Rate support), audio out, as well as two USB ports. The 54.6-inch LCD display gets the Sony branding under its chin, and the bezels around it are slim enough not to be an eyesore. The remote control has a brushed aluminium look to it, but it’s still plastic; it’s a familiar long remote control with app shortcuts and the usual buttons such as power, input, volume, channels, and navigation keys.

Coming to the display itself, I find Sony’s RGB panel produces excellent colours in terms of depth here — be it for movies in 4K or older TV series in 1080p. Streaming Netflix and Prime, the picture has a clear depth effect between the background and the subject in the foreground — something Sony also highlights about the TV series. While the difference from a regular LED may not be obvious at first, the colours produced just appear true with very little to no artificial vividness added to them, from what I noticed while watching live sports or documentaries on the TV. The only area where it can lack at times is when there’s a fast-moving subject going from a dark-lit scene to daylight — you might notice a bit of blurriness if you are paying attention, but otherwise this one is a quality display, including for watching Dolby Vision and HDR content without any hassles. OLEDs would still be preferred in this price range for their sheer contrast with deep blacks, but the colours and depth here are top-notch. You can even switch between white and RGB Mini LED from Settings and see which one you prefer for your favourite content.

The Bravia 7 II is equipped with four speakers — providing 40 watts of output. The audio quality here is generally decent to good for the price tag. It does get quite loud, and enabling dialogue clarity under streaming app settings also helps when watching movies. Bass and treble might be a bit on the low to mid ranges — adding a dedicated speaker system over eARC for a more refined sound output is preferable, if that’s an option for you, while for a 10x10 room, the speakers do a sufficiently good job for most genres.

Powered by Sony’s XR chip with 32GB of internal storage and running on Android 14-based Google TV, the TV handles app switching and streaming heavy files without major stuttering. I also didn’t really notice the TV taking longer to restart from a fresh boot, so I didn't have to wait for it to start responding to remote control buttons.

Wrapping it up, the Sony Bravia 7 II is a fine start to Sony’s take on true RGB Mini LEDs — it has great colour reproduction and good audio quality, while looking premium sitting in your room with that design and stand. It is up against a lot of competition from OLEDs of established names, and it comes down to your preference between deep, rich blacks or general colour reproduction with satisfactory HDR output.