Sony 55-Inch A8G (XBR-55A8G) Review

The Sony Master Series A9G impressed us when we reviewed it last month, combining the strong performance of an OLED panel with the convenience and power of Android TV and hands-free Google Assistant voice control.

It's pricey, though, which is why Sony offers the non-Master Series A8G line as an alternative.

This scaled-back OLED TV uses a nearly identical panel to the A9G, but lacks the hands-free Google Assistant access and some of the design polish of the Master Series line.

In exchange, it's much less expensive at $2,499.99 for the 65-inch XBR65A9G we tested.

That's still very pricey, considering LG's OLED TVs edge out Sony's in brightness, and Samsung's flagship Q90R LCD recently blew us away with its picture quality.

Editors' Note: This review is based on testing performed on the XBR-65A8G, the 65-inch model in the series.

Apart from the screen size difference, the $1,799.99 55-inch XBR-55A8G is identical in features, and we expect similar performance.

Design

The A8G looks sleek, simple, and black.

The panel itself measures just a quarter of an inch deep, with the front dominated by the OLED picture, which is framed by a quarter-inch black border around the edge of the glass, followed by a thin band of black metal along the sides.

The bottom edge of the screen features another slim strip of metal, which holds a barely visible Sony logo on the lower left corner, an indicator LED in the middle, and a remote sensor on the lower right corner.

It's a strikingly flat, minimalist look that holds up the TV as a simple black rectangle.

While the OLED panel is just a quarter of an inch thick, the TV fattens up another 1.8 inches with a rectangular black plastic enclosure that takes up about half of the back of the panel.

This enclosure holds all of the TV's ports and electronics, the majority of which are located near the left side.

An HDMI port, two USB 2.0 ports, and 3.5mm ports for composite video input, audio output, an infrared blaster, and an infrared receiver face left on the enclosure, along with a small power button and volume up/down buttons.

Three more HDMI ports, a USB 3.0 port, an Ethernet port, an optical audio output, an antenna/cable connector, and a 3.5mm RS232-C port sit just around the corner on the enclosure, facing down.

The TV rests on a flat, black, U-shaped metal stand that connects to the bottom of the enclosure with two short metal legs.

It's another simple, unassuming design element that disappears against the screen itself.

VESA screw mounts on the back also allow optional wall mounting without the stand.

While the A9G comes with a sleek, simple silver remote, the A8G comes with a blocky black wand typical of Sony's non-Master Series TVs.

It's a chunky 7.8-inch-long plastic rectangle covered in rubber buttons, with a circular navigation pad surrounded by a ring of menu buttons in the middle.

Power, Input, and Google Assistant buttons sit near the top, along with a number pad, four color buttons, and dedicated service buttons for Google Play and Netflix.

Volume and channel rockers sit below the navigation pad, with playback controls below them.

A pinhole microphone is built into the top of the remote, for using Google Assistant and voice search.

Android TV

Like Sony's other TVs, the A8G uses Android TV for its interface and connected features.

Android TV is a full-featured system that offers access to a wide selection of streaming services including Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies & TV, Google Play Music, Hulu, Netflix, PlayStation Vue, Sling TV, Twitch, and YouTube.

The TV also works as a Google Cast device, so you can stream to it from a smartphone, tablet, or Chrome tab as if there was a Google Chromecast plugged into it.

As an Android TV, the A8G features Google Assistant voice support.

Unfortunately, it doesn't have hands-free Google Assistant like the Master Series A9G and Z9F do.

The TV doesn't have a far-field microphone array like those TVs do, so you can't bring up Google Assistant by saying "OK, Google." You need to press the Google Assistant button on the remote and talk into the microphone on it to use the voice assistant.

It's certainly less convenient, but it effectively offers the same features like getting general information, controlling the TV and smart home devices, and searching for media.

Performance

The Sony A8G is a 4K TV capable of displaying high dynamic range (HDR) content in Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HLG.

We test TVs using a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G test pattern generator, and Portrait Displays' CalMAN software using methodology based on Imaging Science Foundation's calibration techniques.

The A8G performs very similarly to the A9G, displaying a peak brightness of 528.8cd/m² with an 18-percent field and 180.2cd/m² with a full-screen field.

This is almost identical to the A9G (504.27cd/m² and 175.1cd/m2), but both are significantly less bright than the LG OLEDC9P (667.89cd/m² with an 18-percent field).

Of course, no OLED can put out as much light as Sony's Master Series Z9F or Samsung's Q90R LCD TVs, which respectively output 1,677.49cd/m² and 1,510.8cd/m² with an 18-percent field and are as bright as the A8G when displaying a full-screen white field.

The A8G, like all OLEDs, has a perfect black level, outputting no light with black pixels even when other parts of the screen are lit up, producing an effectively infinite contrast ratio.

The above chart shows DCI-P3 color levels as boxes and measured color levels as dots.

In Cinema Pro mode, with the color space set to DCI-P3, the A8G shows similarly wide but slightly inaccurate colors as the A9G.

Whites run a bit cool out of the box even under the warmest white level setting, a common problem with OLED TVs, and magentas run a little blue.

Cyans and yellows are more accurate than they are on the A9G, drifting slightly green but not shifting nearly as far as they do toward blue and red respectively on the Master Series TV.

Of course, as a high-end OLED TV the A8G has extensive calibration settings, so you can have the TV professionally calibrated to get much more accurate colors if you wish to spend the money for it.

In BBC's Planet Earth II, colors look saturated and accurate, with the greens of leaves and blues of water appearing vivid without being overblown.

Fine details like fur and bark can be clearly seen, both in direct sunlight and under shade.

The red of Deadpool's costume in Deadpool looks accurate in the opening highway fight, even under overcast lighting that can make it appear slightly purple or muted.

In the burning lab fight, the flames are fairly homogenized yellows and oranges, lacking some of the varied hues we've seen in quantum dot LCD TVs like the Samsung Q90R.

Shadow details can be clearly seen against the flames, and don't appear muddied.

The Great Gatsby also looks very good on the A8G.

In the high-contrast party scenes, the contours and textures of black suits can be clearly seen even against white shirts and lights.

Details are preserved across the board, without any part of the frame appearing washed out.

Skin tones are largely natural, but occasionally seem slightly pale in the cool lighting.

Input Lag

We test input lag using an HDFury Diva 4K 18Gbps HDMI matrix, measuring how long a TV takes to update its screen after receiving a signal, which is important for video games that require responsive controls.

In Cinema Pro mode, the A8G shows a very high input lag of 102.3 milliseconds.

Switching the TV to Game mode drops that down to 39.8ms, but that's still twice as high as the A9G's input lag in Game mode (18.9ms), and far above the 20ms threshold we use to consider a TV to be among the best for gaming.

Another Good OLED Among Many

The Sony A8G looks very good and offers plenty of features thanks to Android TV, and at $2,500 for 65 inches, it's one of the most economical OLED models you can get.

Its brightness and color performance lag a bit behind LG's OLED C9P series, however, and it lacks the hands-free Google Assistant functionality the higher-end Sony Master Series A9G offers.

Considering the advent of high-end LCD TVs like the Samsung Q90R that can get much brighter and offer wider and more accurate colors out of the box while still displaying admirably low black levels, OLED's superlative contrast ratios aren't quite the bleeding-edge must-have technology they were a few years ago.

If you're willing to spend a few thousand dollars on a TV, the Sony A9G offers better features and the Samsung Q90R has a better picture.

If you're looking for a more economical alternative, the Hisense H8F and TCL 6-series both offer admirable picture quality and strong feature sets for a fraction of the price, though they don't come close to any OLED's performance.