Sony Bravia 5 review: this mid-range Mini LED TV shines at gaming and home cinema

Fantastic gaming and HDR picture overshadow this TV’s lack of brightness

Kevin Lee

Sep 09, 2025

Sony Bravia 5 review — The Sony Bravia 5’s HDR picture looks outstanding (credit: Kevin Lee / The Shortcut)

🏆 Review score: 4.5 out of 5

🏅 Editor’s Choice Award

✅ Pros

💡 Mini LED finally comes to Sony’s mid-range X90L replacement
🌓 Minimized bloom and haloing
🎮 PS5-ready with 2x HDMI 2.1, ALLM, VRR, Auto HDR Tone Mapping & Genre Picture Mode
⚡️ Very responsive panel for low-latency gaming on all platforms
📊 Same Netflix and Prime Video calibrated modes, plus IMAX Enhanced support as Sony’s flagship TVs
🔊 Strong speakers drive Dolby-Atmos virtualized sound
🖼️ AI Super Resolution subtly sharpens image quality with Sony’s already excellent image processing

❌ Cons

🔅 800-nit peak brightness is equal to the previous Sony Bravia X90L
🪩 Very reflective front panel
🔌 Only two HDMI 2.1 ports
😫 eARC eats up one of the already precious few HDMI 2.1 inputs

Sony Bravia 5 – $1,299

Amazon: Sony Bravia 5 – $1,299

Best Buy: Sony Bravia 5 – $1,299

Walmart: Sony Bravia 5 – $1,299

The Shortcut Review

The Sony Bravia 5 is the Sony X90L replacement we’ve been waiting for. It finally brings a Mini LED backlight to the best mid-range gaming TV for PS5 Pro gamers. The new Mini LED backlight offers significantly more dimming zone control compared to the X90L full array backlight, reducing bloom, edge lighting, and overall improving contrast.

Unfortunately, all those added lighting zones haven’t contributed to increased brightness. The Sony Bravia 5 still peaks with an 800-nit brightness just like the X90L, but the HDR image – especially in darker scenes – is generally improved on this new set. This latest TV also features all the IMAX Enhanced support and Netflix/Prime Video calibrated modes as found on Sony’s flagship TVs. The Bravia 5 is fantastic for gaming with a responsive screen and minimal input lag.

The $1,299 65-inch Sony Bravia 5 is more expensive than an equally sized $899 Hisense U75QG and $599 TCL QM7K. However, Sony Bravia 5 is worth its higher price if you’re looking for better backlight control, HDR quality for darker scenes, sharper image processing, and complete PS5 Pro integration.

Full Review

💡 Mini LED at last. The Bravia 5 marks the first time Mini LED has come to a mid-range Sony TV. This upgrade gives the 65” version of Sony’s new Mini LED TV 384 dimming zones over the 88 zones of the previous X90L’s basic full array backlight. All those dimming zones provide the Sony Bravia 5 with improved contrast and black levels, resulting in a more impressive HDR picture.

🌚 Details in the shadows. The Sony Bravia 5 excels with dark scenes and games. The opening episodes of Alien Earth feel more atmospheric with all the tiny details you can spot in the shadows. Meanwhile, exploring the cauldrons in Horizon Zero Dawn really shows off the improved HDR visuals you can get out of the Bravia 5. Sometimes I swear I'm looking at an OLED TV, with how highlights can pop right next to areas of pure darkness without any blooming. This improved contrast comes mainly from the Bravia 5’s XR Backlight Master Drive, a precise backlight control derived from Sony’s professional editing monitors.

🔅 No brightness upgrade. Typically, more lighting zones also translate to higher brightness, but that isn’t the case for the Sony Bravia 5. I measured a peak brightness of 800-nits, which is about how bright the Sony Bravia X90L performed last year. While the Bravia 5 isn’t brighter, HDR content generally looks better on it, thanks to its greater number of lighting zones. This is especially true of any movies that are mainly dark with bright highlights, like Tron Legacy and the latter half of 1917. The Bravia 5’s brightness also felt strong enough to make swinging around in Spider-Man 2 look realistic, akin to a sunny day in NYC.

🎮 PS5 Pro ready. The Sony Bravia 5, of course, is PS5 Pro gaming-ready. It features two HDMI 2.1 ports, supporting 4K 120Hz gaming with ALLM and VRR on the PS5 Pro, as well as the Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X, and gaming PCs. The Bravia 5 also supports Auto HDR Tone Mapping and Auto Genre Picture Mode, which automatically optimizes the TV for PS5 gaming without requiring manual adjustments. The Sony Bravia 5 also comes with PS Remote Play, allowing you to play games even if your PS5 Pro is not connected directly to this screen.

🕹️ Minimal latency. I measured the input lag of the Sony Bravia 5 at 13.2ms for 4K 60Hz and 5.7ms for 4K 120Hz. This makes the Sony Bravia 5 one of the most responsive Mini LED TVs I’ve tested, so it’s very well suited for responsive gaming.

🪩 Heavy glare. The Sony Bravia 5’s only issue is that it easily reflects any lighting. In a well-lit room, the Bravia 5 looked almost like a mirror when I looked at it at an off-angle. The glare only looks worse next to sunlit windows. Any beams of sunlight that hit the screen easily overpower even the brightest highlights this TV is capable of producing. This is definitely a TV you should have set up in a darker room or at least have blackout curtains you can pull close.

📊 Calibrated modes. The Bravia 5 also features all the same calibrated modes available on Sony’s higher-end sets, like the Sony Bravia 9. In addition to the standard Studio Calibrated and Dolby Vision IQ modes, the Bravia 5 also supports adaptive calibrated modes for streaming services such as Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Sony Pictures Core. Additionally, this TV supports IMAX Enhanced, which allows you to watch movies shot in IMAX in their tall, nearly full-screen format.

🔊 Dolby Atmos sound out of the box. The Sony Bravia 5 comes equipped with four speakers that deliver a well-balanced sound with a surprising amount of height audio out of the box. The TV projects a 5.0.2-channel sound on its own, which sounded especially convincing while watching F1. Cars zipped across the screen, and I could also hear the announcer's voice come from the speakers above the track.

🤖 AI Super Resolution. The Bravia 5 comes equipped with AI; however, unlike LG and Samsung, Sony utilizes AI primarily to enhance picture quality. The new AI Super Resolution feature helps the TV resolve slightly finer details and upscale lower-resolution content. Sony’s real-time upscaling and HDR remastering have consistently been ahead of its competitors, and this touch of AI has further improved picture processing. While watching Forest Gump, I noticed more detail in the characters' faces and hair, among other things, which helped revitalize the movie into a more modern release.