For years, Sony X82L (review) was the TV you’d recommend to almost anyone. It was the safe, reliable, fantastic choice in the mid-range. Now, Sony has replaced it. Meet the BRAVIA 5, a TV that ditches the old Full Array system for a much brighter, more aggressive Mini LED panel. The promise is a massive upgrade: up to six times the dimming zones for near-OLED black levels, all powered by Sony’s famously clever Cognitive Processor XR. With Google TV, Dolby Vision, and the Perfect for PlayStation 5 badge, it’s specced to win.
But in a market flooded with aggressive competitors from Samsung and TCL, is a brighter screen enough? We’ve put the BRAVIA 5 through its paces to see if Sony’s big Mini LED gamble actually pays off, or if it’s just an incremental update in a shinier package.
Sony BRAVIA 5 Mini LED Price & Availability
Sony’s new BRAVIA 5 lineup is now available in multiple screen sizes in both India and the United States. In India, the BRAVIA 5 series starts with the 55-inch XR55 model (K-55XR55A), priced at ₹1,22,990. Moving up, the 65-inch XR55 variant (K-65XR55A) is available at ₹1,56,490, while the massive 98-inch BRAVIA 5 XR55 (K-98XR55A) is priced at ₹5,53,190. All these models are now available through Sony Centers, major retail chains, and leading online platforms, including Sony India’s official store, Amazon, and Flipkart.
In the United States, the Sony BRAVIA 5 XR50 lineup offers similar options. The 55-inch K-55XR50 model is priced at $898, followed by the 65-inch K-65XR50 at $1,558, and the 85-inch K-85XR50 at $1,698. For those seeking a true home-theatre experience, the 98-inch K-98XR50 sits at $4,498. All models are available across major US retailers including Best Buy, Amazon, and Sony.com, with limited-time launch offers depending on region.
Pros
- Excellent upscaling with the XR Processor
- Strong HDR performance with accurate colors
- Smooth, refined Google TV experience
- Strong SDR and real-world picture.
- Handles reflections well and looks great in moderately lit rooms.
Cons
- Noticeable blooming and lifted blacks in dark-room viewing
- SDR content shows some shadow crush.
- Brightness is lower than top-tier Mini LEDs and the older X90L
Built-in speakers lack deep bass impact - Only two HDMI 2.1 ports
Sony BRAVIA 5 Review: Design & Build
Sony’s BRAVIA 5 skips the flashy chrome of its rivals for a more mature, functional minimalism. From the front, it’s an impressively seamless picture, with bezels so thin they are unnoticable during viewing. By ditching the front logo and adding a single, subtle strip of brushed metal below the screen, Sony has created a TV that feels like a premium canvas for your content.
The thoughtful engineering continues around the back. The signature checkerboard plastic isn’t just for looks; it adds rigidity to the chassis and cleverly conceals channels for cable management, ensuring a clean setup. While it’s plastic, the build is dense and completely creak-free, feeling more substantial than many competitors.
But the real hero of the design is the stand. Unlike the cheap afterthoughts included with most TVs, the BRAVIA 5’s tool-free metal feet are brilliant. They can be installed at two different heights: a low-profile setting for a sleek, monolithic look, or a higher position that lifts the screen by nearly three inches, creating a perfect space to tuck a soundbar underneath. The TV sits rock-solid with zero wobble.
For buyers in India, the setup process is a premium touch. The TV is delivered without a stand, and a certified installer arrives with your choice of the stand or a wall mount, ensuring a perfect installation. It all adds up to a design that doesn’t demand attention but rewards it, focusing on practical details that improve the experience of living with a giant screen.
ALSO READ: Sony Bravia 9 Mini-Led Review (Long-term): The OLED Killer?
Sony BRAVIA 5 Review: Connectivity, I/O
Let’s get the biggest frustration out of the way: the HDMI ports. While the BRAVIA 5 gives you four inputs, only two are the full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports that gamers need. This means you get just two slots for features like 4K at 120Hz and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR). If you own both a PS5 and an Xbox Series X, your high-spec ports are already full, leaving no room for a future gaming PC or soundbar. It’s a frustrating compromise when rivals from Samsung and LG offer four full-spec ports at this price.
One of those two premium ports handles eARC, letting you send lossless Dolby Atmos audio to a soundbar. The rest of the physical connections are solid: two USB ports, an optical audio out, Ethernet, and RF input. Sony gets major points for the design here all ports are side-facing and recessed, making them easy to access even when wall-mounted. Clip-on covers also help hide the cable mess.
On the wireless front, Sony has finally brought a much-needed upgrade. The inclusion of Wi-Fi 6 means faster, more reliable streaming for high-bitrate 4K content, which is a noticeable improvement. With Bluetooth 5.3, Chromecast, and AirPlay 2 rounding things out, the BRAVIA 5 is ready to connect with just about any device you own.
ALSO READ: LG OLED Evo AI G5 vs. Sony Bravia 9: Which Flagship Television Should You Choose?
Sony BRAVIA 5 Review: Remote
Sony’s remote is a familiar made from recycled plastic with a unique speckled finish, it feels good in the hand. The layout is clean and sensible, with a built-in mic for Google Assistant and a handy quick settings button for instant picture adjustments. Anime fans will love the dedicated Crunchyroll shortcut, which sits alongside Netflix, Prime Video, and a SonyLIV button for the Indian market.
But there are two issues that feel dated. The first and most glaring is the lack of backlighting. Fumbling for the volume key in a dark room is an unnecessary annoyance for a TV designed for cinematic viewing. Second, it’s powered by two AAA batteries instead of being rechargeable. While practical, it feels like a cost-saving measure on a TV this advanced. It’s a good remote, but a backlight would have made it great.
ALSO READ: Sony BRAVIA Theater Bar 9 Review with Rear Speakers and Bass Module: Is It Worth the Price?
Sony BRAVIA 5 Review: Hardware and Software
The BRAVIA 5 runs Google TV, and it’s one of the best smart TV experiences available today. The interface is clean, snappy, but it takes its sweet time to boot. Once the TV is all fired up, the Apps open instantly, menus glide smoothly, and with 16GB of usable storage, you have plenty of room to download what you need. Sony’s handy quick-settings menu, summoned by a single button, also lets you tweak the picture or sound without digging through menus.
The secret weapon here is Sony’s Cognitive Processor XR, the same flagship brain found in its most expensive models. This chip is the driving force behind the smooth software, but its main job is picture quality. It analyzes every scene in real-time to intelligently boost color, sharpen details, and manage the backlight, giving the TV that refined, natural look Sony is known for.
But the biggest hardware story this year is the move to a Mini LED backlight, managed by Sony’s XR Backlight Master Drive. Our 65-inch model packs 384 local dimming zones, a massive sixfold jump from last year’s X90L. This gives the TV surgical control over light, inky blacks right next to intense highlights with far less blooming or haze. Paired with a native 120Hz panel, motion is crisp and clear, making it a fantastic screen for both movies and gaming.
A final note on power: Sony ships the TV in a power-saving Eco mode. While it’s great for efficiency, you’ll want to switch to a standard picture mode to see what the screen can truly do.
Sony BRAVIA 5 Review: Picture Quality
The story of the BRAVIA 5’s picture is one of impressive balance. Sony’s world-class processing is on full display, delivering a clean, natural, and exceptionally sharp image. But the star of the show is the new Mini LED backlight, which brings a massive and immediately noticeable improvement in terms of contrast.
Thanks to its VA panel with all the local dimming zones, produces stunningly deep black levels. In a dark room, the black bars on widescreen movies often disappear completely, creating an immersive, almost OLED-like experience. When local dimming is on, the contrast ratio is immense.
However, it’s not perfect. To control “blooming” (that faint glow around bright objects on a dark screen), Sony’s algorithm plays it safe. It slightly raises the black level in tricky scenes to avoid distracting halos around things like subtitles. The result is a clean, balanced image that looks fantastic in most conditions, but you’ll still spot some glow in a pitch-black room.
Brightness
For everyday TV shows and sports in SDR, the BRAVIA 5 is excellent, getting plenty bright to overcome glare in a sunlit room. Its upscaling is also phenomenal; the XR Processor makes even old 720p YouTube videos look surprisingly crisp on the huge 65-inch screen.
When it comes to HDR, the Mini LEDs deliver a clear step-up in impact. Small highlights can pop with around 1,000 nits of brightness, giving movies on Dolby Vision or HDR10 a rich, vibrant depth. However, the TV’s sustained brightness is more modest. It creates an impactful picture, but it won’t give you the retina-searing highlights of more expensive flagship TVs. In fact, it’s slightly dimmer overall than its predecessor, the X90L. Sony has traded a little bit of peak brightness for vastly superior contrast.
Most color-accurate mode
For the best picture with minimal effort, the “Professional” or “Cinema” modes are wonderfully accurate. The TV also features new Calibrated Modes for Netflix and Prime Video, which automatically optimize the picture for their content.
Sony BRAVIA 5 Review: Gaming
For PlayStation 5 (review) owners, this is the TV to pay attention to. The moment you connect the console, the TV and PS5 automatically handshake: Auto HDR Tone Mapping dials in the perfect brightness levels, and Auto Genre Picture Mode switches to Game Mode instantly. It’s a seamless setup that handles the technical side for you.
The BRAVIA 5 backs up that promise with the specs that matter in 2025: 4K at 120Hz, Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), and Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM). This is the trifecta for modern console gaming, and the performance is excellent. Input lag is impressively low and the response feels instantaneous, whether you’re cornering in Dirt 5 or swinging through Manhattan in Spider-Man 2. HDR in games is handled beautifully, with Dolby Vision Gaming support ensuring rich colours and bright highlights that pop without losing detail in the shadows.
Sony’s new Game Menu is another huge win. Accessed with a quick tap, this on-screen overlay gives you a practical toolkit without forcing you to dig through settings mid-match. You can instantly toggle VRR, adjust the black equalizer to see enemies in the dark, or even add a permanent crosshair to the screen.
Sony BRAVIA 9 Review: Audio
The BRAVIA 5’s built-in 40-watt speakers are surprisingly clear, making dialogue crisp and easy to understand for casual viewing, thanks to clever processing like Voice Zoom 3. However, the system’s major weakness is a near-total lack of bass, which leaves action movies and music feeling flat and without impact. While the speakers are fine for a bedroom or daily news, you will absolutely want a soundbar for any immersive experience.
Connecting one is simple via the HDMI eARC port, which supports high-quality formats like Dolby Atmos. Be warned, though, using this port occupies one of the TV’s only two precious HDMI 2.1 inputs, a frustrating trade-off for gamers. When paired with a compatible Sony soundbar, the Acoustic Center Sync feature intelligently uses the TV’s speakers as a center channel, resulting in dialogue that is directly anchored to the screen for a more unified audio experience.
Review Verdict: Should You Buy the Sony BRAVIA 5?
The Sony BRAVIA 5 is a masterclass in balance and refinement. Its processor delivers a clean, color-accurate picture, Google TV is snappy, and the integration with the PlayStation 5 is flawless. It’s a consistently brilliant and reliable TV.
However, it plays it safe. The Mini LED backlight isn’t the brightest in its class for HDR, and the limit of two HDMI 2.1 ports is a frustrating compromise for serious gamers.
Ultimately, the BRAVIA 5 is a fantastic choice for PS5 owners and those who value a natural, premium picture over raw specs. But if you crave dazzling HDR highlights or need more gaming inputs, you’ll find more aggressive options from competitors.
Smartprix Rating: ⭐8.1 out of 10
- Design and Build: ⭐8/10
- SDR Performance: ⭐8.2/10
- HDR Performance: ⭐8.3/10
- Contrast & Local Dimming: ⭐8/10
- Upscaling: ⭐9/10
- Gaming: ⭐8.5/10
- Audio: ⭐7.5/10
- Software: ⭐8/10
- Connectivity & Ports: ⭐8/10
- Value for Money: ⭐7.5/10
First reviewed in October 2025.
