Sony A80K Review 2023

Sony A80K Review 2023

The Sony A80K has all of the excellent features you would expect from an OLED TV, such as detailed blacks and colors that are well-saturated, in addition to features like support for gaming in 4K at 120 frames per second. 

It’s an appealing alternative for an OLED TV because of its outstanding performance and the fact that it won’t break the budget.

The Sony A80K  provides a high-quality viewing experience with its brilliant color, acceptable black levels, great upscaling, and variety of processing power.

If you are in a hurry, here’s a summary of our comprehensive review!

Sony A80K Review 2023

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Key Specs

Panel Type:QD-OLED | Size: 55, 65, 77-inches | Resolution: 4k| Smart TV software: Google TV | HDR: HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision  | Audio: ARC(HDMI 3) | Refresh Rate: 120Hz | Ports: 2 HDMI 2.1, 2 HDMI 2.0, 2 USB |  Audio: 50 watt (3.2 channels)

8.8

Rtings 8.9/10

Qunatum Tv 9/10

B The Installer 9/10

Abt Electronics 9.1/10

4.6/5 by 483+ Users at Amazon

4.8/5 by 597+ Users at Best Buy

4.7/5 by 808+ Users at Samsung

Design & Build 9.5/10

Picture Quality 8.6/10

Sound Quality 9/10

Gaming Features 9/10

Smart Features 8/10

Value For Money 8.5/10


Eagle Verdict

The sony A80K is great for watching TV shows and sports in well-lit rooms thanks to its wide viewing angle and excellent reflection handling, but it doesn’t get bright enough to fight a lot of glare. It works great for gaming because of its fast response time, low input lag, HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, and support for VRR. You get a great picture, a robust sound system, an easy-to-use Google TV smart interface, and a better remote.

Other Experts Say?

Rtings

“Sony A80K is excellent for most uses. It’s great for watching TV shows and excellent for sports in well-lit rooms thanks to its wide viewing angle and incredible reflection handling, but it doesn’t get bright enough to fight a ton of glare.

Quantum Tv

“The Sony A80K OLED TV has a fast response time and low input lag, making it an excellent gaming choice. It also has a game mode that reduces input lag even more and makes it easier to play games.

B The Installer

“Overall I’m pretty happy with this TV it is very low resolution, low bandwidth and so typically it doesn’t look great it does still look better than most TVs.”

Abt Electronics

“Overall The sony A80K OLED is the best OLED TV. Its Acoustic Surface Audio + is some of the best sounds you’ll get from a TV in 2023. Its redesigned remote and 2 HDMI 2.1 inputs for next-gen gaming, and this is an extremely versatile TV that will fit into any quality home theater.”

Pros

  • Wide viewing angle.
  • Incredible reflection handling.
  • Captivating sound system
  • Strong suite of HDMI 2.1 gaming features
  • Deep blacks and impressive brightness

Cons

  • No HDR10+ support
  • Limited HDR peak brightness.

8.5/10

Design & Build Quality

Sony A80K Review 2023

The Sony A80K has a high-quality design with metal feet and a black plastic body. It also has thin bezels that don’t get in the way of watching TV.

The only other important part of the design is the stand, which is made of two pieces with flat feet and no attachments. 

In my experience, the stand can be positioned wide, narrow, or elevated to place a soundbar beneath the screen. The back panel has 300x300mm VESA holes for wall mounting the TV.

The Sony A80K has fantastic build quality. The stand supports the TV exceptionally well. There are no quality control difficulties because the panel is correctly attached to the rear, and the cable management cover stays in place.

Design Facts:

  • Style (Front & Back):  No Curved 
  • Bezels: Thin bezels  
  • Max Thickness:  2.09″ (5.3 cm)
  • Wall Mount: VESA 300×300 
  • Build Quality: Fantastic Build Quality 
  • Stand: Yes
  • Expert Review: Outstanding  

What Other Experts Say?

The Sony A80K has fantastic build quality. It has a premium design with metal feet and an all-black plastic body. It also has thin bezels that aren’t distracting while watching TV.

Rtings

8.6/10

Picture Quality

The Sony A80K OLED TV has a resolution of 3840 x 2160 (4K) and a refresh rate that can be changed up to 120 Hz. The Sony A80K screen is better than any smart TV in its price range. It supports HDR, Dolby Vision, and HLG images.

Let’s find out more in different scenes.

Picture Quality Factors

  1. Movies
  2. Sports & Shows
  3. HDR Picture

What Other Experts Say!

“The Sony A80k OLED tv has 4k resolution and a 120-hertz OLED panel that delivers a buttery smooth user experience with pitch-perfect blacks and super vibrant colors. This is easily one of the best smart tv.”

Tech Sign
8.5/10

Movies

If you want to buy a TV for a home theater, you should look for one with a high contrast ratio. The Sony A80K is perfect for watching movies in dark rooms. 

It has a high contrast ratio and no local dimming, so it can show deep blacks and is good for viewing in dark rooms. 

The Sony A80K has deep blacks that don’t fade in my testing, so it looks well in dark rooms. It also eliminates 24p judder from any source and has no issue upscaling movies with a lower resolution. 

Unfortunately, low-framerate content like movies stutters because of the TV’s quick response time.

Display Type: OLED  
Resolution: 4K 
Contrast & local dimming: near infinite contrast ratio ( Inf: 1) & no local dimming
Upscaling: 4k Upscaling  

8.5/10

HDR Picture

The Sony A80K is excellent for HDR because it works well in dark rooms and shows a wide range of colors, but the HDR brightness needs to be higher to make the most of HDR.

The Sony A80K provides up to approximately (785 nits of peak brightness) in its accurate modes (6500 Kelvin), such as ‘Custom,’ lower than competing OLED TVs, and nearly 1100 nits of peak brightness in the more bluish, less accurate picture modes. 

The Sony A80K TV supports the HDR10, HLG, and Dolby Vision formats but not HDR10+

In my experience, the Sony A80K has a good color gamut and better color volume due to its higher contrast ratio and peak brightness. 

HDR Type: HDR10, HLG, and Dolby Vision 
HDR Peak Brightness: 785 nits 
Native HDR Gradient: Incredible gradient handling (10 Bit) 
Color Gamut: excellent color gamut (72.69%) 
Color Volume: Decent color volume (32.1%)

9/10

Sports & Shows

The Sony A80K is great for watching TV shows and sports in well-lit rooms. It’s great at diffusing the glare of other lights because of its excellent reflection handling, but it doesn’t get very bright, so it’s not the best choice for spaces with a lot of natural light. 

According to my experience and testing, it has a near-instantaneous response time (0.2 ms) and wide viewing angle, so the image remains consistent from all sides, which is ideal for watching TV with the whole family. 

The Sony A80K has a decent HDR peak brightness (785 nits brightness level), but like in SDR, it’s not as bright as other TVs. It also has no issues upscaling content from cable boxes and offers a excellent, smart platform for streaming content.

Brightness:  785 nit brightness level
Response Time: 0.2 ms 
Reflections: Incredible reflection handling (  5.7%) 
Viewing Angles: Wide viewing Angle 
Gray uniformity: Excellent gray uniformity (0.563%) 


9/10

Sound Quality

The SonyA80K OLED Tv has built-in Acoustic Surface Audio+ speakers. This includes five actuators – three directly behind the screen and two on the sides – that vibrate the screen to produce full-range sound and two subwoofers for improved bass. 

Other audio features include Acoustic Audio Calibration, which lets you adjust the sound output of the TV to your viewing environment, Voice Zoom, which improves the clarity of dialogue, and 3D surround upscaling.

In our testing, The Sony A80K has good frequency response (80.00 Hz) and distortion handling. It works well at moderate listening levels but becomes more noticeable at maximum volume. 

Sony A80K Tv supports both Dolby and DTS audio formats via HDMI eARC passthrough (from a Blu-ray player etc.).

Sound Facts:

  • Power: Good (3.2 Channels) 
  • Frequency response:  80.00 Hz 
  • Sound modes (ALLM): Yes 
  • Dolby Vision: yes 
  • Distortion: decent level of distortion 
  • Expert Review: Best Tv 

What Other Experts Say?

“The A80K gets an optical audio output,  a mini plug analog input that doubles as a center speaker input, ethernet, rs232c, an  IR input, an antenna input with an ATSC 3.0  tuner for over-the-air 4k broadcasts.”

Abt Electronics

9/10

Gaming Performance

When it comes to gaming, the Sony A80K is an excellent choice. The A80K supports its strong next-generation gaming features, such as 4K/120Hz video input, variable refresh rate (VRR), and auto low latency mode (ALLM), with a low input lag of 12ms, which is an amazing result.

Most gamers would expect it to have features like HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports, HDMI Forum VRR, and G-SYNC, but it doesn’t support FreeSync, which is a downer if you have an older AMD graphics card in your PC.

It has a near-instantaneous response time for fluid motion and a low enough input lag to feel responsive. It’s also great for gaming in dark rooms because it shows deep blacks with no blooming.

This TV can play high-dynamic range (HDR) video games on modern gaming consoles or personal computers. Compatible with: Xbox One X|S, Xbox Series X|S, PS4 Pro, PS5, GTX 10 series, and later, and AMD RX series graphics cards.

Gaming Facts:

  • Refresh Rate: 120HZ 
  • Input Lag: Low (17.8 ms) 
  • HDMI Ports: 2 HDMI 2.1, 2 HDMI 2.0, 2 USB 
  • VRR: Yes 
  • Response time: near-instantaneous response time (0.2 ms) 
  • Compatibility with Consoles: Yes ( Xbox One X|S, Xbox Series X|S, PS4 Pro, PS5, GTX 10 ) 
  • Expert Review: Excellent 

What Other Experts Say?

“The Sony A80K is fantastic for HDR gaming. It has fantastic gaming performance, thanks to its fast response time, low input lag, HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, and VRR support.”

Rtings

8/10

Smart Features & Inputs

The Sony A80K has the same smart platform for Google TV as other Sony TVs. It’s easy to use, and navigating the menus is simple.

The Sony A80K OLEDs come with Google TV, which offers app browsing, and Google Assistant, which allows voice-based searches via the built-in microphone on the Sony remote control.

Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, Apple TV, and many other apps are all available, and the remote control has many buttons.

According to my experience, the Sony A80K has four HDMI inputs, two of which have HDMI 2.1 features like support for 4K at 120Hz, variable refresh rate (VRR), and auto low latency mode (ALLM).

Key Smart Features:

  • Operating system: Google Tv 
  • User interface: Average 
  • Streaming Apps: Great 
  • Voice Control: Yes 
  • HDMI: 4 ports 
  • USB ports: 2 
  • Bluetooth: yes 
  • WIFI: yes 
  • Ethernet:

What Other Experts Say?

 The Sony A80K has HDMI ports 3 and 4. HDMI port number 3 is also the eARC port, so what does that mean if you’re using an external sound device like a sound bar or an av receiver, you’re effectively losing.

Techno Dad

8.5/10

Value For Money

The Sony A80K is an excellent TV with perfect black uniformity and great features for gaming. But it isn’t very reassuring because it’s not as good as some other TVs in some ways, like the peak brightness.It’s less bright than the OLEDs that will be on the market in 2023, and if you want the best OLED for picture quality, there are other choices.


Unboxing & First Impression

After waiting for months, my new Sony A80K has finally arrived. I was curious about what was in the box. 

The box was easy to open, and the instructions for safely taking the TV out of the box were clear. When I removed the TV from the box for the first time, I was struck by its sleek design.

Check Out: Best TVs For Sports

In the box of the Sony A80K, there are the usual things:

  • Remote control
  • 2x AAA batteries
  • 4x VESA adapters
  • Power cable
  • User guides

The Sony A80K has a simple design with two legs and a thin bezel. All connectors, including HDMI, are on the side, so you can place the TV flat against the wall and still use the inputs. 

Two ports have a bandwidth of (48 Gbps) for 4K resolution, 120HZ refresh rate, and VRR, and the other two have a typical bandwidth of 2.0 GB/s for up to 4K60.

Jason Reynolds

I have been working in the electrical and Audio/Visual field for over 19 years. My focus for EagleTVMounting is to provide concise expertise in everything I write. The greatest joy in life is to provide people with insight information that can potentially change their viewpoints. Our #1 goal is just that!