During a demo reel test, color quality and contrast were not great. The fog on a white mountain was not clearly seen; the grass behind a fence should have seemed greener; The brown buffalo wandering around a field didn’t seem varied enough in color. To test contrast, I saw a scene with dark trees in the foreground, but they blended too much into the background.

Another component of color contrast is that dark colors should look deep and rich, but dark scenes in The Creator and Awake on Netflix they both seemed too boring. None of the picture modes helped, including the XR Contrast Booster. In Awake, the main character rides a bike at night and you can see his face but not the background or a guy in a blue shirt.

the movie Hoppers on Disney+ I was sold a little more on True RGB. (Though, to be fair, the vibrantly colored animated film looked great on my iPhone 17 Pro.) The Bravia 7 Mark II’s low-key backlighting and average contrast gave Hoppers a more artistic look. Ave Maria Project on the Fandango at Home app it looked similarly withdrawn, reminding me of the matte screen of an art TV.

To test the launch capabilities of the Bravia 7 Mark II, I streamed Dune II using the HBO Max app. It worked perfectly, unlike the Hisense UR9 Mini RGB, which had some glitches. On YouTube TV, I tried several news broadcasts (which looked flat and slightly washed out) and some World Cup 2026 games (which had smooth, fluid motion, with mostly vivid colors). A screen saver mode that displays still images and artwork seemed too dark and low-contrast, especially when I flipped through some oil paintings of shipwrecks.

To test the surround sound, I watched the movie. Intact because it’s my ultimate benchmark for Dolby Atmos. After connecting the Klipsch the Nines II speakers to the TV, sounds of planes, explosions, and voices emanated throughout the room. The same battle scene using the same speakers was not as immersive in terms of surround sound using the Hisense UR9 TV. However, the Hisense UR9’s built-in speakers are much better for surround sound than the Bravia 7 Mark II’s built-in speakers.

Let the games begin

Photography: John Brandon

Like the image quality of movies and TV shows, games on this model also lacked impressiveness. I started playing at the Vietnam level 007 First light on a computer. This spectacularly vivid segment, featuring James Bond steering a boat over sun-kissed waters and surrounded by rocky cliffs, was a mixed bag in terms of quality. In scenes where the sun was pouring down, the contrast was striking and clear, but when Bond drove into a darker area, the contrast suddenly seemed washed out. The 120Hz refresh rate was okay, but it wasn’t as vivid, responsive and clear as the Hisense UR9 Mini RGB.