Sony Unveils 2026 TVs With 115-Inch True RGB Mini LED Flagship

Q: Is 4000-nit brightness a home cinema revolution or just an uncomfortable gimmick for most viewers?

For most viewers, 4,000-nit brightness is more useful as a capability than as something they will want to experience full-force all the time. Sony’s new True RGB Mini LED sets show why the number matters. The Bravia 9 II can hit about 4,250 nits on a 10% HDR window, bringing consumer TVs closer to the 4,000-nit mastering monitors used for some premium HDR content. That helps preserve bright highlight detail, improve color volume, and keep images punchy in sunlit rooms. It also gives Mini LED a real advantage over OLED in peak brightness and burn-in resistance. But home cinema is not a showroom. In dark-room movie watching, sustained extreme brightness can be tiring, and most films do not need the screen blasting at anything close to 4,000 nits across large areas. Even Sony’s set manages about 910 nits full-screen, which shows the practical reality: these headline figures are for small HDR highlights, not the whole image. In accurate cinema modes, TVs also tend to tone brightness down to preserve natural color and comfort. That is why 4,000 nits is not a gimmick, but neither is it a universal revolution. Its value is in better HDR headroom, more realistic specular highlights, and stronger daytime performance, not in making every scene painfully bright. For enthusiasts, gamers, and bright-room viewers, it is a meaningful upgrade. For typical evening movie watching, contrast, black levels, tone mapping, and color accuracy still matter more than the raw nit number.

3 articles · Updated · What Hi-Fi? · Jul 16

Sony’s 2026 Bravia lineup debuts its first True RGB Mini LED sets—the Bravia 9 II and 7 II—while pushing screen sizes up to 115 inches on the flagship model.
The new backlight replaces conventional white or blue Mini LEDs with independently controlled red, green and blue LEDs, which Sony says improves color accuracy and boosts brightness; the Bravia 9 II claims 2x the color volume of its predecessor.
Pricing runs from $400 for the entry Bravia 2 II to $31,000 for the 115-inch Bravia 9 II, with the Bravia 7 II spanning $1,600 to $9,000 and the Bravia 3 II adding a 100-inch option.
Sony also refreshed the wider platform with a USB-C rechargeable backlit remote, My Cinema settings, wireless Direct Connect for compatible speakers, and Google TV, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and Wi‑Fi 6 across much of the range.
A notable quirk remains: the lower-end Bravia 3 II gets four HDMI 2.1 ports, while the premium Bravia 9 II and 7 II still offer only two, underscoring Sony’s focus on picture technology over gaming connectivity.