Sony BRAVIA 8: what it ships with and what can come off

The BRAVIA 8 is Sony's OLED for 2024, and it has a peculiarity that almost no other television shares: the sound does not come out of speakers, it comes out of the screen. Actuators behind the panel make it vibrate, so the voice of whoever is talking sounds exactly where their face is. It is called Acoustic Surface Audio+ and it is the reason many people buy it.

Nothing on this page touches that. But there is something else on its spec sheet worth a look before the apps.

Four HDMI ports, two fast ones#

Sony says so itself in its specification sheet, with the figures in plain sight: HDMI IN1, IN2 for 4K signal up to 18 Gbps; HDMI IN3, IN4 for 4K up to 48 Gbps.

And further down, in case there was any doubt: the 120 Hz only runs over IN 3 and IN 4.

Which means: if you plug the console into the first port you come across, there is a fair chance you are playing at 60 Hz on a 120 Hz television. And since the soundbar's eARC also wants one of the good ones, there is a division to be made with some care.

ALLM, on the other hand, works on all four.

Five minutes spent on this pays off more than any app cleanup. Do it first.

What it is, in two lines#

A 2024 4K OLED with a 120 Hz native panel —Sony declares it that way, in those words, rather than giving a marketing number— governed by the XR Processor, with XR Triluminos Pro colour treatment and XR OLED Motion for motion.

It accepts Dolby Vision, IMAX Enhanced and DTS:X. It does not accept HDR10+: it does not appear once in its official specification sheet.

Inside it carries 32 GB of storage, which for a television is roomy. Sony does not publish the RAM anywhere.

Before you touch anything, if you own a PlayStation#

Like the rest of the range, this model ships with features that only switch on with a PS5 connected and that depend on the television and the console talking over HDMI, as well as on parts of the set's own system.

They are not an app you can list and remove, but they are a reason not to go disabling system packages blind here. Take apps off it —that is safe— and leave alone everything you cannot put a name to.

How to tell whether this page is about your set#

Sony reuses the BRAVIA name across many ranges and many years, and the shop reference changes from country to country. On top of that, there are differences by size within the series itself: the sound, for one, is not identical on all of them.

Under Settings → System → About you will find the model and the Android version. With ADB connected, getprop ro.product.model and getprop ro.build.version.release give the same thing without going through the menus.

If your set says it is a BRAVIA from another series, this page still works as a guide: the Google part is almost identical across the range, and what changes is the panel.

What ships on it#

Google's. The launcher (com.google.android.tvlauncher), the recommendation engine (com.google.android.tvrecommendations), voice search (com.google.android.katniss) and the services (com.google.android.gms). On a Sony this layer weighs proportionally more than on other brands, precisely because the manufacturer adds less.

Sony's. Less than you would expect: the house content apps and some setup helper. The exact names change between firmware versions, so list your own rather than trusting a list copied off the internet.

Everybody else's. Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and the rest arrive installed and, on many units, with a dedicated button on the remote. The button stays after you remove the app; it simply stops going anywhere.

What comes off without much thought#

The streaming apps you do not use. With 32 GB, space is not the problem, but the rest of it is: they update themselves, they appear in the recommendation row and they talk to their servers. If you subscribe to one of them tomorrow, it reinstalls from the store in two minutes.

The free content channels that fill the home screen are the second obvious case.

What to look at first#

The recommendation engine. Disabling it does leave a clean home screen, yes, but it also empties the "continue watching" row, which in a house with several people is missed more than you would think.

And before touching any package, go through the television's own privacy settings. On recent Sony sets there is a fair amount that can be reduced from there, with no ADB and no risk at all.

What not to touch#

Google Play services. They are the foundation of the store, of the accounts and of a good part of the apps. Without them the set boots and little else.

The launcher, as long as you have no other one installed and working. A television with no launcher comes on to a black screen, and fixing that with the remote alone is a great deal harder than having thought about it beforehand.

Anything starting with com.android. that you cannot identify: com.android.systemui is the system interface and com.android.settings is the settings app itself.

And here, with all the more reason: anything to do with HDMI, with the video input or with the control of external devices. The console business, the eARC and the 120 Hz on the good ports all pass through there.

What you actually notice#

Because Sony ships fewer additions than other brands, what you gain is more modest than on a television loaded with manufacturer apps: the home screen stops proposing series from services you do not have, the content notifications disappear, and the set answers the remote slightly sooner in the first seconds after switching on.

What does not change: the OLED panel, the XR processing, the 120 Hz or the sound that comes out of the screen. All of that lives below the apps, and it is exactly what you paid for.

Where it sits in the range#

Below sit the Mini LEDs, like the BRAVIA 5, with more full-screen brightness but without an OLED's black. Above, the models with a QD-OLED panel. They all share the same Google TV, so what this page says holds for the entire range with very few changes: what separates them is the panel and the processor, not the software.

All of this comes undone#

Nothing explained here is permanent. Packages disabled over ADB come back with one command, and a factory reset returns the television to exactly the state it left the box in.

Nothing here touches the system: you are only telling the set not to load something that was already installed.

If you own one#

The app list from your own BRAVIA 8, exactly as the set reports it, is the one thing missing to close its entry in the directory. And if you tell us which size you have, better still: in this series they do not all share the same sheet.