Sony BRAVIA 9 K85XR90 85"

The brightest, most refined LCD TV money can buy just got a lot cheaper. At $2,000 for a refurb, it's a no-brainer for bright rooms—just budget for a soundbar and keep your fingers crossed on reliability.

We expected the brightness to be wild, and it is. What surprised us is how clean the upscaling is. The XR Processor takes grainy old cable feeds and makes them look almost native 4K. Gaming at 120Hz with VRR feels responsive, though not class-leading. The biggest shock? The built-in audio. Sony touts a 2.2.2-channel 70W system, but it sounds congested and thin compared to even a modest soundbar. You'll want to budget for external audio immediately.

The obvious rivals are the Samsung S95F QD-OLED and LG G5 OLED. Both those OLEDs deliver deeper blacks and better off-angle viewing, but they can't touch the BRAVIA 9's full-screen brightness in a sunny room. The Samsung QN900F 8K Neo QLED is the new overkill option if you want bragging rights, but 8K content is still a ghost town. The TCL QM7K and Hisense U7 are the value picks—they get impressively bright for a fraction of the price, but their processing and upscaling aren't in the same league. If you can control ambient light, an OLED is still more cinematic. If you're battling windows and want the best LCD picture ever, the Sony wins.

This 85-inch monster now starts at a much more reasonable $2,005 for a refurb, though some sellers still list it at an absurd $59,999. Obviously, the refurb route from a trusted store like Newegg is the only sane option if you want one. At the low end, it's aggressively competitive with flagship OLEDs, but at full retail, you're paying a massive Sony tax. For the money, you'd expect a flawless TV—and the speaker quality and occasional reliability reports are still hard to swallow, even with the price drop.

Sony's BRAVIA 9 is an absolute light cannon. If you've got a bright living room and you want a TV that laughs in the face of sunlight, this is it. The mini-LED backlight with XR Backlight Master Drive pumps out the kind of brightness that makes OLEDs look dim in comparison, while Sony's processing keeps colors looking natural and motion buttery smooth. It's the best LCD TV we've seen for picture quality, hands down. But don't let the premium badge fool you—there are a couple of gotchas that might make you think twice before dropping this much cash.

If you want a plug-and-play home theater with great built-in sound, or if reliability worries keep you up at night, skip this. Grab an LG G5 OLED with a clean panel lottery record and better audio, or save even more with a TCL QM7K that gets you close on brightness for way less cash.

The BRAVIA 9 is a masterpiece of mini-LED engineering that proves LCD isn't dead. It's tailor-made for bright rooms and cinephiles who hate the idea of burn-in. The recent price drop to around $2,000 for a refurb makes it a genuine steal, and owner sentiment has climbed sharply as more people snag it at sane prices. Just know that the experience is incomplete without a soundbar, and you're rolling the dice on long-term reliability. At the new low end, it's a hell of a TV that's finally priced to match its ambition.