A detailed comparison between Sony’s Bravia 3 II and Hisense’s U6SF Pro reveals that display hardware, particularly Mini-LED backlighting, gives the Hisense model a significant advantage in brightness and contrast, despite Sony’s feature-rich offering.
Tom’s Guide’s comparison between Sony’s Bravia 3 II and Hisense’s U6SF Pro puts two of 2026’s most appealing affordable televisions against one another, and the outcome is less about brand prestige than display hardware. The Sony is the more fully equipped set on paper, with four HDMI 2.1 ports, Google TV and a wider range of sizes, including compact 43-inch and 50-inch models. But the Hisense arrives with Mini-LED backlighting, which gives it a major advantage in brightness and contrast, especially for daytime viewing and HDR content.
That difference in panel technology shapes the rest of the verdict. According to Tom’s Guide’s testing, the U6SF Pro delivered far higher HDR brightness than the Bravia 3 II, while also posting slightly stronger colour performance and lower input lag. The Sony was more restrained but still respectable, with picture processing that handled upscaling and motion more cleanly than most entry-level televisions. In practice, though, Tom’s Guide found that the Hisense’s superior luminance made the image look more vivid and less flat in real-world use.
Gaming support is another area where the two sets split their appeal. The Bravia 3 II’s four HDMI 2.1 inputs are unusual at this price and all support 4K at 120Hz, making it particularly attractive to households with several consoles. The U6SF Pro supports 4K at 144Hz on two of its ports, which gives it an edge for PC gaming, but its lower count of high-bandwidth inputs makes it less flexible overall. Both models support VRR, ALLM and IMAX Enhanced mode, so each covers the key modern gaming and compatibility features.
The smart-TV experience also reflects each brand’s wider platform strategy. Sony uses Google TV, which Tom’s Guide described as the more polished and practical interface, with broad app support and easier day-to-day use. Hisense fits the U6SF Pro with Fire TV, which remains tied closely to Amazon’s ecosystem and can feel slower and less elegant, even if it suits households already invested in Alexa-enabled devices. In other words, Sony has the better software package, but Hisense has the stronger display.
Tom’s Guide ultimately gave the edge to the Hisense U6SF Pro, and that judgement is consistent with broader industry recognition: the same site named it Best Budget TV in its 2026 awards, while RTINGS also places it in the value-focused Mini-LED category. Sony’s Bravia 3 II still stands out as a notably capable direct-lit set, particularly for buyers who want four HDMI 2.1 ports and a smaller screen size. But at current prices cited by Tom’s Guide, the 65-inch U6SF Pro at $699 undercuts the 65-inch Bravia 3 II at $899, and the cheaper set is also the one with the more convincing picture.
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