Pros
- Outstanding picture quality
- Impressive multi-channel Dolby Atmos sound system
- Extensive gaming support
Cons
- Minor colour banding with HDR
- It’s expensive by current TV standards
- But only two HDMIs deliver the full range of gaming features
The Panasonic Z95A is arguably its most important TV in a decade, and according to our reviewer, it turns out to be a brilliant TV.
It’s the first TV that Panasonic has sold in America since leaving the market several years ago, priced at $3199 / £3899 for the 65-inch screen. The 55-inch screen that’s also on this best list isn’t available in the United States.
The build quality is strong and impressive, with the central pedestal able to swivel if you want to position the TV away from any distracting lights in the room.
Panasonic’s My Home Screen interface is no longer support, with a move made to Amazon’s Fire TV. There’s a alrger amount of apps to access, and the smart features are improved with hands-free Alexa, Ring support, Apple Home and AirPlay support all included.
Freeview Play has been replaced by Freely, and like with the rest of its OLEDs, Panasonic has upped its performance in the gaming area with wide-ranging features that includes support for VRR (AMD and Nvidia), ALLM, and refresh rates up to 4K/144Hz. Input lag is 13ms, which puts it on par with its chief rivals.
When it comes to picture quality, the Z95A also comes with LG Display’s Micro Lens Array panel, with Panasonic adding its own customisations to tweak the screen. Our reviewer measured the peak brightness at 1700 nits on a 10% window, which is a huge number for an OLED and only bettered by a couple TVs on the market.
It’s a beautifully nuanced and accurate looking image, delivering a stunning level of precision, balance and insight. With support for HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ Adaptive and Dolby Vision IQ, the Z95A can deliver this level of picture performance with any HDR source. Motion is handled very well, but unlike our review for the 55-inch model, we did notice some banding with the 65-inch screen size.
The sound system carries both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X support, and we found it to be a powerful, big, and dynamic presentation. It’s an improvement on Panasonic’s previous flagship OLEDs, and will save you the cost of having to adding an external soundbar to this TV.
Reviewer: John Archer
Full Review: Panasonic Z95A
