After a few years of not releasing TVs in the US, Panasonic made the decision to release three models in 2024. This includes the Mini-LED Panasonic W95A, the MLA OLED Panasonic Z95A OLED, and this TV, the Panasonic Z85A OLED. Unlike the flagship MLA OLED, this model uses a standard WOLED panel, so it's a direct competitor to TVs like the LG C4 OLED and the Sony BRAVIA 8 OLED.
The TV is loaded with modern features like HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on two ports, 4k @ 120Hz, and support for all VRR technologies. It also supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+, but it doesn't passthrough DTS audio formats. The TV uses Panasonic's HCX Pro AI Processor MK II, which can analyze the content you're watching to adjust colors, clarity, contrast, and sound automatically. It runs the Fire TV OS, has support for Alexa and AirPlay, and the TV has a built-in 50W 2.1 channel speaker system. We bought and tested the 65-inch model, but it's also available in a 55-inch option.
Our Verdict
The Panasonic Z85A is excellent for mixed usage. It has modern gaming features that make it a great option to pair with the Xbox Series X and PS5. The TV looks spectacular in a dark room thanks to its perfect black levels, and it displays a wide range of colors and has the HDR brightness needed for an impactful HDR experience. It’s a great option for watching TV with a group thanks to its wide viewing angle, and fast motion in games or sports is crystal clear. The TV overcomes glare in moderately lit rooms, but unfortunately, it’s just not bright enough to eliminate reflections on the screen in a bright room.
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Perfect blacks with no blooming around bright highlights.
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Nearly instantaneous response time for crystal clear motion.
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Incredibly wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
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Not bright enough to overcome glare in a well-lit room.
The Panasonic Z85A is great for watching TV shows. The built-in Fire TV OS is loaded with popular streaming apps, so finding new shows to watch is easy. The TV has outstanding reflection handling and decent SDR brightness, so it’s useable in a room with a few lights on, but it’s not bright enough to overcome glare in bright rooms. If you watch low-quality streams, it does a good job cleaning up artifacts, and if you watch low-resolution content on DVDs, it does a fantastic job upscaling. It’s a great option for watching shows with friends due to its wide viewing angle, as the image remains consistent when viewed from the sides.
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Nearly instantaneous response time for crystal clear motion.
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Incredibly wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
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Fantastic upscaling capabilities.
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Not bright enough to overcome glare in a well-lit room.
The Panasonic Z85A is excellent for watching sports. Fast-moving players and objects are crystal clear thanks to the TV’s nearly instantaneous response time. Its wide viewing angle means the image doesn’t degrade when viewed from the sides of the screen, so it’s a fantastic choice for watching the big game with a group of friends. It has excellent uniformity, so you aren't distracted by the dirty screen effect when watching certain sports, like hockey. The TV has outstanding reflection handling and decent SDR brightness, so it overcomes glare in moderately lit rooms, but it’s not bright enough to fight glare in very bright rooms.
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Excellent gray uniformity with no noticeable dirty screen effect.
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Nearly instantaneous response time for crystal clear motion.
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Incredibly wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
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Fantastic upscaling capabilities.
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Not bright enough to overcome glare in a well-lit room.
The Panasonic Z85A is fantastic for playing video games. It has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, 4k @ 120Hz, and VRR, so it’s fully compatible with the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Fast motion is crystal clear thanks to its nearly instantaneous response time, and there’s no noticeable delay between your controller inputs and what happens on screen thanks to its incredibly low input lag. Enabling Game Mode has no impact on image quality, so you get the best picture while getting the best performance while gaming. You can keep some lights on while you game and aren’t distracted by glare thanks to its outstanding reflection handling and decent SDR brightness, but it’s not quite bright enough to overcome glare in very bright rooms.
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Nearly instantaneous response time for crystal clear motion.
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HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, 4k @ 120Hz, and VRR support.
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Incredibly low input lag for a very responsive experience.
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Not bright enough to overcome glare in a well-lit room.
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HDMI 2.1 bandwidth is limited to two ports, one of which is also the eARC port.
The Panasonic Z85A is fantastic for watching movies in a dark room. It removes 24p judder from any source, so you get a judder-free experience regardless of source. You don’t need to get the TV calibrated if you care about an accurate image since its pre-calibration SDR accuracy is exceptional. It also displays a wide range of colors, so colors in HDR content are vibrant and lifelike. The TV looks fantastic in a dark room, with deep and inky blacks, thanks to its perfect contrast. Its HDR brightness is good, so highlights stand out in HDR movies, but it does struggle with displaying very bright highlights in some movies. Finally, the TV has fantastic upscaling capabilities and good low-quality content smoothing, so low resolution and low bitrate content still looks good.
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Perfect blacks with no blooming around bright highlights.
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Removes 24p judder from any source.
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Displays a wide range of vibrant and lifelike colors.
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Dolby Vision support.
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Aggressive ABL in HDR can be distracting with large areas of brightness.
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Lacks DTS audio support.
The Panasonic Z85A is outstanding for playing games in HDR. It has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth for up to 4k @ 120Hz with VRR, so it’s fully compatible with modern consoles. The TV’s nearly instantaneous response time means fast motion has no noticeable blur behind it, and you get a very responsive gaming experience due to its incredibly low input lag. Blacks are deep and inky thanks to the TV’s nearly infinite contrast ratio, and switching to Game Mode has almost no impact on HDR brightness, so you simultaneously get an amazing HDR experience and the best possible performance.
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Perfect blacks with no blooming around bright highlights.
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Nearly instantaneous response time for crystal clear motion.
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Displays a wide range of vibrant and lifelike colors.
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HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, 4k @ 120Hz, and VRR support.
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Incredibly low input lag for a very responsive experience.
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Aggressive ABL in HDR can be distracting with large areas of brightness.
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HDMI 2.1 bandwidth is limited to two ports, one of which is also the eARC port.
The Panasonic Z85A is superb for use as a PC monitor. Its nearly instantaneous response time means there's no noticeable blur behind quick cursor movements, and its exceptionally low input lag delivers a very responsive desktop experience. The sides of the screen remain consistent with the center when you sit close to the screen, thanks to its wide viewing angle. It has outstanding reflection handling and decent enough SDR brightness to overcome glare in a moderately lit room, but it’s not bright enough to avoid reflections in brighter environments. The TV properly displays chroma 4:4:4 from a PC, which is essential for clear text. Unfortunately, due to its RWBG subpixel layout, there are still minor clarity issues with text.
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Excellent gray uniformity with no noticeable dirty screen effect.
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Nearly instantaneous response time for crystal clear motion.
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Incredibly wide viewing angle for a consistent image from the sides.
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Incredibly low input lag for a very responsive experience.
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Risk of permanent burn-in.
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Text clarity issues due to the TV's RWBG subpixel layout.
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Not bright enough to overcome glare in a well-lit room.
- 8.8 Mixed Usage
- 8.3 TV Shows
- 8.6 Sports
- 9.3 Video Games
- 9.0 HDR Movies
- 9.0 HDR Gaming
- 9.2 PC Monitor
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Updated Oct 29, 2024:
We updated one of the pictures in the Input Photos section of this review.
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Updated Oct 25, 2024:
Mentioned the newly-reviewed Panasonic W95A in the SDR Brightness section of this review.
- Updated Oct 16, 2024: Review published.
- Updated Oct 11, 2024: Early access published.
- Updated Oct 02, 2024: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Sep 30, 2024: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Sep 10, 2024: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the 65-inch Panasonic Z85A (65Z85AP), and these results are also valid for the 55-inch model (55Z85AP). There are no known variants of the TV, so our results should be valid for all regions, but the inputs vary depending on regional requirements for tuners.
| Size | Model Code |
| 55" | TV-55Z85AP |
| 65" | TV-65Z85AP |
Our unit was manufactured in July 2024, as seen on our product's label.
Compared To Other TVs
The Panasonic Z85A is an excellent TV overall, but it doesn’t outperform similar OLED models from other brands. It competes most with a TV like the LG C4 OLED, but the C4 is the better TV overall and is available in a much wider range of sizes. The Panasonic delivers very similar picture quality as the cheaper LG B4 OLED, but the B4 is slightly better overall, making the Panasonic a hard TV to recommend over LG's OLED offerings.
For more options, check out our recommendations for the best OLED TVs, the best gaming TVs, and the best TVs for watching movies.
The LG C4 OLED is better than the Panasonic Z85A OLED in some ways. The LG is the brighter TV overall and has better reflection handling, so it overcomes more glare in a bright room and delivers a more impactful HDR experience. The LG also does a better job smoothing out artifacts in low bitrate content, and it supports 144Hz, which is great for PC gamers. On the other hand, the Panasonic has slightly better upscaling capabilities.
The Samsung S90D/S90DD OLED (QD-OLED) is better than the Panasonic Z85A OLED in most ways. The Samsung is brighter in HDR and displays a wider range of colors with almost no banding in color gradients, so it delivers a more impactful HDR experience. The Samsung also supports 144Hz, which is great for PC gamers, and it performs better in a bright room thanks to its better reflection handling and SDR brightness. On the other hand, Panasonic has better overall image processing.
The LG B4 OLED and the Panasonic Z85A OLED are evenly matched, but there are some minor differences. The LG is brighter in SDR, so it handles more glare in a room with the lights on. The LG also has a bit less banding in color gradients and does a slightly better job cleaning up artifacts in low bitrate content. However, the Panasonic has slightly better upscaling capabilities.
The Panasonic Z85A OLED and the Panasonic Z95A OLED are very similar overall, but the Z95 is a good step up. The Z95 is considerably brighter in HDR. While this difference isn't noticeable with the majority of HDR content, bright scenes, and small specular highlights are considerably brighter on the Z95. The Z95A also offers a higher 144Hz refresh rate for gamers. While this doesn't currently matter for console gamers, it's a definite advantage for PC gamers.
The Panasonic Z85A OLED and the Sony BRAVIA 8 OLED are very similar overall, with only some minor differences. The Sony is brighter in SDR and has the edge with reflection handling, so it’s better suited for use in a bright room. The Sony also has better low-quality content smoothing, so it removes more artifacts from low-bitrate content, and it has a bit less banding in color gradients. However, the Panasonic gets a bit brighter overall in HDR, so it makes some highlights stand out a bit more in HDR content. The Panasonic is also the more accurate TV overall and has a slight edge when it comes to upscaling.
Video
Test Results
The Panasonic Z85A has a premium design that looks fantastic in any room. Its thin bezels give the TV a sleek look when viewed from the front.
The stand is made of metal and is surrounded by a plastic enclosure. It holds the TV well and lifts the screen about three inches above the table, so most soundbars fit underneath without blocking the screen.
Footprint of the 65-inch stand: 15.7" x 11.8"
The back section that houses the inputs is quite thick and made of plastic. When facing the front, the inputs are located on the left side of the TV, but they're easily accessible even when the TV is wall-mounted. There are clips on the back to help with cable management.
The Panasonic Z85A has outstanding build quality. With the exception of the back section that houses the inputs, the TV is made entirely of aluminum, which gives it a premium feel. There's some minor flexing near the VESA mounting points, but this is typical and doesn't cause any issues. There are no issues with build quality, but the TV emits a slight buzzing noise.
The Panasonic Z85A has remarkable contrast and a nearly infinite contrast ratio. Due to OLED's self-lit pixels, the TV displays bright highlights next to perfect inky blacks, making it very impressive in a dark room.
Since OLEDs don't use local dimming and instead have individual pixels that can be lit up to their maximum brightness next to pixels that are turned off, there's no blooming when bright elements are surrounded by deep blacks.
The TV is an OLED and has no backlight, so its self-lit pixels give it the same performance as a TV with perfect local dimming and no zone transitions. We still film the zone transition video on the TV, so you can see how it compares to a TV with local dimming.
There's no difference in dark scene behavior between the calibrated picture modes and when the TV is set in Game Mode.
The Panasonic Z85A has good HDR brightness, making highlights stand out during darker scenes. Combined with its remarkable contrast, this TV provides an impactful HDR viewing experience. Unfortunately, due to its aggressive Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL), large bright scenes are significantly dimmer than smaller, specular highlights.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: Professional 1
- Ambient Sensor: Off
- Luminance Level: 100
- Contrast: 100
- Peak Luminance: High
- Gamma: 2.2
- EOTF Type: Auto
- HDR Tone Map: Normal
- Color Temperature: Warm 2
There's no noticeable difference with HDR brightness when the TV is set into Game Mode.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: True Game
- Ambient Sensor: Off
- Luminance Level: 100
- Contrast: 100
- Peak Luminance: High
- Gamma: 2.2
- EOTF Type: Auto
- HDR Tone Map: Clipping
- Clipping Threshold: 2000
- Color Temperature: Warm 2
The TV has exceptional PQ EOTF tracking. It follows the curve almost perfectly until it approaches the TV's maximum brightness. With content mastered at 600 or 1000 nits, there is a gradual roll-off near the TV's peak brightness to maintain some detail in bright highlights. With content mastered at 4000 nits, the roll-off happens much sooner to preserve detail in very bright highlights.
The Panasonic Z85A has decent SDR brightness and overcomes glare in a moderately lit room. Unfortunately, it's not bright enough to overcome glare in a well-lit room.
These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:
- Picture Mode: Professional 1
- Ambient Sensor: Off
- Luminance Level: 100
- Contrast: 90
- Peak Luminance: High
- Gamma: 2.2
- Color Temperature: Warm 2
If you'd like a Panasonic model with better SDR brightness, take a look at the Panasonic W95A.
The TV has an excellent color gamut. It covers nearly the entire range of colors in the DCI-P3 color space, but most colors are a bit undersaturated and off the mark. Its coverage of the Rec.2020 color space used mostly in some nature documentaries and animated films is good, but all colors are undersaturated and inaccurate, with greens and cyans faring the worst.
The TV has very good color volume. It displays dark, saturated colors very well, and its ability to display bright whites is outstanding. Unfortunately, as with all WOLED panels, bright colors are a bit washed out, as the TV relies on the bright white subpixel to achieve the brightest highlights, which dilutes color purity.
This color washout is very noticeable in the SDR gamut rings in the CIELAB color space. The ring at the highest lightness level shows a very large decrease in coverage. These gamut ring results are an early sneak preview of something we're working on for our next test methodology update. Stay tuned for more!
DCI-P3:
BT.2020
The TV has remarkable pre-calibration SDR accuracy. Its white balance and color accuracy are nearly perfect, with very minor errors that aren't visible with real content. Its color temperature is a bit warmer than the target of 6500K, but it's barely noticeable. Gamma is close to 2.2, but some bright scenes are a bit too bright.
The TV has exceptional accuracy after calibration. Any minor errors in white balance, color temperature, and gamma are gone, and colors are even more accurate than before.
See our full calibration settings.
The Panasonic Z85A has excellent gray uniformity. If you look closely, there are some very faint vertical lines on the panel, but these aren't noticeable from a normal viewing distance.
Because OLEDs can turn off individual pixels, the TV has incredible black uniformity with no blooming or halo effect around bright objects.
The TV has an incredibly wide viewing angle that remains mostly consistent from almost any angle, but there is some color shifting and a very slight green tint at more aggressive angles. Still, it's a fantastic choice for watching TV in a group setting.
The TV has incredible reflection handling. Its glossy screen finish significantly reduces the intensity of indirect reflections, like when you have glare from a ceiling light that isn't directly facing the screen. It also does an excellent job of reducing the intensity of direct reflections, like a lamp positioned in front of the screen.
The TV has good HDR native gradient handling. There's some noticeable banding in grays and bright greens, but all other colors have minimal banding or no banding at all.
The Panasonic Z85A has good low-quality content smoothing. It does an excellent job at preserving details, but it's only decent at actually smoothing out the image, so there is still some noticeable macro-blocking in dark scenes.
The TV does an outstanding job with upscaling low-resolution content like DVDs, standard definition cable channels, and lower-resolution streams. Details are well-defined and clear enough, but very fine details and small hard-coded text are a bit hard to make out.
Sharpness processing was calibrated with no over-sharpening for low-resolution content with the following settings:
- Sharpness: 30
- Resolution Remaster: Max
The TV uses a WOLED panel with a RWBG pixel structure where all four pixels are never lit at the same time. Due to its subpixel layout, it has minor issues with displaying text on Windows since ClearType isn't well optimized to non-RGB subpixel layouts, but most users won't be bothered by this.
The white subpixel does an excellent job helping the TV display bright whites, but it dilutes the color purity of greens and reds, as seen on the TV's spectral power distribution (SPD).
The Panasonic Z85A has a nearly instantaneous response time, resulting in incredibly clear motion with almost no blur behind fast-moving objects. Due to the sample-and-hold nature of OLED technology, there's still some persistence blur when gaming at 60Hz, but it's not noticeable at higher refresh rates.
This TV doesn't have a traditional backlight and doesn't use pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim each pixel, but it's not completely flicker-free. There's a slight dip in brightness that corresponds to the TV's refresh rate. This differs from the PWM flicker on TVs with LED backlights and occurs on every OLED we've tested. It's not noticeable, and most people won't be bothered by this, but it can still bother people who are extra sensitive to flicker.
It does exhibit flicker-like behavior in low-luminance sections of the screen that resembles pulse amplitude modulation (PAM). This means that bright sections of the screen are flicker-free, but darker sections have very minor flicker present. Fortunately, this isn't noticeable with real content.
The Panasonic Z85A has an optional black frame insertion (BFI) feature that reduces the appearance of persistence blur caused by the TV's nearly instantaneous response time. However, it can only insert black frames at a 60Hz refresh rate, and it doesn't work very well, so the image is blurry, and there's some ghosting present.
This TV has an optional motion interpolation feature to improve the clarity of motion. It does a good job at smoothing out slower scenes, with only some minor artifacts present. In faster-moving scenes, it can't keep up, and there are distracting artifacts, image duplication, and haloing.
Unfortunately, due to the TV's nearly instantaneous pixel response time, there's stutter with low frame rate content, which is most noticeable during slow panning shots.
The Panasonic Z85 TV automatically removes judder from 24Hz sources and the internal apps. To remove judder from 60p and 60i sources, like a cable box, you must enable the Accurate IFC setting. Unfortunately, movies and TV shows aren't judder-free when BFI is enabled because the BFI feature only flickers at 60Hz.
The Panasonic Z85 supports FreeSync, HDMI Forum VRR, and G-SYNC, ensuring a nearly tear-free gaming experience from any VRR-enabled source. It works well across a wide refresh rate range and supports sources with Low-Frame-Compensation (LFC), which ensures your games remain nearly tear-free even when your frame rate drops very low.
This TV has incredibly low input lag when set into True Game, which ensures a very responsive gaming experience with very little delay between your actions with your controller or mouse and the action on-screen.
The Panasonic Z85 supports all common resolutions up to 4k @ 120Hz on two of its four HDMI ports. Chroma 4:4:4 signals are displayed properly with most supported resolutions when the TV's 'HDMI Setting' is set to Pure Direct, which is important for text clarity. Unfortunately, the TV doesn't support 1440p @ 120Hz with chroma 4:4:4.
The Panasonic Z85 is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, like 1440p @ 120Hz and 4k @ 120Hz, as well as HDMI Forum VRR. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.
The Panasonic Z85 is fully compatible with everything the Xbox Series X|S offers, including 1440p @ 120Hz, 4k @ 120Hz, HDMI Forum VRR, FreeSync Premium Pro, and Dolby Vision gaming. It also supports Auto Low Latency Mode, so you don't have to worry about switching to Game Mode to get the lowest input lag.
The Panasonic Z85A has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth on HDMI ports 1 and 2, with both supporting up to 4k @ 120Hz. Unfortunately, the HDMI 2 port is also the eARC port, so you lose a high bandwidth port when you plug a soundbar into the TV. The TV supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+, but it only has an ATSC 1.0 tuner, so you can't watch 4k content over the air.
The TV supports eARC, which lets you pass high-quality, uncompressed audio to a compatible receiver or soundbar through an HDMI cable. Unfortunately, it doesn't support DTS audio formats commonly used on Blu-rays.
The Panasonic Z85 has a mediocre frequency response. Like most TVs, it barely produces any bass, but the speakers do get quite loud. The sound is well-balanced at moderate volume levels, making dialogue easy to understand. Unfortunately, the sound becomes unbalanced near and at maximum volume.
The TV's distortion handling is decent. There's no audible distortion at moderate listening levels, but there's audible distortion near and at max volume.
The TV runs the Fire TV OS, which is smooth and easy to use. Unfortunately, a bug prevents certain settings, like motion interpolation, from working despite being turned on. To fix this, you must enter the 'Home' menu and then return to the input or internal app you're using.
Unfortunately, like almost all TVs on the market, the smart interface contains ads, and you can't disable them.
The TV has a great selection of apps, so it's easy to find your favorite content. You can also cast content from your phone or play videos from a USB stick.
The remote is almost identical to the ones included with other TVs that use the Fire TV OS, with quick access buttons for the most popular streaming services. You can use the built-in microphone to switch inputs, change apps, search within apps, and ask for the weather and time. Unfortunately, you can't use voice commands to change settings.
