Panasonic Z8BA OLED  TV Review

The Panasonic Z8BA has decent peak brightness in HDR. It does a good job bringing out small, bright, specular highlights. It struggles a bit when more of the scene gets bright, though, so bright outdoor shots aren't nearly as impactful as they should be.

Setting Dynamic Tone Mapping to 'Dynamic' does very little to increase the peak brightness of most content. The HDR Tone Map setting has a more significant impact on peak brightness. Setting it to 'Clipping {2000}' results in higher peak brightness, but it's less accurate.

• Hallway Lights: 776 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 477 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 178 cd/m²

The peak brightness is a bit higher in True Game mode, but mainly due to a difference in the best settings for each mode. Switching to True Game changes the HDR Tone Map setting to 'Clipping {2000}' by default, which offers higher peak brightness but worse accuracy in some scenes.

Setting Dynamic Tone Mapping to 'Dynamic' does very little to increase the peak brightness of most content.

• Hallway Lights: 740 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 504 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 184 cd/m²

The Panasonic Z8BA has mediocre peak brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to overcome glare in a moderately lit room, but struggles against very bright ambient light. It's especially dim when more of the screen is bright at once, like most sports.

The TV has a nearly infinite contrast ratio, giving it perfect contrast. Due to OLED's self-lit pixels, it displays bright highlights next to perfect inky blacks, making it very impressive in a dark room.

Since OLEDs don't use lighting zones and instead have individual pixels that can be lit up to their maximum brightness next to pixels that are turned off, there's no haloing when bright elements are surrounded by deep blacks.

This TV is an OLED without a 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 next to an option with local dimming.

There's no difference in dark scene behavior when the TV is set in True Game.

Because OLEDs can turn off individual pixels, the TV has perfect black uniformity with no haloing around bright objects.

The Panasonic Z8BA OLED delivers great color volume in SDR. It displays most of the DCI-P3 color space used by most content, but struggles a bit with the lightest content. Coverage of the wider BT.2020 color space is just okay, though, and it struggles to display the full range of greens and reds in lighter scenes.

This TV has very good HDR color volume. Thanks to its nearly infinite contrast ratio, shadow details are displayed incredibly well. It struggles in brighter scenes, though, where it relies more on the white subpixel to boost peak brightness, so colors are a bit washed out.

The Panasonic Z8BA has fantastic accuracy, even before calibrating it. Colors, white balance, and gamma are nearly perfect, with no noticeable issues at all. The color temperature is slightly cool, but it's not noticeable.

After calibrating it, this TV delivers nearly perfect color accuracy in SDR. The white balance and color dE are both incredibly low with no noticeable issues at all, and the color temperature is close to perfect.

It's easy to calibrate, but it's not worth calibrating for most people, as it's already close to perfect out of the box. If you do want to calibrate it, it's compatible with CalMAN AutoCal, and it supports a 3D LUT.

See our full calibration settings.

The Panasonic Z8BA OLED has great accuracy in HDR out of the box. Colors are very accurate, with just a few issues with saturated blues. There are some luminance mapping errors with shadow details, but it's not too bad. The overall color temperature is a bit cool.

The TV has fantastic accuracy in HDR after calibration. It's not a huge difference over the pre-calibration settings, but the white balance is a bit better overall and the luminance errors in shadow details aren't as bad, but still there.

The Panasonic Z8BA has superb PQ EOTF tracking. Most content is displayed very close to the brightness level intended by the content creator. Content mastered at 600 and 1,000 nits is displayed perfectly, with a sharp cutoff at the TV's peak brightness and no unnecessary tone mapping. Content mastered at 4,000 nits has a more gradual rolloff near the TV's peak brightness. This preserves fine details better, but limits how bright highlights can get.

This TV has good low-quality content smoothing. There's still some noticeable banding and macro-blocking when watching most streaming services, especially in dark scenes, but it preserves fine details well.

The Panasonic Z8BA OLED has fantastic upscaling. Low-resolution content is upscaled well, and the image is sharp overall.

The TV has good gradient handling in HDR. It displays midtones and bright scenes well, with very little banding. It struggles a bit in low-light scenes, with more noticeable banding and posterization, and it's worse with content mastered in HDR10 than in Dolby Vision. This also causes a very noticeable, significant shimmering effect in low APL scenes.

• The Green Knight Dolby Vision 1
• The Green Knight HDR 1
• The Green Knight Dolby Vision 2
• The Green Knight HDR 2

It doesn't have the diagonal dithering issue that impacts other 2025 OLED models like the Panasonic Z95B OLED or LG G5 OLED, though.

The TV has incredibly low input lag when using the True Game picture mode.

The TV supports all common resolutions up to 4k @ 144Hz on HDMI ports 1 and 2. Ports 3 and 4 are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth and don't support 4k @ 144Hz. It supports chroma 4:4:4 for clear text from a PC.

The TV supports FreeSync, HDMI Forum VRR, and is G-SYNC compatible, ensuring a nearly tear-free gaming experience from any VRR-enabled source. It works well across the TV's entire refresh rate range and supports sources with Low Framerate Compensation (LFC), which ensures your games remain nearly tear-free even when your frame rate drops very low.

The TV's CAD at its maximum refresh rate of 144Hz is exceptional. Pixels transition to their target RGB level almost instantly across the board, so fast motion is very sharp.

The TV's CAD at 120Hz is outstanding. It displays fast-moving objects without noticeable blur no matter what game you're playing, so fast motion is very clear.

The TV's CAD at 60Hz is fantastic. You get clear motion since transitions from one RGB level to another are nearly instantaneous, but there's still the typical persistence blur at 60Hz.

This TV 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 manually switching to True Game to get the lowest input lag.

This TV 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 manually switching to True Game to get the lowest input lag.

Unfortunately, due to the nearly instantaneous response time on this TV, there's significant stutter in shows and movies. It's especially noticeable in slow panning shots.

The motion interpolation feature on this TV does a good job reducing stutter in slow panning shots. It significantly reduces the frame hold time of each frame when interpolation 24p content up to 30p. The feature is extremely consistent as well, ensuring even frame pacing.

This TV removes judder from almost all sources. It can't remove 25p judder from 60p sources, like a cable box or older streaming device. This is a rare combination, though, so it shouldn't affect most people.

There's some micro judder when watching 24p content from a 60p source, but it's not too noticeable.

The Panasonic Z8BA has a nearly instantaneous response time, resulting in incredibly clear motion with almost no blur behind fast-moving objects when watching content. Due to the sample-and-hold nature of OLED technology, there's still some persistence blur at 60Hz, but it's not very noticeable when watching movies or shows.

Transitions are smooth and even, with no noticeable artifacts at all.

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, but it can still bother people who are extra sensitive to flicker.

Like other Panasonic OLEDs we've tested, there's an odd flicker-like behavior in low-luminance sections of the screen that resembles pulse amplitude modulation (PAM). In practice, 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 most real content.

The Panasonic Z8BA has an optional black frame insertion (BFI) feature that reduces the appearance of persistence blur caused by the TV's nearly instantaneous response time. Panasonic's implementation of BFI is very strange, though, as unlike any other TV on the market, the screen never goes completely black between frames; it just dims the backlight slightly.

The Panasonic Z8BA has okay direct reflection handling. It doesn't do much to dim direct reflections from bright lights like a lamp or open window.

Black levels remain incredibly low, even in a bright room.

The TV has excellent reflection handling overall. The glossy coating doesn't reduce the intensity of reflections very much, but there are no distracting diffraction artifacts, either.

Ambient light has no significant impact on perceived color saturation.

The viewing angle is excellent. There's a noticeable green shift that starts at a moderate angle and increases the further off center you go, but it's not too bad. It's a great choice for a wide seating arrangement overall.

The TV has very good uniformity. There's some very faint vertical banding, especially in darker shades, but you have to really look for them to see them.

This TV uses an older WOLED panel, without MLA or the new RGB Tandem stack found on the Panasonic Z95B OLED or LG G5 OLED. There's less separation between the green and red channels, which limits the peak saturation of those colors.

This TV supports HDMI 2.1 bandwidth up to 48Gbps on HDMI ports 1 and 2. HDMI 2 is also the eARC port, which is great if you have a modern receiver. However, it's a bit limiting if you have a soundbar without HDMI 2.1 passthrough since you lose a high-bandwidth port for your other devices. The TV supports ATSC 3.0, so you can watch over the air content at up to a 4k resolution if it's supported in your market.

The TV passes through all Dolby Digital audio formats. However, it doesn't support any DTS audio formats commonly used on physical media.

The TV supports both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, which is great if you want the widest compatibility. It doesn't support the new Dolby Vision 2 or HDR10+ Advanced formats, though.

The Panasonic Z8BA OLED has a premium design, but it looks a bit dated, with a thicker dead space between the side bezels and the first pixels. It also has a thick bar at the bottom for the built-in speakers, similar to the Panasonic Z95B OLED.

The rectangular center-mounted stand is rather simple, but it supports the TV well. There's no alternate placement for the stand.

Footprint of the 77-inch stand: 19.4" x 13.7". The stand lifts the screen about 4.1 inches above the table, so nearly any soundbar fits in front of it without blocking the visible portion of the screen.

The back of the TV has an interesting design, combining some design elements of the Panasonic Z95B OLED with the thinner design of LG OLEDs like the LG C5 OLED. The inputs are located on the left side of the TV when facing the front, and they're cut out from the back so they're easy to access even when the TV is wall-mounted.

There's a built-in clip on the back of the TV to help with cable management, but there's nothing on the stand to help route cables that way. 

The Panasonic Z8BA has fantastic build quality. Although it's bulkier than most competing OLED models, it feels very solid and premium, and there are no obvious issues with its construction.

The TV runs the Fire TV OS, which is smooth and easy to use.

Unfortunately, like almost all TVs on the market, the smart interface contains ads, and you can't disable them.

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 for voice commands.

There's a single button on the bottom of the TV that can be used to switch inputs, adjust the volume, change channels, and power the TV on/off. There's also a mute switch for the built-in microphone.

• Setup guides and documentation
• Remote (with 2x AAA batteries)
• Power cable

Thanks to the inclusion of a built-in 5.1.2 speaker system, the Panasonic Z8BA is one of the best-sounding TVs on the market. While it's still not as good as a proper surround sound system or even a soundbar with a dedicated subwoofer, it sounds decent overall. It has a very well-balanced sound profile, it gets very loud, and there are few compression artifacts.

We also ran the speaker system through our gamut of soundbar audio tests, and you can see the results below, so you can compare them to an actual soundbar.