Panasonic Z95B OLED  TV Review

The Panasonic Z95B has amazing HDR brightness. Smaller highlights are very bright, so it fully displays most highlights in content mastered at 600 and 1000 nits. It even has good brightness during entirely bright scenes, so you don't notice a large decrease in luminance when bright elements take up most of the screen. It's not quite as bright in HDR as the similar LG G5 OLED overall, but moderately sized highlights (25% window) are noticeably brighter on this TV.

This TV's HDR brightness setting works a bit differently from most other similar models. When using Professional 1, which is the most accurate picture mode out-of-the-box, the default brightness is 70/100. When you set that to anything past 70, the setting works similarly to dynamic tone mapping, giving you a brighter overall image at the cost of accuracy. However, it doesn't actually raise the peak brightness of the TV, so if you want the most accurate image, it's best to use 70/100. We tested the TV using brightness at 70, but if you're curious to see what happens when you go past that, take a look at the results below with the brightness maxed out.

• Hallway Lights: 1684 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 849 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 360 cd/m²

There's no visible difference in HDR brightness when using True Game. Our results are with the brightness set to '70', which is the most accurate setting and doesn't affect the TV's peak brightness. If you'd rather have a brighter image overall than an accurate one, below are the results with luminance set to '100.'

• Hallway Lights: 1792 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 832 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 359 cd/m²

The Panasonic Z95B has very good SDR brightness. It easily overcomes glare in bright rooms when watching most types of content. When watching sports like hockey, where the entire screen has a similar brightness level, it's not quite as bright, but it's still good enough to handle glare in most well-lit rooms.

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.

The Panasonic Z95B 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 TV has excellent color volume in SDR. Like almost any TV, it has full coverage of the BT.709 color space that's used in most SDR content, but it also covers essentially the entirety of the DCI-P3 color space. It doesn't display as much of the widest BT.2020 color space, and it struggles the most with blues, cyans, and greens, but its coverage of this space is still good overall.

As excellent as its coverage is overall, it's not quite at the same level as the LG G5 OLED, especially when it comes to the darkest and lightest colors in the BT.2020 space.

The TV has amazing HDR color volume. Due to its perfect contrast, it displays dark, saturated colors very well, and it also does well displaying very bright colors. This leads to vivid and punchy colors in HDR content that are sure to impress.

Although it's amazing overall, it's not as good as the Samsung S95F OLED, as QD-OLED panels don't have to rely on a white subpixel to boost luminance, which can washout colors at very high brightness levels.

The TV has excellent SDR color accuracy before calibration. Its overall white balance is excellent, but most scenes are displayed darker than intended since its gamma is closer to 2.4 than the 2.2 we target. The color temperature is just slightly too warm, but is still very close to 6,500K. Colors have excellent accuracy overall, so this TV doesn't require calibration for most people who care about the creator's intent.

After calibration, the TV has outstanding color accuracy in SDR. The white balance, color temperature, and gamma are essentially perfect, and there are only very minor errors in color accuracy that aren't noticeable.

See our full calibration settings.

With the Panasonic Z95B's HDR brightness set to 70/100, the TV has outstanding HDR accuracy before calibration. The white balance is a bit off in mid grays, but it's hardly noticeable, and its overall white balance is fantastic. The color temperature is almost perfectly at the industry standard 6,500K, which is outstanding. Its overall color accuracy is excellent, with only minor mapping errors that won't bother anyone other than the most ardent color purists. This really isn't a TV that requires calibration if you care about the content creator's intent.

Setting the TV's HDR brightness past 70 acts similarly to a dynamic tone mapping feature, so you get a brighter image overall at the cost of accuracy. This can be seen in the TV's pre-calibration color accuracy results and the TV's white balance results with brightness set to maximum.

After calibration, the TV has exceptional HDR color accuracy. Any minor issues with the white balance and color temperature are pretty much gone. Even though there are still some minor color mapping errors, overall color accuracy is fantastic, and you would be hard-pressed to notice any inaccuracies in real content. This TV is so accurate out-of-the-box that calibrating it doesn't make a very big difference, so paying for calibration isn't worth it for the vast majority of people.

The Panasonic Z95B has outstanding PQ EOTF tracking with the TV's HDR brightness set to 70/100. With content mastered in 600 and 1000 nits, there's a sharp cutoff at 1000 nits, but the TV is bright enough to display most highlights in content mastered at those brightness levels. With content mastered at 4000 nits, the TV gradually dims very bright highlights to maintain some gradation in them, before a sharp cutoff happens at the TV's peak brightness.

When setting the TV's HDR brightness past 70, you get a brighter image overall, since it acts similarly to a dynamic tone mapping feature. However, you lose accuracy when you do that, as shown in the PQ EOTF results and score with the brightness maxed out.

The TV does a great job of cleaning up artifacts in low-quality content. There are barely any artifacts remaining, and it does an excellent job of preserving details in the image.

The TV does an outstanding job upscaling DVDs, standard definition streams, and other low-resolution content. Some fine details are hard to make out, but the image is sharp enough for a pleasant viewing experience.

The Panasonic Z95B has very good job HDR native gradient handling. There's only visible banding in dark grays and dark greens, while all other gradients have barely noticeable banding or none at all.

Unfortunately, there's more severe banding in Dolby Vision content, specifically in low light scenes. You can see this for yourself in the three examples from The Green Knight below.

• The Green Knight Dolby Vision 1
• The Green Knight Dolby Vision 2
• The Green Knight Dolby Vision 3

Like the LG G5 OLED, there are diagonal lines that appear as a result of dithering. These lines are quite apparent when watching content or playing games if you're sitting close to the screen, but the lines aren't nearly as visible from a normal viewing distance. This dithering also adds some grain-like noise to some dark scenes. It's not very noticeable during all dark scenes, but the noisier the scene, the worse the additional grain is. Sadly, these lines are just as noticeable, if not even more noticeable, than they are on the LG G5 OLED. You can see these lines for yourself by watching this video.

The TV has incredibly low input lag when using the True Game picture mode. This is especially true at 120Hz and 144Hz, where the TV delivers a very snappy and responsive gaming experience.

The TV supports all common resolutions up to 4k @ 144Hz, and it supports chroma 4:4:4, so it has great compatibility.

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-Frame-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.

The Panasonic Z95B 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.

The Panasonic Z95B 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 pixel response time of the TV, there's stutter with low frame rate content, which is most noticeable during slow panning shots.

The TV automatically removes judder from 24fps content, even from sources that can only send a 60Hz signal. To remove judder from 60i sources, you must enable Accurate IFC.

The Panasonic Z95B 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.

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.

The TV 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 most real content.

The Panasonic Z95B 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 Z95B has an optional motion interpolation feature to help improve the appearance of motion. It works well with slower scenes, but there are noticeable artifacts present in faster scenes, especially if you use the settings too aggressively.

The Panasonic Z95B does a great job of reducing the intensity of direct reflections. Reflections from direct sources of light, such as a lamp or window placed opposite the screen, are dimmed considerably, so they blend in well with the rest of the image during most scenes. However, you still see direct reflections during dark scenes.

The Panasonic Z95 does an outstanding job maintaining its black levels in a bright room. Blacks are barely raised in a room with ambient lighting, and they remain deep and bold.

The TV does an excellent job with total reflected light. Reflections are mostly contained and aren't spread out across the screen, but direct reflections do cause some minor light banding and distortion. Still, combined with the TV's amazing brightness capabilities, you barely see reflections on this TV except during very dark scenes.

The Panasonic Z95 has exceptional color vibrancy in bright rooms. Colors barely lose any perceived saturation in a room with ambient lighting, so you enjoy almost equally vibrant colors in a bright room as you do in a dark room.

The Panasonic Z95B has an outstandingly wide viewing angle. There's some color shifting that begins around 30° and worsens the farther you move off center to the screen, but outside of that, the TV mostly retains its image quality at an angle; it's still a great choice for wide seating arrangements.

The Panasonic Z95 has great uniformity. There's some very faint vertical banding, especially in darker shades, but you have to really look for them to see them.

Like the LG G5 OLED, the Panasonic Z95 uses LG's new primary RGB tandem OLED panel, which is designed to increase color purity and increase the range of colors the TV displays. It still utilizes a white subpixel to increase brightness, but it doesn't dilute color purity nearly as much as conventional WOLED panels, so you get much better separation between blues, greens, and reds. However, colors still aren't as pure as they are on QD-OLEDs.

The Panasonic Z95B supports HDMI 2.1 bandwidth up to 48Gbps on HDMI ports 1 and 2, with both supporting up to 4k @ 144Hz. 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 4k over the air.

The Panasonic Z95 passes through all Dolby Digital options. 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.

The Panasonic Z95B looks a bit dated, with a thick design and fabric over the large bottom speaker. This is mostly due to the TV's inclusion of a built-in soundbar.

The round center-mounted stand is rather simple, but it supports the TV well. There's no alternate placement for the stand, but it swivels roughly 15 degrees to either side.

Footprint of the 65" stand: 15" x 13.7"

There's a bit less than an inch from the table to the bottom of the TV, and about 3.8 inches between the first visible pixels and the bottom of the stand.

The back section, which houses the inputs and speakers, is quite thick and made of plastic. The inputs are located on the left side of the TV when facing the front, but they're easily accessible even when the TV is wall-mounted. There's a slot on the top of the stand to funnel cables through to help with cable management.

The TV is noticeably thicker than most options on the market. This is due to the inclusion of higher-quality speakers throughout the TV. Our unit leans a bit forward on its stand, but this lean isn't noticeable when watching the TV. However, the severity of the lean varies between different units, so you might end up with more of a lean or less of one.

The Panasonic Z95B has outstanding build quality. There's no flex on the back panel at all and it has good stability. The TV is made entirely of premium materials and feels well-built.

Our unit doesn't stand completely straight and leans a bit forward on its stand. This lean isn't noticeable when watching the TV, but the severity of it varies between different units, so you might end up with more of a lean or less of one.

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 Z95B OLED is one of the best-sounding TVs on the market. It's still not as good as a dedicated home theater system or even a good external soundbar, as it doesn't produce much bass at all. Fortunately, it gets very loud and has an incredibly well-balanced sound profile, so you have no problems understanding dialogue.

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.