Panasonic TV-65Z95B

Introduction

The Z95B is Panasonic’s premium OLED proposition for 2025. Available in 55-, 65-, and 77-inch screen sizes, it marries the latest OLED display technology with Amazon’s Fire TV platform, and look-ma-no-aerial Freely TV.

At the heart of the set is a Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel, boasting a unique four-layer structure, designed to improve light efficiency and boost brightness up to 40 per cent. As we’ll see, this innovation isn’t hyperbole. The Z95B offers a noticeable upgrade over last season’s Micro Lens Array Z95A OLED.

Price

The Z95B comes in three screen sizes: the 55-, 65-, and 77-inch. You’ll find them priced at £2,499, £2,999 and £3,999 respectively.

I tested the 65-inch model. 

In the US, this 65-incher sells for $3,399. The TV-65Z95B OLED TV is not officially available in Australia, as Panasonic unfortunately withdrew from the Oz TV market in 2020.

The Z95B is a direct competitor to the LG G5 and Samsung S95F.

Design

• Fabric wrap
• Swivel stand
• Premium remote control

Literally wrapped in fabric, the screen perches atop a central circular swivel stand, and is edged all the way round in charcoal grey fabric. This cosy wraparound adds a touch of boutique styling, while also disguising the 360° Soundscape Pro audio system.

To the rear, there’s a woofer with dual passive radiators.

Overall, I’d describe the Z95B as reassuringly premium. Panasonic knows its audience here. The glass is surrounded by a miniscule bezel, and has a glossy, not matte, surface. 

Even though the TV uses the Amazon Fire OS, the supplied remote is not a cookie cutter Amazon Fire TV stick controller. Instead there’s a fully featured wand with dedicated buttons for Prime Video, Netflix, Disney Plus, YouTube, Freely, and a fast track to the app library.

Connectivity

• Four HDMI inputs
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0

If you’re looking for obvious reservations about the Z95B, this is where you’ll find them. Only two of the four HDMI inputs support refresh rates up to 144Hz, and one of them is also the eARC connection.

These two gaming HDMIs are compliant with ALLM and VRR. Other ports of call include three USBs, Ethernet, an optical digital audio output, headphone/subwoofer jack, twin satellite and terrestrial tuners, and a Common Interface slot. The set also supports Apple AirPlay, Apple Home, and screen mirroring.

User Experience

• Fire TV OS
• SpaceTune
• Freely tuner

The Fire TV OS can be a little Marmite, particularly given how many ads are now peppering its interface. Navigating past all this screen acne often feels like a chore. Dip into the menus though and most everything you need is to hand, or findable with a short search.

Setup takes a little longer than most TVs. Not only do you need to log into your Amazon account (if you don’t have one, and don’t intend to get one, this is definitely not the telly for you), there’s the SpaceTune EQ routine to go through. This uses the remote’s mic to measure and adjust the set’s sound field to suit your room.  

Alexa integration is a given, and there’s extra stuff, like arty screen savers and smart home control.

Features

• Dolby Vision IQ and HDR10+ Adaptive
• Netflix Calibrated Mode
• Prime Video calibrated Mode

This OLED screen is rich in headline features: Not only does the Z95B use a Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel, it boasts ThermalFlow cooling, a proprietary system developed by Panasonic.

There’s support for all flavours of HDR – Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10+ Adaptive, HLG, and HDR10; plus the newly refined HCX Pro AI Processor MK II; AMD FreeSync Premium and NVIDIA G-SYNC compatibility; up to 144Hz refresh rate, and Game Mode Extreme functionality.

For this go around, Panasonic has also enlisted Auto AI picture control, partnered with an ambient light sensor, which works well. There’s also the option of bespoke calibrated modes for both Netflix and Prime Video, for watching ‘as the streamer intended’.

The provision of Freely (in the UK) is a final boon, as you’re not tied to any physical aerial in order to receive mainstream public broadcast channels. The Beeb, ITV and other, along with video on demand content, can be received over Wi-Fi.

Gaming

• Game Control Bar
• 60Hz Refresh Mode
• AMD FreeSync Premium Pro

Once you get over the frugality of that HDMI board, gamers are well served. The Game Control Board interface is clear and useful; it offers easy access to all the standard gaming settings, including Picture and Sound Mode selection, input lag, ALLM and VRR monitoring, HDR tone mapping (Dynamic, Normal, Clipping), Dark Visibility mode, and more.

Latency is very good. There are actually two gaming picture modes, Game and True Game, with minor input lag differences between them, 12.6ms – 12.8ms. If you select the 60Hz Refresh Mode, you can push input lag down to 9ms. Zooming around popular action games is smooth and precise.

Picture Quality

• High HDR brightness
• Dolby Vision IQ
• Outstanding colour vibrancy

This is where the Z95B puts clear air between itself and much of the competition. Long story short: the Z95B is an absolute stunner. Colours are beautifully saturated, blacks are pure and nuanced, and HDR performance positively luminous.

This TV pushes OLED brightness to new levels for the brand: I measured peak HDR brightness at 2160 nits on a 10% patch in Dynamic mode. It’s also able to sustain this brightness long after what a grader might reasonably require. More typical (smaller) specular highlights are delivered with even greater intensity.

Of course, brighter isn’t always better. Get it wrong and you end up with a picture that can be uncomfortable to watch. Here, Panasonic gets bright right.

The Z95B also manages near black shadow detail with astonishing skill, lending its imagery almost tangible depth. The only black crush here is the one I have on the panel.

The Z95B’s colour fidelity, and detailing, is exquisite. It’s easy to fixate on 4K HDR when it comes to picture quality, but it must be said that HD SDR looks similarly fabulous – and that colour richness is a blessing with animation. Creature Commandos, from DC Studios (Sky Max), is beautiful to watch – rich, nuanced, never-oversaturated.

Basic picture modes comprise Normal, Sport, Cinema, Filmmaker Mode, True Cinema, Professional One and Two, Dynamic, and Auto AI. Pick your poison.

Watch a Dolby Vision show on Netflix gives you the option of either choosing that, or selecting Netflix Adaptive Calibration mode. My preference was for Dolby Vision IQ, as it lends a greater sense of pop and dynamics to the image.

Similarly, the Prime Video Calibrated mode can be selected watching Prime Video. I found this preset actually dims the image, compared to just viewing in the Normal mode with HDR10+, however my eventual preference here proved to be True Cinema.

Interestingly, the AI Mode picture setting, which works with or without an ambient light sensor, actually does a fairly solid job, without overly cooking colours. For a screen this bright, my preference would be to disengage the ambient light sensor. It’s really not helping a great deal, whether your room lighting is bright or dim.

Motion handling, courtesy of Panasonic’s Intelligent Frame Creation, is extremely effective, although I recommend dialling it back from its Max setting. 

Upscaling

• HCX Pro AI processor MK II
• Jaggy-free upscaling

The HCX Pro AI MK II processor delivers top-tier upscaling, and looks great with HD and SDR. Watching a 1080p Blu-ray of Insurgent proves the point – detail in dark scenes is preserved and aliasing is minimal. AI-enhanced resolution algorithms make HD content feel native.

Insurgent’s virtual reality, glass shattering sequence, features a screen full of glassy shards, which, handled by this HCX processor, look extremely sharp and jaggy-free.

Sound Quality

• Dolby Atmos enabled
• Soundscape Pro audio system

The Z95B’s redesigned Soundscape Pro system delivers a serious sonic punch. Front-facing, up-firing, and side speakers collaborate to create an impressive wall of sound.

For this iteration of Soundscape, the side drivers have been moved up a tad, to create more obvious sonic width.

It’s certainly sounds punchy. A cumulative 170 W power output breaks down with 80W directed through the front line array, 30W attributed to the side drivers and the same again to the heights, plus 30W more powering the mono subwoofer.

However, when it comes to its Dolby Atmos performance, a channel check reveals there is no differentiation between the left and right side channels. So what we have here is the rear channel information summed together, routed to the side left and right speakers.

The same applies to the height drivers, which I would expect to be monophonic.

Of course you may ask yourself does this actually matter when it comes to the listening experience. The climactic dockside fight, from the first John Wick movie, would probably suggest not. The soundstage, which consists mainly of grunts, punches and driving rain, is suitably wide and theatrical.

While bass extends down to 31.5Hz, some cabinet rattle appears around 50Hz at high volumes (as heard in Dune: Part 2), but it’s content-specific. To accommodate the new ThermalFlow cooling system, Panasonic had to relocate the woofer – I wonder if this is the consequence.

Should you buy it?

FAQs