Panasonic 77Z95B

It was February when the news spread like wildfire. Japanese tech giant Panasonic intended to try to sell its TV division, a decision that I thought sounded downright sad. Fortunately, it turned out not to be true. The quote on which the conclusion was based had been taken out of context, and within a couple of days of the news spreading, Panasonic's boss Yuki Kusumi had denied the whole thing and promised customers that their TV journey was "far from over". Good news. Now that they have rolled out their new flagship Z95B, we can't help but grinning like a child in a candy shop. Why? Because right now, this is the best OLED TV you can buy.

The Panasonic 77Z95B is essentially based on LG's fantastic G5 panel (W-OLED), which is commonly referred to as "Four stack" because it consists of four colour layers rather than three, as was previously the case. The tandem solution has enabled more light punch, which LG believes was necessary to compete with Samsung's much-hyped QD OLED technology found in their screens and Sony's models. The tandem panel has a theoretical potential to reach up to 4000 nits at peak, and the sustained, working brightness is nearly twice as high as before. This is without losing any of the other qualities that LGE's OLED panels have offered over almost the last ten years.

Last year's Z95A model was already an incredibly lovely TV, but here Panasonic has taken a big step forward in terms of picture quality, which is noticeable the second the TV starts up. The picture is very vivid, bright, and balanced, and it never feels overdone, as I think Samsung's flagship does out of the box. Finally, HDR looks really good on an OLED, for real, and the colours are natural even without artefacts or distracting elements such as a crush in the greyscale or noise around gradients. As with the LG G5, there is now no problem at all with placing this TV in a fully lit living room with windows on every wall. It's perfectly fine to watch TV in full daylight without ever wondering whether you should have opted for a Micro-LED instead, for the sake of brightness. The UHDA-P3 measurement here also reveals a TV that hits the mark, as it's close to 99.9% in Panasonic's fantastic Filmmaker Mode.

In terms of pure image quality, there is virtually nothing on the market that I have seen that can compete with this TV. I have switched between reference material in 4K (demo stuff), some HDR gaming, and lots of streaming during my testing phase and have come to the conclusion that I really love the picture on this TV, especially with Dolby Vision Dark enabled. Motion smoothing is automatically turned off, and the picture feels natural yet modern in the way it handles movement and colour shifts. There is a purity to the picture here that could tip over into being overly stylistic, but that never happens. Instead, it's balanced and packed with dynamics, with either zero per cent judder or extremely little, depending on what I feed the TV. My gaming sessions have also been impressive, and I'm not referring to my skills in Splitgate 2, as I'm not as nippy as I used to be. In game mode, the input lag is 12.2 milliseconds and the rendering of both Cyberpunk 2077 and Senua's Saga: Hellblade II looks truly brilliant here, thanks in large part to the decent brightness.

Unlike most all other TV screens today, the sound in Panasonic's flagship model is really, really good. Technics (owned by Panasonic) has been called in to build in real sound that does not require (more or less, at least) the customer to supplement with a soundbar, and this has resulted in a screen that impresses, audio-wise. Technics has built speakers into a recessed bar below the screen, as well as around the chassis itself in a kind of line array solution that plays 5.1.2 sound in a very pleasant way. This means that the 77-inch version of the Z95B in particular is a little thicker than, for example, the LG G5 in terms of pure chassis design, but not only does that not bother me, I consider it a positive thing because the TV becomes easier and less fragile to handle when unpacking, moving, or wall mounting.

The sound system is called "360° Soundscape Pro tuned by Technics" and it calibrates itself via active room compensation when first started up, which works really well. The sound coming out of the Technics speakers is comparable (straight up) to the Sennheiser Ambeo Plus (which I own), and considering that this high-quality device costs £1,300, this is obviously a really nice bonus for anyone who wants good sound. The only thing I don't really intend to brag about in the case of this fantastic TV is the remote control. Sure, it works as it should and there's nothing wrong with the button placement, but if you're buying a TV for thousands of pounds, the remote should obviously be made of aluminium and have a more exclusive basic design than this.

There is no doubt that Panasonic has really flexed its muscles this time and, with the help of LGE, built an OLED TV that tops the competition. Sure, the 77Z95B is expensive, but on the other hand, you get the best OLED picture quality on the market right now and sound that can easily be compared to Sennheiser's best soundbar. Hats off, quite simply. If you want the best, you simply have to pay for it.