Panasonic Z95B OLED TV Review: Glorious Performance, One Small Catch

Space is the right environment for a TV with this level of staggering contrast, and it’s not just the dramatic moments, but also the more subtly lit scenes that stand out. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 is full of searing highlights and colorful bursts of space glow, but moments like the crisp sunrise on the Guardians’ plumb-brown shirts or the dark corridors of their small ship were just as impressive thanks to the Z95B’s masterful color gradients and shadow detail.

That meticulous touch comes through in everything you watch, including plain old HD sitcoms like The Office, where I found myself oddly enamored with moments like the auburn highlights of Jim’s hair or the gleam of Andy’s tie. This may not be the reason you buy a premium TV, but it’s lovely to find joy in the little things. Skin tones look almost touchably natural and clean, enhanced by the TV’s knockout image processing, and even lower-quality video looks good with its improved upscaling.

That’s not to say you won’t find plenty of bombast here; the Z95B gets as bright as anyone should need when properly tasked. Playing Mad Max: Fury Road on 4K HDR Blu-ray with the Panasonic DP-UB9000 elicited the perfect dichotomy between the dull desert backdrop and the catastrophic lightning storm. The storm’s jagged bolts split the sky with precision, erupting with blistering shocks of orange and white, right down to that sputtering white-hot flare.

Part of the Z95B’s potency comes from its excellent glare reduction. Like the LG G5, it’s able to reduce everything but direct reflections while preserving its obsidian backdrop for a more dramatic contrast in brighter rooms than Sony’s rival Bravia 8 II QD-OLED. I think the Bravia beats both TVs for image clarity, but it’s close. Only Samsung’s similar S95F offers a more potent way to kill the glare while still preserving contrast.

The Z95B and G5 are unsurprisingly similar, given that they share the same panel. The Z95B feels slightly more natural in its color and lighting, and a bit better for off-axis viewing, but that may be recency bias. I’d need to see them back-to-back to point to any real differences. Some extra color banding in Dolby Vision streaming content and a bit of image stuttering are the only noticeable flaws I saw in the Z95B over two weeks. (Note: I reviewed the G5 after LG addressed initial complaints of HDR color banding.)

All four premium OLEDs provide knockout performance, each with its own specialty. I’m partial to the G5 and Z95B over the Samsung and Sony for their balance of fiery brightness with jet-black backdrops—and the G5 has an edge with its four HDMI 2.1 ports and better smarts. The Z95B is hard to deny, though. If you’re after an all-in-one screen that elevates everything to showcase levels, this is the TV to take home.