Panasonic Z85A Reddit Verdict: Great Panel, Annoying OS

For comparison this tv has the same panel as an LG B4.

Uses WOLED Panel. Runs Fire TV OS. Very good pricing for OLED TVs at these sizes. It's good to have Panasonic back in NA, adding more competition to the market.

How much does the Stock OS matter on a TV anymore? I figured most people just slap a streaming device in them anyways.

RTINGS review has them basically nearly identical, except the LG is a bit brighter and has two more HDMI 2.1 ports. Their video comparison put it as "these TVs are so similar, this entire video is just one long nitpick session." So basically, at this price, get this over the equivalent C4.

They are lg panels 😉

Heard decent things about this from Digital Trends. Fire OS sucks but I use an Apple TV so it wouldn't be used anyway aside settings.

LG B5, Panasonic Z85A, LG C5, Sony XR8B — those are your budget-friendly OLED options.

RTings gave it an 8.5 for gaming. Not the best TV for a bright room though.

yikes, Fire TV OS. That instantly makes it a lot less attractive

Just jumped on this, upgrading from an old Samsung 1080p tv

Have this TV. Paid 1k for the 65. Imo great TV.

I have 65inches and its pretty good. I have owned lg oleds in past and still have two. Highly recommend this for the price. You dont loose much compare to c series

I paid $999 for my LG B4 and as happy as I am with it I may have saved $200 and go with this. I use Apple TV anyway. Good deal!

Heh, I finally replaced my two Panasonic plasmas with OLEDs this year. Those things were absolute beasts when they came out, especially for the price and compared to the garbage LCDs at the time.

I came here just to talk about how good the 65" model is. Might be too much screen for my needs, but it's a beautiful TV with a lot of functionality for the price

Just received my Z85A 65-inch, and it's gorgeous. Plenty bright even at 80%, though I sometimes lower it to 70%. 100% is too much—it hurts my eyes.

I think brightness may be blown out of proportion for OLED because there are adjustments you can make to increase it. Turn off the ambient sensor, set luminance to 100, and change peak luminance to high—it will feel uncomfortably bright. I think reviewers of these OLED TVs judge brightness in cinema or professional mode with dark settings, which can bias real-world viewing.

I'm really enjoying it! It's in a fairly dim room so it's really not an issue. Color accuracy is great and it's definitely bright enough on SDR content at like 50-60% luminance. If you prefer accuracy over oomph, I definitely recommend it. The negatives are that the stand pedestal is pretty huge yet low, which makes it difficult to put a sound bar in front of it without blocking the bottom of the image. I also don't love the FireTV interface, but I use an Apple TV anyway.

Have you turned "Peak Luminance" to high in the picture settings menu? Also, in the brightness menu, turn the luminance level up a bit to your liking. So 2 things to adjust, Peak Luminance: High, and Luminance Level to like 80 or something higher.

The Z85A displaced our 55" LG OLED to my home office from the living room. If anything LG had more glare and reflection. Movies look incredible. Reminds me of my old VT-series plasma that has migrated to our home gym. The 65" z85a looks better than the 77" C3 we returned. Couldn't beat the price for the Panasonic.

I love fire TV and it's actually better than Amazon's fire stick 4k max for responsiveness. Absolutely gorgeous TV with amazing sound. But yes, you can obviously use whatever you want for TV viewing, fire TV is not mandatory.

Panasonic has the Z85A floating around for around $1,000 but if you're really wanting to get the most bang for your buck, you can get the 77" Panasonic Z8BA for $1,399 on Amazon.

You can't run it in Dynamic and expect accurate colors. Dynamic isn't how it's supposed to look. It just blasts blue light. Set the tv to Cinema or Filmmaker and get used to the fact that an OLED isn't supposed to be run in Dynamic. The correct colours and contrast is in Cinema or Filmmaker presets.

All of the above use LG WOLED panels. Beyond the panel itself, the smaller things like the SoC and speakers are a little under LG and moderately under Sony. The SoC doesn't upscale as well as the other two or support as many features (like all ports being HDMI 2.1, only half are on this), and the speakers are more equivalent to mid-range.

I purchased a Sony 75 inch X93L at a good price off of a Walmart. While that tv had awesome processing, and looked great the majority of time, it looked washed out for darker scenes. The bluish/purple blooming wasn't fun either. I decided to try out this tv and was absolutely surprised by how good it is. Processing and color is fantastic. I don't miss the brightness of the X93L or the size. I have had it for a week now and I absolutely love it.

This thing is blindingly bright, I have no idea what's up with his set. This TV is so good I have two of them now, already. 55 in in the spare room upstairs and 55 in my basement theater room. I just came from a mini LED that was 2000 nits and this TV looks way brighter than that TV did even in SDR.

For the price it is pretty solid. The only real better deal I'd say would be getting a C3 or equivalent at the same price or slightly more if you were to come across it. The B4 and it might as well be the same TV. I would also think about investing in an actual streaming box as well, I hate FireOS.

The Panasonic uses the C4 panel, as it's a 2024 TV, so it's as bright as the C4, which is more than bright enough. Panasonic is similar to Sony in that everything has a more cinematic feel to it. I had both this Panasonic TV and the Sony Bravia 8, and I prefer the Sony. The only thing I didn't like about the Panasonic was that it uses Amazon Fire TV as its operating system.

I just ordered the 48" B5 before seeing this. I'd 100% rather go with the B5. Saw this listing and went "dang a 55" oled for what I just paid for the 48" and then went "oh, fire tv, PASS". Fire TV has no right to exist

I bought the Panasonic 55" Z85 last week and it was delivered via FedEx Friday. This is one hellava value! Stunning colors, and it's plenty bright for my small living room. I had a soundbar on my old Sammy led, but didn't need it with the Z85. If I have a complaint, it would be that the remote's not backlit.

My 2024 z85 OLED keeps crashing and turning off, basically unusable. This is after about 20 days of usage. No help from Panasonic USA yet

Z85 is Panasonic's entry level OLED. Very likely it won't be that bright. Where their models start to benefit from increased brightness is z90 and their flagship z95

I do find the TV to still be a tad dimmer than I'd prefer sometimes but I've gotten used to it. The picture itself is very nice and the upscaling seems good to me too. I got my Z85 for $699 from Best Buy so for that price I'm ok with the compromises, because I don't think I could get an overall better TV for the same price.

I'm coming from a 2000 nit TCL 6 series mini LED and my Panasonic Z85a 55 in is blindingly bright compared to that. I'm finding myself turning Peak brightness to the lowest settings that it goes on everything. I'm watching everything in 2.4 gamma with Max Luminance usually set to low.

I ended up buying a used 65" example in my area for a price too good to pass up - it's an incredible TV. The room it's in isn't particularly well light-controlled and at an 80/100 brightness setting I find it just fine. Incredible TV I can't find many faults with other than FireOS which isn't as bad as what I read.

I picked up z85a 42 inch to replace my gaming monitor i was using for my ps5. By the gods what a difference. Beast of a tv for gaming. Honestly the c4 is a fair wack more money, if your choosing between c4 and the z85 for gaming just save some money and take the z85. It has an lg panel, likely the same panel as the c4, side by side you cant tell the difference between the 2.

Just hooked this bad boy up today and am very pleased with it! For those planning to game on it, make sure to use an HDMI 2.1 cable as that will support the advanced features, such as 120Hz refresh and G-Sync. Otherwise you'll only be able to go as high as 60Hz. There is also a self maintenance function the TV will undergo every time you turn it off – the indicator light at the bottom will turn orange when it is in maintenance mode.

The flagship Z95 model base does swivel, but the more budget friendly Z85 does not.

Just to add my 02 as a guy with this TV. It is plenty bright and I have the 65 in a room that gets a good amount of sunlight (the south wall is entirely glass). My only gripe is that I've been told that this doesn't support full array local dimming when playing games.

I love the TV, and it's bright enough for me because I keep it in my dark bedroom.

Sick TV upgraded over the x90l