Panasonic Z90A (TV-65Z90AEB) 4K TV Review

Verdict

Another impressive OLED TV from Panasonic, the Z90A produces a beautiful HDR image and packs in a really good sound system. The addition of Fire TV means it’s not lacking for entertainment options or smarts but the competition is keenly felt in some picture quality areas and there is a green tint to this OLED’s images at wider angles.

Introduction

The Panasonic Z90A is the Japanese brand’s step down OLED for 2024 but on the surface you might look and think that not much has changed.

But much has changed, not on the outside but inside. Freeview Play is replaced by Freely, Panasonic’s own My Home Screen interface has been banished to the tech graveyard with Amazon’s Fire TV taking its place, and there’s a new processor inside powering the picture backed up by AI.

2023’s MZ1500 was highly-regarded on this site, can the Z90A repeat the trick? Let’s find out and see.

Design

• Lightweight
• Easy to assemble
• Swivel stand

Very little has changed with the Panasonic Z90A in terms of aesthetics and overall design. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was the exact same chassis used for the M1500.

In short that means slim bezels, a minimalist look; an integrated sound system at the bottom of the screen and a central stand that swivels so you can angle it at a screen. Assembling the TV is fast – just over a minute and at 24kg it’s not too heavy to haul onto a wall if you decide to wall-mount.

There’s still that attach-on accessory for the rear part of the stand that filters cables through to make the rear area of the TV less messy, but it still feels flimsy and fiddly to attach and after a while I just gave up and left it in the box.

Interface

• Fire TV interface
• Freely integration
• Panasonic remote control

After introducing  Android and Fire TV to some of its UK models in 2023, My Home Screen is officially gone, replaced by Amazon Fire TV. Set-up is simple enough if you’re an existing Amazon customer as you can carry over settings from previous Fire TV devices.

You can choose between setting the Z90A with the physical remote or the Fire TV app (the quicker method). The Fire TV interface updates quickly enough and the TV connects to the Wi-Fi in blisteringly quick time – for whatever reason it takes what feels like a decade to update the remote control.

The benefits are obvious. Apps number in the hundreds rather than the tens, the areas where Panasonic’s own interface was weak in: sports, music, and news are now areas where choice is abundant. Fire TV rivals Samsung Tizen and LG webOS in terms of the sheer number of apps so you won’t feel the need to add a streaming stick.

Freeview Play has been swapped out for Freely, the new over-the-internet platform that delivers UK live- catch-up and on-demand content all in one convenient place. It wasn’t working for the duration of testing but I would imagine it works as smoothly as it currently does on other Freely TVs I’ve tested.

Fire TV also means that Panasonic’s own menu system has had to be merged into Amazon’s, and the results are solid, I feel. There’s plenty of customisation – you still get the My App button for your favourite actions/shortcuts – and the menu settings go deep in terms of what you can do, appearing as an overlay on the right-hand side.

Practically everything you could do before has shuffled over with the added benefit of not having to dive into a full-screen menu to adjust things. What I do miss, though, is the description that comes with each setting that explains what it does. The Z90A is aimed more at home cinema enthusiasts but for Panasonic’s less expensive TVs, I’d say that’s a miss for those less interested in tweaking settings.

The ’my Scenery’ function is replaced by Amazon’s Fire TV Ambient mode, which shows a screenshot of images though there’s no accompanying audio included with this feature. Alexa is built-in and works like she always does, finding results and combing through the interface faster than navigating with the remote.

There are a few drawbacks of Fire TV, though. You need an Amazon account to access the interface, which while free and is becoming a requirement across all TV interfaces. If you don’t have an Amazon account practically nothing works.

Another is that the Fire TV Experience, as it’s called, favours Amazon content. If you’re a subscriber to Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+; it’s rather hard to find any content by scrolling through the interface, which itself is vast. Fire TV seems to think you want to be bombarded by lots of content when for all that personalisation and content curating, it’d be wiser to have fewer rows and content that felt as if it was tailored to me.

There are plenty of advertisements on Fire TV (including in screensavers), and I’m not one who’s annoyed by their presence, though I do find it annoying that when the TV powers up it sneakily plays a full-screen ad if you leave it idle for a few seconds.

The remote is still the sizeable bat from a few years back and is one area where Panasonic is beginning to lag behind. It’s big, hefty, and easy to use; and I like the click feedback from the buttons. You’ve got quick access buttons to the likes of Disney+, Prime Video (which seems unnecessary considering it’s plastered everywhere), Netflix, YouTube and Freely; plus an Alexa button.

This is less an Amazon Fire TV remote that US buyers get with Panasonic TVs and I think that’s a good thing, but, it runs on batteries whereas Panasonic’s main rivals are moving towards USB-C rechargeable remotes. In terms of sustainability, Panasonic is lagging.

Features

• Refresh rates up to 144Hz
• Adaptive picture modes
• True Game mode

Panasonic has made big strides in terms of the interface, the feature side of things remains pretty similar with a few improvements here and there.

Premium game features include high refresh rates up to 144Hz and VRR, with AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync support for PC gamers. ALLM automatically puts the TV into its lowest latency mode for gaming – Panasonic’s Game Mode Extreme – where I measured input lag to be 12.7ms. That’s a step up from the MZ1500 and more or less matching the LG G4 OLED out of the box.

The Game Control Board is a series of customisable settings that show HDR and VRR settings among others. You can choose specific game modes for certain genres such as RPG and FPS games, and the Game Sound mode does the same on the audio side. The True Game mode acts like Filmmaker mode for the most accurate colour performance with games. Other TVs have similar-ish modes, but none offer the same depth and range as Panasonic.

It’s a full house for HDR formats with HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ Adaptive and Dolby Vision IQ. There are more picture modes that I could mention but the main ones are Auto AI (which automatically changes the picture mode based on the content), Filmmaker mode and Netflix Adaptive Calibrated mode. These modes use the TV’s light sensor with brightness adapted

Connectivity is similar to what it’s been for the last few years with four HDMI inputs. HDMI 1 & 2 support the 2.1 standard but that also means that one of the inputs is taken up by the eARC port for sound systems, which becomes an issue if you have to decide between adding another game console or sound system. I don’t think that’s a massive issue, especially as 4K/120Hz is still relatively rare with games.

There are Three USB inputs, Ethernet, CI+ 1.4 slot, digital audio output, aerial and satellite ports, plus a headphone output (switchable to subwoofer). What’s missing is the analogue video input, but that doesn’t sound like a big miss unless you have a analogue source to plug in.

Wirelessly there’s Wi-Fi with AirPlay 2 and mirroring supported. Bluetooth is included and with the Audio Link feature you can connect a pair of headphones to the TV as well. There’s Chromecast but given the wealth of features Fire TV offers, that’s not a big miss here either. Apple Home and HomeKit are supported, adding to Z90A’s smart options.

Picture Quality

• Black crush out of the box
• Green tint at wide angles
• Natural and subtle looking HDR image

Let’s start with the less brilliant aspects of the Panasonic Z90A. It’s another OLED I can add to the list of being slightly green, except the effect is much more subtle than it was on an LG G4 OLED.

This ‘green affliction’ is only present at wide angles. From head on, there is no green tint visible, but if you move off-axis in terms of viewing angles, the image does develop a slightly green hue, and this seems to happen irrespective of what type of content you’re watching whether it’s HDR or SDR.

It’s a shame as viewing angles are strong in terms of brightness and colour saturation. They are just hampered by that slight green tint.

I also find that the Z90A hits the black levels out of the box very strongly. I use my usual test discs such as Zero Dark Thirty (4K Blu-ray), Doctor Sleep, and Civil War; and tweaking of the settings is required to see all the detail in the darkest parts of the image. This impacts it more in bright room viewing situations as in dark room environments, the light sensor in the Panasonic TV does a better job of handling detail in the darkest parts of the image and retaining saturated colours too.

Another niggle, but one that’s unavoidable is that although the Z90A is a bright TV by OLED standards, compared to a Mini LED (Samsung QN90D) it’s less in terms of peak brightness (but also priced more).

I measured in its Normal picture mode a peak brightness of 1001 and 926 nits in 5% and 10% HDR windows, which is a measurement of how bright it can produce highlights (the smallest but brightest part of the image) and brighter, larger objects. A 55-inch Samsung QN90D is 1511 nits respectively. So for a bright room you have better options for combatting ambient light, the Z90A is not helped by its built-in light sensor that puts a ceiling on its brightness levels.

Upscaling is one significant area where Panasonic does appear to have moved forward with as much distance as other TV brands. With A Game of Thrones DVD up on the screen and while I’m not expecting amazing results for a 65-inch panel – the Z90A cleans up well with fine levels of detail and better detail with black levels than a 55-inch Sony Bravia 8, but in terms of definition, fine detail, and contrast; the Sony is the better upscaler.

The Panasonic Z90A doesn’t add much to the image and perhaps it’s unfair to judge the quality of two different sizes, but if the processing is half as good as on the 65-inch Bravia 8, it’ll still be far better than the Panasonic.

With a HD Blu-ray of The Martian and Raging Bull, the Z90A is on firmer ground, and Panasonic’s richer sense of colour is more evident here than it is on the Sony. Detail levels are strong, edges and lines are sharp, clear and well-defined – both movies look filmic, though again, dark detail levels are a little weaker with the Panasonic. I can pick out more of the crowd in the fight scenes of Raging Bull on the Sony Bravia 8 than I can on the Z90A.

Despite those niggles, the Panasonic Z90A produces consistently flat-out beautiful images. There are no gradation or banding issues present when watching a tough, low-light scene from Dune. Levels of detail are strong for a 65-inch screen, though I would say that watching Andor, fine details in a character’s face – beards, beauty spots, etc – that the TV could bring out more of that fine detail.

Colours are consistently rich and expressive but the right side of balanced across all HDR formats. There’s nuance and variety in the colours the Panasonic describes, a sense of naturalism to its images that’s become the brand’s go-to strength.

Though there is black crush apparent, contrast is excellent, and combined with OLED’s pixel level dimming, highlights are perceptively brighter and more distinct than you would find on a Mini LED TV. It helps create a sense of depth in an image – not as good as the LG G4 OLED – but strong enough to give that sense of characters or objects moving through space.

Panasonic’s Intelligent Frame Creation motion processing features Min, Mid, and Max options. The ‘Min’ option presents no problems whatsoever when engaged with no drop in detail, sharpness; and no noise, stutter or judder introduced. If you want a filmic appearance with the lightest touch of processing, this is the option to go for.

Both ‘Mid’ and ‘Max’ increase the SOE (Soap Opera Effect) which can make the content look more artificial, the maximum setting introduces slight noise/pixelation and some tearing of the image too. Panasonic’s motion processing remains excellent, but perhaps slightly behind that of Sony and LG at this point in time.

Sound Quality

• Big bass
• Goes loud
• Clear dialogue

This is an excellent sound system for a flatscreen TV.

Similar to the MZ1500, the Z90A bass output is strong: punchy and weighty. Its loud – convincingly so – and it can sustain that power throughout demanding action scenes like that in Civil War or Dune.

There’s a limit to that power and there are times when awkward scenes in Civil War can cause some buzzing with deep notes, but noticeably not as much as other TV sound systems. Enabling the Bass Boost brings more depth and power but it also brings with it more of a crackle regardless of whether the scene is more demanding or not.

With dialogue clear (though slightly warm) and natural-sounding. Delivery of dialogue is not the sharpest because of the sound system’s warmth, and in terms of dialogue placement, it doesn’t always come from the mouths of characters – just below. Dialogue clarity is no problem with this TV.

Its sense of dynamism is impressive in terms of describing the difference between quiet and loud. The soundstage is wide and while it doesn’t necessarily ‘push’ sound into a room, clarity and detail are good enough that you won’t struggle to hear what’s said or tell one thing from another. I thought the Philips’ OLED809 sounded good – the Panasonic Z90A is even better.

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