Panasonic Unveils Full 2025 OLED And LED TV Line Up—Including World's First ThermalFlow OLED

Forbes

12-05-2025

Panasonic's annual unveiling of its latest TVs is always a key date on every serious home cinema fan's calendar — especially now that the brand is back selling its 'Hollywood tuned' TVs in the U.S. once more. Even by Panasonic's usual high standards, though, the range of OLED and LED TVs the brand has just unveiled looks like it has the potential to be pretty special.
Let's look at all the key new models in turn, starting with the latest Z95B flagship OLEDs.
The Z95Bs
Screen sizes available: 55, 65 and 77-inch
Panel technology: 4K Primary RGB Tandem OLED with heat sink and ThermalFlow technology
The flagship Z95B OLED TVs combine all sorts of cutting edge technology to achieve what looks from demonstrations I saw at a recent launch event like potentially ground-breaking picture quality.
Panasonic's new flagship Z95B OLEDs feature radically improved picture quality and a much slimmer, ... More less cumbersome design.
As ever with Panasonic's flagship OLED sets, the new Z95B range benefits from an integrated heat sink system to help keep the panel cool so that it can deliver more brightness without generating the sort of heat that can cause permanent image retention (screen burn). Panasonic has taken its heat management efforts to a whole new level for the Z95B, though, by incorporating a world-first 'ThermalFlow' system. Inspired by race car aerodynamics, ThermalFlow combines careful component and vent positioning to enable heat to dissipate more effectively than ever before, enabling the panel to support even higher brightness levels.
Panasonic would not be drawn on an actual brightness number for the Z95B, but it was clear during demonstrations at Panasonic's European launch event that the brand's latest OLED flagships are substantially brighter than their already impressive predecessors.
The Z95Bs' brightness also use the latest Primary RGB Tandem Panels, which introduce two blue emissive layers to the OLED arrangement to improve light efficiency by a claimed 40% versus standard OLED panels without compromising colour vibrancy. In fact, demonstrations of the Z95B showed a gorgeous increase in color volume compared with the Z95A - despite, again, the Z95A itself being widely praised for its color prowess.
The spectacular capabilities delivered by the Z95B's new panel are controlled by a new improved version of Panasonic's redoubtable HCX Pro AI Processor, with its customary focus on delivering images that look 'as the director intended'. Panasonic's obsession with delivering accurate pictures also sees the Z95B bring onboard a new Prime Video Calibrated Mode, designed to play content from Amazon's Prime Video streaming service in a way that matches as closely as possible the image conditions produced in Prime Video's mastering studios.
The new processor includes a 4K Remaster Engine too, designed to improve gradation, especially with streamed video, and there's also a return after a few year's absence of Calman Calibration and ISFCCC support, providing a professional-grade toolset that can fine tune your Z95B into getting as close as possible to AV industry picture standards.
The Z95B's sound has also received a pretty radical new revamp. It still delivers the true multi-channel Dolby Atmos sound capabilities of Panasonic's past few OLED flagship series, including integrating up-firing height effect speakers in the TV's top edge, and bags of power that includes increasing bass output to 30W from the previous Z95A's 20W. The sound can still be steered specifically towards different seating positions, too.
These ear-catching features, though, have all been built into a much more elegant design that finds the speakers installed behind a subtle belt of felt that runs right around all four of the TV's edges, greatly reducing the depth of the TVs' rear.
The Z95Bs' smart system is powered by Amazon Fire TV, following the debut of the system on last year's Z95A series, while gamers can look forward to the Z95Bs being able to support (albeit only over two of its four HDMI ports) 4K resolution gaming, frame rates up to 144Hz, variable refresh rates including the NVIDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium formats, a True Game mode designed to extend Panasonic's obsession with creative intent to the gaming world, and a dedicated gaming onscreen menu system.
The Z90Bs retain a powerful sound system and gaming features, as well as still using a premium OLED ... More panel (just not a Primary RGB Tandem one).
Z90Bs
Screen sizes available: 42, 48, 55, 65 and 77-inches
Panel technology: WRGB OLED with heat sink
The step-down Z90B OLED TVs lose the Primary RGB Tandem panel designs and ThermalFlow features of the Z95Bs, meaning that they won't be able to achieve the same levels of peak brightness. Their Master OLED Pro panels still benefit from a heat sink, though, as well as using a premium version of WRGB OLED technology, and are still driven by the same HCX Pro AI Processor Mk II processing system found on the flagship Z95Bs.
They also continue with the Fire TV smart system support, can still support both of the Dolby Vision and HDR10+ premium HDR formats, and still feature a potent virtual surround sound audio system that includes a 30W subwoofer and front-firing speakers attached to the screen's bottom edge.
Gamers will still be able to enjoy 4K, 144Hz refresh rates and variable refresh rates in the AMD FreeSync Premium and NVIDIA G-Sync formats too.
The Z80s are Panasonic's entry level OLEDs for 2025.
Z80Bs
Screen sizes available: 48, 55, and 65-inches
Panel technology: WRGB OLED
Panasonic's entry level OLED TV series for 2025 lose the heat sink and use lower grade OLED panels than the step-up models. They're also driven by a step-down HCX processor, and feature a less powerful integrated audio system that doesn't include any direct forward-facing speakers and supports fewer distinct built-in drivers.
The Z80B sound system does still benefit from a dedicated built-in subwoofer, though, along with Dolby Atmos decoding, and there's still support for both the HDR10+ and Dolby Vision premium HDR formats, as well as the Fire TV operating system. Supported refresh rates no longer extend to 144Hz, but the Z80Bs do retain support for 4K/120Hz game feeds, variable refresh rates (including in the AMD Freesync Premium format) and a fast-response Game Mode Extreme mode.
While its OLED TVs were inevitably the star of the show at Panasonic's recent TV launch event, the brand is also significantly improving and expanding its LCD offering for 2025. In fact, it is set to launch its biggest LCD range in years, including a 32-inch set and some HD models for people looking for a second-room or very affordable TV. I'm going to focus here, though, on the three most high-performance LCD TVs from Panasonic's 2025 TV range.
The flagship W95B LCD range from Panasonic for 2025 uses Mini LED lighting with advanced local ... More dimming.
The W95Bs
Screen sizes available: 55, 65, 75 and 85 inches
Panel technology: Mini LED with local dimming and 144Hz support
The W95Bs are Panasonic's flagship LCD TVs for 2025. They're built on Mini LED panels powered by a local dimming system that operates across 2.5x as many dimming zones (on some screen sizes) as 2024's W95As. The W95B series sees Panasonic expanding its screen size offering to accommodate an 85-inch model, too.
The W95Bs are powered by Panasonic's most premium second-gen HCX Pro AI Processor, and are claimed to deliver much better color performance than their predecessors thanks to double area control and a high color gamut backlight system powered by real-time proprietary color tuning.
New Hybrid Tone Mapping technology has also been installed on the W95Bs, enabling them to retain rich color saturations even in the brightest HDR picture areas.
Side by side demonstrations of the W95Bs against last year's W95As backed up Panasonic's claims for its new flagship LCD models by clearly revealing a major reduction in the amount of backlight blooming the new models exhibit around stand-out bright objects, as well as significantly richer colors, especially in the brightest and darkest picture areas. It's a testament to Panasonic's ambitions with the W95Bs, too, that they join Panasonic's new premium OLED TVs in shipping with built-in Calman Ready compatibility to support professional-grade picture calibration.
Gamers will be pleased to hear that Panasonic's flagship LCD TVs for 2025 support frame rates up to 144Hz, variable refresh rates (including in the AMD FreeSync Premium format), Panasonic's True Game setting for more accurate HDR gaming visuals, and a dedicated gaming onscreen menu system.
Smart features on the W95Bs are provided by Amazon Fire TV again, while HDR support again extends to both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. The Dolby connection also sees the W95Bs offering Dolby Atmos audio playback from a speaker system that includes a 20W subwoofer.
The Panasonic 65W93B.
The W93Bs
Screen sizes available: 43, 50, 55 and 65 inches
Panel technology: LED with local dimming and 144Hz support
The big difference between the W93Bs and Panasonic's 2025 flagship LCD TVs is that the step-down models don't benefit from mini LED lighting, reverting instead to regular sized LEDs. While this will reduce the precision of the TV's lighting, the sets still feature contrast-friendly direct LED lighting and local dimming to maintain a superior contrast performance. The W93Bs also deploy a less powerful audio system than the W95Bs.
The W93Bs retain a True Game mode as well as support for 144Hz gaming feeds and variable refresh rates (including in the AMD FreeSync Premium format), while pictures will also benefit from the same premium HCX Pro AI Processor that the W95Bs get, complete with a 4K Remaster Engine for improving streaming playback. Even Calman calibration is still provided for the W93Bs, and they will still support the Fire TV smart system used higher up Panasonic's TV range.
The W85Bs
Screen sizes available: 43, 50, 55 and 65 inches
Panel technology: LED with 120Hz support
The W85Bs' HDR Bright Panel Plus panels are illuminated by regular rather than Mini LEDs, and don't benefit from the same degree of light control its siblings enjoy. Their supported gaming refresh rates drops to 120Hz from 144Hz, too, and they use the less powerful HCX processor rather than the AI-powered HCX Pro AI system.
There's still support for variable refresh rates, though, as well as playback of the premium HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR formats. The W85Bs' integrated audio system still supports Dolby Atmos playback tii, and the W85Bs' smart features continue to be provided by the Fire TV system.
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