Panasonic Z90B (TV-48Z90B) review

The Panasonic Z90B 48-inch is a smaller OLED with some serious competition, targeting as it does the five-star 48-inch versions of the LG C5 and Samsung S90F.

To enter the fray with some confidence, it is armed to the teeth with many of the benefits that have made past Panasonic sets fan favourites among What Hi-Fi? readers and a regular sight in our best OLED TV guide. Chief among those is the company’s ongoing focus on delivering “as the director intended” home cinema experiences.

But, is this enough to earn it a recommendation in an increasingly competitive segment of the OLED TV market? Here’s what we found after putting it through its paces in our test rooms.

Price

The 48-inch Panasonic Z90B in our test rooms currently costs £1500. Panasonic TVs haven’t been on sale in Australia for quite some time now, and sadly, despite Panasonic re-launching in the United States last year, the Z90B isn’t included in this year’s US line-up – instead, you can get only the more expensive Z95B or cheaper Z80B OLEDs.

The price means the 48-inch Z90B costs the same as the equivalently sized Samsung S90F and LG C5. All three are a little too new to have had any serious discounts.

If 48 inches isn’t quite right, you can grab the smaller 42-inch Z90B for £1400. Prices then scale up as you increase in size, peaking at £3500 for the largest, 77-inch Z90B option.

Build

The Z90B doesn’t deviate from Panasonic’s past OLED designs. That means there are pluses and minuses.

The sleek TV is thin, making it easy to mount flush to a wall. Unlike the larger models in the Z90B range, which have a circular pedestal, the 48-inch set’s stand is a large rectangle. Sadly, it doesn’t have a swivel mechanism.

While a smaller footprint would be good, it’s a well-made unit. Made of metal, the stand feels very sturdy, and offers no sway or flex during testing – one of our testers describing it as nicely toddler- and pet-proof.

But the speaker bar at its bottom returns. This is effectively a bolted-on soundbar that, Panasonic claims, removes the need to invest in a separate sound system.

Putting aside the fact that we have yet to find a TV where we can agree with such claims, the inclusion is an annoyance if you happen to have a soundbar already.

We have long argued that we would like Panasonic to offer a variant of its top OLEDs without the bar, at a lower price, for those of us who already have a good sound system. But, alas, that isn’t happening this year.

The only visual difference with the Z90B’s speaker bar is that it now has a grey acoustic covering, instead of plain black.

The TV’s remote control is also all but identical to that of past Panasonic OLEDs. It’s a large, clunky remote with shortcuts to all the apps and features you might want, but little else.

There’s no backlight, solar, or USB charging, and it generally feels a little clunky and archaic at this point.

Features

The 48-inch Panasonic Z90B is generally well featured as small OLED TVs go – to the point it goes pound-for-pound in most areas with the 48-inch Samsung S90F and LG C5.

Like all the small step-down OLEDs we have tested this year, the Z90B uses a regular WOLED panel.

The brightness-boosting Micro Lens Array (MLA) tech sported on last year’s Panasonic Z95A is being retired rather than trickling down a price point. The newer Primary RGB Tandem OLED tech that made its debut in January is coming only to the Panasonic Z95B flagship.

However, the Z90B does come with one advantage over its competitors: a heatsink. This is a key feature that we have wanted to see on step-down models – especially small ones – for quite some time. The smaller dimensions and more tightly packed pixels on OLEDs of this size mean the sets can heat up more than their larger siblings, which in turn risks causing performance issues and, in some instances, damage.

Which is why, traditionally, companies are much more conservative with how hard they push smaller OLED sets. Hence the lower brightness and performance differences we usually experience on smaller OLEDs when comparing them with their larger counterparts.

The heatsink in the Z90B, though, should let Panasonic push the panel harder for better performance, all while reducing the risk of burn-in and panel degradation.

The set also features Panasonic’s latest generation HCX Pro AI Processor MKII chipset. This is the same silicon seen in the Z95B and features a similar AI processing focus to all the other TV chips we have seen this year.

The HCX Pro AI Processor MKII comes with Panasonic’s 4K Remaster Engine upscaling and a new Amazon Prime Video Calibrated picture setting – similar to the mode Sony added to its 2024 range. This complements the set’s standard Filmmaker Mode.

As a final perk, the set also continues Panasonic’s partnership with TV calibration specialists Portrait Displays, which means the Z90B can be Calman calibrated with relative ease (providing you have the equipment and technical know-how).

The addition of a Prime Video mode is unsurprising, as the Z90B continues Panasonic’s ongoing cosying up to Amazon – the set once again runs the retail giant’s Fire TV OS. This means you get excellent app support, with Apple TV+, Disney Plus, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and more all present and working correctly.

Specialist services and local catch-ups, including Shudder, Crunchyroll, BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Freely and more, all have green ticks. In fact, our only minor quibble is that the interface is still a little ad-heavy and doesn’t always make crystal clear which content is free and which is paid for.

HDR support is excellent. The Z90B supports nearly all four of the common HDR standards: HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.

The inclusion of HDR10+ and Dolby Vision is particularly welcome, as these are rival standards with a similar focus – delivering frame-by-frame optimisations to improve contrast and dynamic range.

Their offshoot HDR10+ Adaptive and Dolby Vision IQ variants are also supported and again have similar aims. They both work to further optimise the screen’s performance and settings based on ambient light conditions.

The only minor downside with the Z90B is that, unlike its Samsung and LG rivals, it has only two full-speed HDMI 2.1 inputs, one of which doubles as its eARC.

That will be fine for people who have just one current-generation games console and a Dolby Atmos soundbar to connect. But the PS5, Xbox Series X/S and modern gaming PCs all require an HDMI 2.1 input to run at full speed. So if, like many of us, you have more than one console, and/or a gaming PC and an Atmos soundbar, be prepared for a fair amount of cable swapping.

That apart, the Z90B’s gaming specifications are solid. Like all the step-down sets we have seen this year, it can run at a maximum of 4K/144Hz, which is faster than current-generation games consoles' 4K/120Hz cap.

VRR and ALLM are also included, which let the TV match the framerate to the incoming signal and reduce latency. There’s even an option to allow your gaming source to handle HDR tone-mapping for a more “as the creator intended” look to your favourite titles.

All of this can be controlled in the set’s new Game Control Board quick menu, which also lets you pull up performance stats and tweak specific settings as you play. So, all-in-all, pretty impressive, despite the limited number of HDMI 2.1 inputs.

Picture

“A superb TV that delivers the authenticity for which Panasonic is renowned.”

“An authentic, controlled and balanced picture, the set uses the added brightness in a way that truly improves rather than distracts from what’s happening on screen.”

“Colours and motion all hold a wonderful authenticity that makes for a wonderful viewing experience, especially if you want to experience movies as the director intended.”

The above are all quotes from three of our latest Panasonic OLED reviews, which hopefully confirm the company’s reputation for delivering wonderfully authentic, as the director intended, movie experiences.

Does the Z90B live up to this legacy? Comparing it with its LG C5 and Samsung S90F rivals in our viewing rooms, we are happy to report the answer is a firm yes.

This is apparent from the moment we fire up our first test disc, a 4K Blu-ray copy of Dune: Part 2, using the Z90B and our ever-faithful Oppo UDP-203 player.

Even in its far-from-perfect out-of-the-box settings, the picture is less in your face than most rivals in similar settings. The desert scene retains some semblance of colour accuracy, being only a smidgeon too warm for our liking.

Peak highlights are pushed a little hard, especially in segments of the picture with mixed light and dark elements, but not as much as on the S90F next to it, which looks significantly more artificial.

In fact, our only big gripe is with its motion handling, which is too smooth. The additional fake frames that the processing generates make the Fremen freedom fighters look somewhat as if they are floating through the air, rather than violently lunging at their enemies.

Luckily, it is really easy to adjust the settings to fix all this: put the TV in Filmmaker mode. No further tweaking is really required, as this mode turns off pretty much all the TV’s unnecessary features.

Once that’s done, the picture is the best we have seen on a new 48-inch OLED this year.

Colours are a particular highlight. The set retains the warm, rich, scorching desert tone the director intended, without ever feeling overbaked. The background dunes retain a warm detail that is lost on the rivals we test it against, which occasionally reduce subtle shades of red and orange to pure white.

The same is true as the action transitions to a dim segment of the film. Here, the Panasonic manages to retain the colour volume and detail of skin tones in a way that is beyond many modern OLEDs.

There’s a warmth, even in the darkest parts of characters’ faces, with a wonderful range of colours and shades that also extends to the brightest part of the picture. Each part is full of detail without any loss of authenticity or addition of artificiality.

This isn’t due to the Z90B pushing its panel’s brightness. In fact, 99 per cent of the time, if anything, it is actually dimmer than its competition – but it saves its efforts for the moments it is genuinely meant to go bright.

Moving to a night-time battle scene of our Civil War test disc, the set produces wonderful peak highlights that are every bit as bright and full of detail as on the S90F and C5. But because it chooses to focus its efforts on the areas that are meant to be bright, they hold a much more distinct, realistic place in the picture, adding weight and a true sense of three-dimensionality to the scene.

Looking at a chandelier in the White House, every bauble is visible and sharp, and there is a wide gamut in the burning bulbs that is lost on many competing sets – which once again simply show entire sections of the ornament as white.

There are, though, some drawbacks that might put off cinema viewers who like their home cinema to have an overt “wow” factor.

We switch to the opening scene of Alien: Romulus. Blacks are nicely inky, and the background stars shine out of the dead space with wonderful menace, but as a ship exits the void and approaches the viewer, it takes a while longer for it to fully come into view.

The set’s intentionally low brightness means that, while each nook, cranny and detail of the ship coming out of the black are there, we have to look harder for them as they are more thoroughly veiled in shadow. If you want pop, this isn’t the set for you.

This is even more apparent when we switch to our standard SDR Blu-ray True Grit test disc, which we often use to gauge a TV’s upscaling powers due to its incredibly demanding opening scene and intentionally grainy quality.

The opening night-time scene is incredibly dark, with some details on the house's porch that are visible on rival sets coming across as completely black. Falling snow lacks some definition and all but disappears when it hits the darkest part of the picture.

Things pick up in a brighter town scene, but the SDR performance doesn’t quite have the dynamic range we would like, and some aspects, including some characters’ rather magnificent beards, still lack the definition we experience on the competitor sets we are testing it against.

This doesn’t mean the Z90B is bad at upscaling – colours remain accurate and the picture is more than watchable and still blissfully free of artefacts – it’s just one area where it definitely isn’t this year’s class leader.

Sound

The Z90B comes with a “Dynamic Theatre Surround Pro” speaker system that Panasonic markets as being bespoke-designed for audiophiles looking for a true Dolby Atmos experience.

Despite this, it's a basic 60W, 2.1 arrangement. There are no up-firing drivers. The subwoofer is housed on the TV’s back, while the two front-facing speakers are bolted onto the set’s bottom.

Does it deliver an audiophile experience? No. But, being fair to Panasonic, the Z90B does easily outclass every other 48-inch OLED we have tested this year in terms of audio.

There’s a sense of direction as gunfire flies left and right across the screen during Civil War. There is also noticeably more low-end heft and volume, with the explosions offering some rumble, even at moderate volumes.

Switching to Oppenheimer, the set offers reasonable separation between background noises and characters’ voices, making it easy to follow conversations even during scenes with heavy low-end background noise.

But the system is still not perfect, and can’t match the quality of a moderately capable soundbar, including our recommended Sonos Beam (Gen 2).

The subwoofer adds heft, but the unit isn’t precise enough. The thundering fighter jets of our Top Gun: Maverick test disc sound too flabby, with the sonic boom lacking the precise impact it deserves.

Higher-level engine noises show the front drivers are a little underpowered, with distortion creeping in and the upper frequencies taking on an acidic, unpleasant tone – especially at high volumes.

Having said all that, the end result is still the best audio performance you’ll find on an OLED this size – but it’s still one that falls short of what we can describe as truly immersive.

Verdict

Thanks to its ongoing focus on colour accuracy and delivering an “as the director intended” experience rather than razzmatazz, the 48-inch Panasonic Z90B is the best TV at its size that we have tested.

From sparkling desert dunes in sci-fi epics to cars thundering across a race track and heated conversations behind closed doors, every scene we threw at this set looked wonderfully authentic and weighty.

If you want a 48-inch OLED TV and value cinematic authenticity, the Panasonic Z90B is currently the one to get.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the 48-inch Samsung S90F

Also consider the 48-inch LG C5

Read our 55-inch LG C5 review

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