Panasonic Z95B vs Haier K85F

The HDR effect quality in the Panasonic Z95B is among the absolute best. Thanks to the latest generation panel, named Primary RGB Tandem OLED by the manufacturer, the television can achieve over 2000 nits of brightness in movie scenes. The effect is impressive and can amaze with its intensity of light, giving a sense of contact with the screen that goes beyond previous experiences. Similar feelings were only experienced during tests of the LG G5, Samsung S95F, or Philips OLED910. Of course, there are moments when the device's algorithms decide to limit luminance – this especially applies to full-screen bright sequences, such as the ending credits in the movie The Meg. Even then, the Z95B maintains a level of around 1500 nits, which is still an extremely impressive result. Thus, it can be said that HDR in this model has been brought to a masterful form. A significant step forward is also visible in the reproduction of the colour palette. The new tandem OLED panel does not yet match the best QD-OLED screens in terms of gamut coverage, but the gap between these solutions has significantly decreased. When watching films, the differences are subtle enough that under normal conditions it's hard to notice them, and the colours remain vibrant and saturated.

Let’s now move on to one of the hottest topics in the world of televisions, which is the quality of HDR performance. In the case of the Haier K85F model, we unfortunately have to make it clear: if you’re looking for equipment to watch content in a wide dynamic range, you should steer clear of this model. The main issue is its very low peak brightness, which during our tests barely reached 250 nits. To give you a better idea of what that means – this level is fine for watching standard SDR content, but it’s absolutely insufficient to show any real benefits of HDR. The image simply doesn’t have the "power" to generate bright, striking highlights. All of our measurements and tests on specialised test patterns confirmed this. As if that wasn’t enough, the television also struggles with colour reproduction. In this budget build, there are no technologies that broaden the colour gamut, such as quantum dot layers (marketed as "QLED"). As a result, the coverage of the DCI-P3 colour space, which is crucial for HDR content, is only around 80%. In practice, this means that the image will not only be dark but also devoid of the vibrant, saturated colours that the director wanted to show us.

The factory colour reproduction in Filmmaker mode, my dear friends, is a true phenomenon in the case of the Panasonic Z95B. I'm talking about our test sample, but the results were so good that it's hard to believe. The only detail that one could nitpick is a slight lack of blue in the white balance, but apart from that, the television straight out of the box presented an image like we have never seen in factory mode. Colour palette tests, Color Checker – everything indicated values below Delta 2. This is a much lower result than the threshold of human eye perception, which means, to put it simply, that the viewer has no chance of noticing serious deviations. It looks as if Panasonic actually calibrated this model at the factory stage. Of course, we cannot exclude the possibility that we got an exceptionally well-set specimen, but the result still makes a stunning impression. We are very strict when it comes to assessing factory calibration, and here our jaws simply dropped.

Alright, how does the television handle colours straight out of the box, without any intervention from our side? The Haier K85F offers a whole range of picture modes, such as Dynamic or Eco, but for anyone wanting to watch films according to the creators' intentions, there's essentially only one that matters: Film mode. This is where we focused our tests, and unfortunately, its name has little to do with reality. The picture on factory settings is very far from what we could call cinematic fidelity and requires many adjustments. Let's start with the white balance, which has a clear deficiency of red colour. In practice, this means the entire image has a cool, bluish tint. Even worse is the issue of brightness management, that is, the gamma curves (for SDR) and EOTF (for HDR). Their graph resembles a true rollercoaster, which terribly impacts the viewing experience. This results in unnatural dimming of SDR content, causing details in the shadows to be lost, and in the case of HDR – an excessive brightening that further exacerbates the problem of clipping. Such a combination, which consists of too cool white combined with chaotic brightness and too much blue colour saturation, leads to enormous errors in colour reproduction. Our measurements on a specialist ColourChecker chart showed errors (Delta E) regularly reaching and exceeding values of 8-9. To put it simply: errors above the threshold of 3 are easily noticeable to the naked eye, so such a result means that the colours on the screen are simply heavily distorted.

The colour reproduction after calibration on the Z95B is a topic that’s hard to elaborate on, as there wasn’t much to do here. A slight adjustment of the white balance was enough to eliminate the lack of blue, and at that moment, the picture jumped to an almost reference level. It must be said that we haven’t had such a small range of adjustments in a long time. If any of you are particularly perceptive, you might notice minimal deviations in the EOTF curve, but this is more related to the functioning of the dynamic tone mapping feature we mentioned earlier. In reality, this isn’t a flaw, but a characteristic of this solution, which intentionally alters the brightness profile depending on the scene. In summary, we are extremely impressed. The Panasonic Z95B is a television that looks great right out of the box, and after calibration, it reaches a level where we really struggle to find anything to improve.

No good, but can anything be done about this picture? Is professional calibration able to save the situation? The answer is both yes and no. It needs to be said clearly that there are certain things we cannot overcome. The limitations of the construction itself, namely a poor panel and its narrow colour coverage, mean that you can forget about a sensible HDR effect – we won't be pulling the wool over your eyes on that. The biggest beneficiary of our adjustments is undoubtedly the SDR mode, and it is for watching such content, after calibration, that this television starts to make sense. We managed to tame the white balance in our own way. Although the television only offers basic, 2-point adjustment (rather than precise, 20-point), it's not perfect, but we successfully eliminated that unpleasant, cold "chill" in the picture. Above all, though, we noted a huge improvement in brightness management. The gamma curve, which previously resembled a rollercoaster, looks like an almost perfectly straight line after calibration. This is a sign that the television can finally display an image without artificially dimming or brightening it. The conclusion is simple: even with such a cheap television, professional setting correction can achieve a great deal and extract the maximum potential from it.

Let's start with what works well. The upscaling in the Z95B is at a very high level – the image in lower resolutions is clear and sharp, and the only minor shortcomings are slight banding in some areas of the picture. It's also important that the television doesn't crop the material in any way and maintains its proportions, which is not always an obvious fact even in 2025.

The situation looks worse when it comes to digital processing. Features like "gradation smoothing" or "block noise reduction" essentially do not work – the tested material looked identical regardless of the settings. We might as well say that this feature simply doesn't exist. It's a bit disappointing, especially since Panasonic heavily promotes its HCX Pro AI II processor, boasting the presence of artificial intelligence improving image quality. Meanwhile, in such a basic matter, the television does not deliver a real effect and it looks weaker than one would expect from top-tier equipment.

Let’s move on to digital processing and image scaling, specifically how the Haier K85F handles lower resolution signals, such as from regular television. Right off the bat, we encounter an incredibly annoying and completely incomprehensible issue – the overscan is enabled by default. This means the television artificially enlarges the image, cutting off its edges on every source, even 1080p. To see the full frame, you have to dig into the screen settings each time and manually switch the format to "stretch to 16:9." It's a minor detail, but devilishly frustrating. The scaling of content to 4K resolution can be described in one word: acceptable. And that's about it. The image processor doesn't strip detail from the image, nor does it generate jagged edges or other artifacts. It simply does its job, without any bells and whistles. It’s alright, but nothing more. The most significant and noticeable shortcoming in the digital processing section is, however, the absence of a tone transition smoothing feature. This is an algorithm that could significantly reduce the annoying banding effect we mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, the manufacturer did not foresee such a solution, condemning us to watch the imperfections of the panel and low-quality material in all their glory.

The OLED panel with very high refresh rates already provides an incredibly sharp image even in dynamic sports scenes, such as football or basketball matches, and the Z95B is no exception. It's also very important that the television is equipped with the proprietary motion smoothing system 'Intelligent Frame Creation'. Among the available sliders, the most crucial one turns out to be the one called 'film smoothness', as it allows for adjusting the motion to personal preferences with 24-frame content, meaning films – from a more 'choppy' appearance to a smooth, almost theatrical effect. It's a bit disappointing that Panasonic didn't opt to push the latest OLED panel to 165 Hz, as Samsung did with the S95F or LG with the G5, because we know that the panel is technically capable of it. On the other hand, it mainly benefits PC gamers, so in everyday viewing, it's not a significant drawback as we are limited to 120Hz.

The panel in the K85F model operates at a native refresh rate of 60 Hz, which sets certain expectations for image smoothness right from the start. However, we must admit that we were very positively surprised when we found two separate motion control sliders in the settings menu: one labelled "Motion Blur Reduction" and the other "De-Judder." Such generosity in this price segment is an absolute rarity, as manufacturers usually offer at most one shared option. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm faded as quickly as it appeared. It soon became clear why Haier was so "generous" – the slider responsible for reducing motion blur is simply a decoy. Sliding it makes absolutely no visible difference on the screen, so only one of the two options works.

The Panasonic Z95B is fully equipped for gaming. Two HDMI 2.1 ports with a full bandwidth of 48 Gb/s guarantee support for everything you can expect from a modern screen. It features VRR frame syncing, an automatic game mode (ALLM), and full compatibility with HDR formats used in gaming. The TV supports both Dolby Vision for Xbox and the popular HGiG, which in this case has been implemented correctly, so it actually works as it should.

Although the brand is mainly associated with home cinema and equipment for filmmakers, there’s also space for gamer conveniences here. Onboard is the Game Bar (or rather Game Circles) – it looks a bit unusual visually, but it does its job and allows you to quickly check the most important image parameters. The only thing missing for complete satisfaction is actually having four HDMI 2.1 ports instead of two. It’s a minor detail, but with a TV of this class, one could expect a full set.

Let’s move on to the features for gamers, although we must point out straight away that this is more of a proposal for the "occasional" ones. The manufacturer does boast in the specifications about having HDMI 2.1 ports, which looks impressive on paper, but in reality, it’s largely a marketing ploy. What good is a modern port when the heart of the television is a panel with a refresh rate of 60 Hz? It physically cannot display a signal at 120 frames per second, even at lower resolutions, which takes away HDMI 2.1’s key advantage. What a shame. (That’s why in our tests we note this as HDMI 2.0 ports). Another odd issue is the TV's response to an attempt to calibrate HDR from the console. Changes to brightness settings result in very unnatural image behaviour, which could suggest incorrect implementation of the HGiG standard. To be honest, one shouldn’t worry too much about this, as we have repeatedly mentioned, we simply do not recommend using any HDR content on this screen. However, to counterbalance the negatives, the Haier K85F does have two big and unexpected advantages. The first is the presence of ALLM, or automatic game mode, which switches the TV to low latency mode as soon as it detects a connected console. The second, even bigger surprise, is support for VRR, or variable refresh rate. While it operates within a very modest range of 48-60 Hz, its mere presence is commendable. Thanks to this, the image in games can “tear” less, which realistically improves the gaming experience.