Panasonic W85 vs SHARP JP7765E

Unfortunately, we do not have good news here. The Panasonic W85B is rather dim – its peak brightness does not exceed 300 nits, so it’s hard to talk about any true HDR effect. In practice, this means that scenes which can “shine” and make an impression on other screens simply look like ordinary SDR with a slight boost in colours here. Our measurements and film tests confirmed this – regardless of the content, the W85B will not extract anything more from HDR. Therefore, if someone is looking for a television specifically for HDR, it is better to look towards other models. As consolation, the fact remains that in terms of colours, the W85B performs quite well. It is a QLED television, so its colour gamut coverage is wide, and most films and series look natural, without a distinct “washed-out” effect. The colours are saturated, so in everyday viewing, there is no sense that something is strongly amiss.

So how does the brightness of the Sharp JP7 fare in the most demanding titles? Honestly, at first, we were quite surprised. The television is capable of achieving over 1000 nits of brightness, which is an outstanding and rare result for a device costing just under 2000 PLN (for 55 inches). Watching bright, full-screen scenes, one might feel they are dealing with really good equipment. Unfortunately, though, we have to return to the problem we mentioned earlier regarding local dimming management. When small bright areas appear on a dark background (as in the test scenes from the films Life of Pi or Sicario 2), it is evident how poorly the JP7 handles zones. The television dims them almost to the maximum, crushing the entire HDR effect, which in such moments resembles a flat SDR image (less than 200 nits). This instability means that in demanding, contrast-heavy films, the image on the JP7 unfortunately loses its appeal.

As a consolation, it is worth noting that the panel has the potential for good colour display. It features a PFS (phosphor) filter, which allows for a solid 94% coverage of the DCI-P3 palette. The manufacturer calls its product a “QLED,” even though it is primarily based on the aforementioned PFS filter. Given the recent market battles of manufacturers over what may or may not be called QLED, we leave the question of the correctness of this naming to your assessment. However, it remains a fact that the potential for reproducing saturated colours in this panel is simply good.

When testing the Panasonic W85B, we obviously started with Filmmaker mode, as this is today’s gold standard when it comes to watching content “as the director intended.” The problem is that this television is quite far from those intentions. The biggest issue turned out to be an excess of red – both in SDR and HDR. The image often appeared too warm because of this, and in some scenes, it was almost “blazing.” Additionally, there is the issue of brightness management. When we looked at the gamma or EOTF charts, it was clear as day that in most scenes, the television brightens the image more than it should. The effect was simply predictable. Details can get lost, there is flattening, and highlights are blown out across the entire screen. We know, of course, how to correct this, but it must be said honestly that it requires a lot of work during calibration. Out of the box, the W85B does not provide a picture close to reference – it is rather a television that will always interpret colours and brightness a little “in its own way” without professional adjustments. Unfortunately, this is to the viewer’s detriment.

When it comes to out-of-the-box colours, the Sharp JP7 was tested in Film mode, which traditionally offers the most consistent image compared to the yellowed “Eco” mode or the glaring blue of the “Dynamic” mode. Although this is the best choice among the available settings, the results are still far from ideal. The white balance clearly lacked red and blue components, causing many scenes to take on an unnatural greenish tint. Another issue was the gamma – during full-screen scenes, the television provides excessive brightness, which completely diminishes its cinematic character. All of this resulted in colour reproduction errors, especially in shades of grey, which exceeded a value of Delta E 10. For reference: errors above 2-3 are already visible to the human eye, so we are dealing with a significant distortion of reality here.

In HDR mode, the situation is reversed, but not any better. Here, the blue colour dominates the white balance, which gives the image an unnatural, almost “retail” sharpness, reminiscent of aggressive demonstration modes. Furthermore, measurements of the EOTF curve emphasise the retail character of the image. The graph clearly shows that the television generates an image significantly brighter than the standards predict, resulting in an artificially boosted and unrealistic final effect. The Sharp JP7 is evidently trying to appear stronger than it actually is, but it does so at the cost of fidelity to the content.

Fortunately, calibration made a significant difference for the Panasonic W85B, particularly in SDR content. Here, the improvement was really noticeable – we managed to balance the whites and somewhat tame the tendency of the television to excessively brighten the entire image. The picture became more coherent, and the colours gained a naturalness that was lacking in the factory settings. Admittedly, the results from the Color Checker are not perfect, as the W85B has visible issues with green saturation, but overall, we evaluate the post-calibration effect in SDR very positively. The situation is a bit different with HDR. Here too, we managed to reduce the tendency to warm up the entire scene, so the image performed significantly better than in the factory settings. However, the same issue we mentioned earlier is still evident – the television interprets the image too much "on its own" and brightens the entire screen. The lack of local dimming only exacerbates this effect. In summary, briefly in SDR content, the W85B performs really well after calibration and is more than suitable for daily viewing. However, in HDR, even after adjustments, it remains difficult to unequivocally recommend it for serious viewing sessions.

We subjected the JP7 to our standard calibration procedure and really... the television gained a new lease of life thanks to it, particularly with SDR content (YouTube, classic television, series, or older films). As a result of our precise adjustment of the white balance and stabilisation of the gamma, colour errors fell to a value of below 3. This is a level at which the human eye has difficulty detecting distortions. In this scenario, the Sharp JP7 delivers an image with truly excellent colour precision, which is a significant advantage in this price class. However, content with HDR turned out to be much more problematic. Here, despite our efforts and interventions in the settings, the television simply would not cooperate. In the JP7 menu, we don't find any option that would allow for real control over brightness management (EOTF). Although a significant portion of the colour errors was reduced, the image still remained unnaturally oversaturated. It's a bit of a shame, as the potential of the mini-LED backlit panel is great, but the software presents a clear barrier here.

The conclusion is simple: when watching less demanding content (SDR) on the JP7, you can expect an image that is more than satisfactory, but in HDR, you must come to terms with a certain degree of "artificiality" that cannot be circumvented even with professional equipment.

With native SDR content, the Panasonic W85B performs very well – tonal transitions are smooth and natural, without artificial bands or prominent contours. However, the situation is worse when it comes to lower resolution materials. It is precisely there that the television has the most difficulty with "enhancing" the image. The lack of any option in the menu that would allow for improving gradation means that with older films or materials from YouTube, one can sometimes notice slight issues with colour blending.

Fortunately, upscaling, or raising the quality of lower resolution content, performs much better. This is definitely a strong point of this model – the image is scaled cleanly and in detail, and the television handles this better than one might expect from such an inexpensive piece of equipment. This is thanks to the HCX processor, which Panasonic has been developing for years, and it is noticeable that even in the lower series it can do a good job.

In the case of lower quality materials and how the Sharp JP7 handles them, the situation is ambiguous. Let's start with the upscaling itself – here we have no major objections. The process of scaling the image to a higher resolution is correct; the picture remains readable and sharp, without the overscan effect, meaning no cropped edges. Of course, it is not at the level of top models, and at times one can notice slight jaggedness on the contours, but in this price range, the effect is fully acceptable.

However, the actual digital image processing performs significantly worse, which, apart from the upscaling, effectively does not exist. In the JP7 menu, we will not find any option that would effectively smooth out unwanted tonal transitions or reduce noise in the image. As a result, the signal reaches the panel in a very raw form, which, with heavily compressed materials (e.g. from YouTube), leads to visible posterisation. Either it is a flaw in the software or a very strange design decision, because in earlier Sharp models this function was available and, crucially, worked with noticeable effect. Here, we are left to deal with whatever the source provides us, without any digital support from the image processor.

At first glance, everything looks good – the Panasonic W85B has a 120 Hz panel and even a 144 Hz mode, so it seems that it should cope well with smooth motion. The problem arises when we look into the settings. The options for improving fluidity are supposedly present in the menu, but in practice… they don't change anything. No matter what we choose, the image looks the same. On top of that, there is a lack of BFI, or the black frame insertion mode, which on many televisions helps sharpen motion. And suddenly it turns out that despite the strong panel, the W85B offers us no real tools to adjust motion according to our needs. It’s only good when the source itself operates at a higher frequency – for example, games at 120 Hz. But when it comes to films or sports, we simply have to accept what the television shows us, because nothing more can be done about it.

The motion fluidity on the Sharp JP7 is quite mediocre, and the reason is simple: the television uses a 60Hz panel. This instantly makes it difficult to recommend for watching sports or serious gaming, where higher refresh rates are already the standard. The only real plus is the presence of a smoothness feature, which we can control in films using a slider called De-judder. Lower settings provide a more raw, "cinematic" (framey) image, while higher settings add artificial smoothness. We suggest setting it somewhere in the middle of the scale, that is in the range of 3-5 – this is the best compromise to avoid the soap opera effect while also eliminating the tiring stuttering of the image. Interestingly, in the menu, we also find a "motion blur removal" slider, which usually indicates the presence of a 120Hz panel. However, with the JP7, it does not enhance the image at all and serves rather as a dummy – it is meant to look good in the settings, but technically it has no right to operate on this panel.

On paper, the Panasonic W85B looks really solid. It has two full HDMI 2.1 ports, support for ALLM, variable refresh rates, Dolby Vision in games, and of course, a high refresh rate of the panel itself. Additionally, it features Panasonic's characteristic game tools bar – a "game bar" that allows you to preview key parameters and quickly change them if needed with a single click. This sounds great, but the problem arises when we turn on HDR. Here, the W85B suffers significantly, as there is practically no HGiG implementation – the television poorly manages brightness, and instead of an accurate picture, we get scenes that are too bright, sometimes even blown out. The solution? The simplest one – turn off HDR in the console settings and leave everything in SDR. And this is where it gets really interesting, as in this scenario, the W85B shows its better side. Low input lag, high fluidity thanks to 120 Hz – all of this makes gaming look phenomenal. Indeed, HDR can be forgone, but if the priority is responsiveness and smooth gameplay, the W85B offers a lot of fun.

As we mentioned earlier, the 60Hz panel is not a feature that will attract gamers to the Sharp JP7. Perhaps for the casual player, whose console still generates most titles at 60 frames per second, there might be something interesting? When it comes to specific additions, we find here:

• ALLM Mode: Automatically switches the television to low latency game mode (input lag).

• Game Menu: Which is hard to call a full-fledged “Game Bar,” as the functionality here is minimal. Aside from enabling ALLM, there’s only a game-specific motion smoother which we recommend avoiding as it introduces very noticeable artifacts and worsens responsiveness.

• Dolby Vision Gaming: For Microsoft consoles.

Unfortunately, the list of shortcomings is significantly longer and more painful than the positives. The biggest disappointment is the lack of support for 120Hz, even when reducing the resolution to Full HD. The presence of 120Hz would allow for performance modes to be activated in many games on PS5 or Xbox Series X. Another shortcoming is VRR, which means that during frame drops, we are exposed to screen tearing. The lack of proper implementation of the HGiG standard is also very problematic. This results in the fact that during HDR calibration in the console menu, it is very easy to "overshoot" the brightness settings. As a result, instead of clear details in the highlights, we end up with an unnaturally over-bright image with cut-off details. Sharp JP7 is a proposition solely for very casual gamers.