Panasonic Z85A vs Haier M95E

The Panasonic Z85A is an OLED television, so you can expect great effects in movies right away. And indeed – our tests show that the WOLED panel can achieve around 800 nits of peak brightness in optimal conditions. This is a solid result that performs well in most demanding HDR scenes, allowing you to enjoy a dynamic and detailed image. However, like every OLED, the Z85A has its limits. In very bright scenes that cover the entire screen – like the final sequence from the movie The Meg – the television reduces brightness to about 400 nits. This is standard behavior for this technology, so if someone plans to watch movies in a brightly lit living room, it's worth keeping this in mind. The coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut at 98% also deserves a big plus. As a result, the television delivers a wide range of colors that stand out with vibrancy and depth, and details in HDR scenes are sharp and precise. In short – the Panasonic Z85A provides a solid HDR effect that will satisfy any movie enthusiast.

If there is one category in which the Haier M95E undoubtedly shines, it is the HDR effect, driven by the raw power of the backlighting. This TV cannot be denied that it is a truly bright device. Both in most movie scenes and during our synthetic measurements, the panel easily achieved and often even exceeded the threshold of 1200-1500 nits. This directly translates to the viewing experience – the image has a striking impact and truly allows you to feel the magic of materials recorded in this format. However, one must be aware of a certain compromise. When particularly demanding scenes filled with small, yet intense bright spots appear on the screen, the M95E does not lose its punch nor dims, but it pays a different price for it. A very strong and noticeably distracting halo effect is generated around these bright elements. It is evident here that the algorithms controlling the dimming have been programmed to prioritize brightness and visibility of the smallest details, even if this comes at the cost of flawless black levels. We are not entirely convinced that this is the healthiest approach; however, it must be acknowledged that the overall capabilities of the M95E in this regard are quite substantial. A significant advantage is the fact that we are dealing with a Mini LED QLED construction. The use of a quantum dot layer brings tangible benefits in the form of wide color gamut coverage, which in our tests reached almost 96% of the DCI-P3 color space. This guarantees that the television has full predispositions to display vibrant and appropriately saturated colors.

The Panasonic Z85A offers many picture modes, but the Filmmaker mode definitely stands out from the rest. It is rare for a television to be so well-tuned straight out of the box, and the unit we had the opportunity to test really impressed us positively.

However, there were some minor shortcomings. In the SDR signal, we noticed a slight deficiency in red and blue colors, which made the image have a cooler shade than it should. This is particularly evident in the comparative photo. Conversely, in 4K HDR materials, the situation was the opposite – the excess of red made the image seem warmer than the creators intended. In terms of brightness characteristics (gamma) and maintaining the appropriate EOTF curve, it is hard to find fault. There are some minor deviations, but they are so minimal that the average viewer is unlikely to notice them.

It is also worth emphasizing that our observations pertain to a specific unit of the television. Two identical models can differ from each other due to natural production variations. Nevertheless, the unit we had in hand is really solid and deserves praise. Now it's time for our calibration – we'll see if we can squeeze even more from this screen!

We evaluate every television primarily based on its default cinema mode – in this case "Film" – which theoretically should be the "best" and most accurate right out of the box. Unfortunately, with the Haier M95E, the word "best" is absolutely not synonymous with the word "good." Even during SDR viewing, the picture revealed obvious issues: white balance skewed too much towards red, and excessive, unnatural color saturation led to visible color deviations. Worse still, the M95E also has trouble managing brightness (gamma curve), excessively darkening the entire scene. Such behavior is hard to commend, as it directly causes details in the shadows to blend into a black blob, which are irretrievably lost.

However, the real disaster struck after switching to HDR material while still remaining in "Film" mode. It's hard to guess who came up with such a fantastic idea – or perhaps it was simply a complete oversight of this stage by Haier's engineers – but the image, instead of cinema fidelity, began to resemble the bright "Dynamic" mode. The white balance exposed huge issues with the blue color, which in turn resulted in unnatural sharpening and artificial oversaturation of the entire scene. As if that weren't enough, the EOTF curve characteristics ruthlessly revealed that the television also has fundamental problems with local dimming management in this setting. We haven't calibrated many Haiers in our career, but we know for sure now that the M95E definitely needs it.

The Panasonic Z85A offers truly wide possibilities when it comes to image settings, so we enthusiastically set about calibration. Although we mainly focused on white balance correction, the final effect exceeded our expectations. Both HD and 4K HDR content now present nearly perfect color reproduction, with minimal errors that are difficult to catch with the naked eye. Well-calibrated televisions are rare, and we must admit – it is truly gratifying. Although gamma and EOTF curve did not require drastic adjustments, we managed to further stabilize their characteristics across the entire brightness scale. After calibration, the Panasonic Z85A is a true gem for home cinema enthusiasts. The image is precise, colors are natural, and every scene looks exactly as the director intended.

The calibration process left us with extremely mixed feelings. On one hand, we noted significant success in the area of colorimetry. Utilizing the options available in the menu, we managed to tame the white balance and bring it down to an acceptable level. As a result, SDR content was finally freed from the annoying red dominance, and the HDR image no longer resembled a vibrant, store demonstration mode. The entire color palette and its saturation were also clearly corrected – perhaps not perfectly, but to the extent that the software allowed, and the difference was visible to the naked eye.

Unfortunately, this is where our list of corrections basically ends, as M95E simply did not allow for more. As we indicated earlier, most settings related to image brightness do not respond to our commands at all. This means we were unable to control its fundamental characteristics in any way – neither the gamma curve nor the EOTF. In practice, the television in SDR content still tends to darken details, which was confirmed by the inflated gamma, merging details in the shadows. On the other hand, the EOTF curve in HDR mode still mercilessly exposed all the previously mentioned issues with chaotic local dimming zone management. And while the calibration process itself yielded quite a lot, removing most of the color issues, ultimately we had to capitulate.

Now that we know how the Panasonic Z85A handles tonal transitions in 4K materials, it's time to look at its "Gradation Smoothing" feature. It works, but unfortunately not entirely effectively. Regardless of the selected value – whether low, medium, or high – we were unable to achieve perfectly smooth tonal transitions in our test sequence. We recommend setting this feature to an intermediate level. While it may slightly blur fine details, it at least avoids the problem of losing film grain, which can be crucial for many viewers when watching classic productions.

When it comes to image scaling, the television performs quite well. It is evident that the image is slightly sharpened, and thin lines can sometimes appear somewhat jagged. However, this is standard in most televisions and fortunately, it can be adjusted using the sharpness slider. This gives us full control – we can achieve a more plastic, blurred image or a clearer one, though more "harsh" and artificially sharp. It all depends on the user’s preferences and the type of content we are watching. Overall, the scaling is at a solid level and should satisfy most users who are using lower resolution materials.

Well, what happens with those color transitions when lower quality material full of compression artifacts comes on screen? Unfortunately, we have some bad news for you. Although we can find an option in the menu responsible for smoothing tonal transitions in older content, we definitely DO NOT RECOMMEND using it. Its activation causes a barrage of additional, ugly artifacts, noticeably blurring the entire image, and the funniest part – it often doesn’t even remove those unwanted “stairs” it was supposed to fight against. This feature might as well not exist at all.

We can write many more positive things about the overall upscaling, which is the process of raising lower resolutions to the native 4K matrix. The image after upscaling looks really good – it's neither overly jagged nor artificially smoothed. In this particular matter, the M95E simply delivers.

The Panasonic Z85A has a 120 Hz panel, which will surely please both gamers and sports fans. Sure, it's not 144 Hz like some gaming TVs, but in practice, the difference is really hard to notice. In games, the image is stable and clear, and during fast action, there's no sign of any motion blur. The same goes for sports – a quick run by a soccer player or a dynamic car maneuver looks smooth and natural. The TV also has an "Intelligent Frame Creation" feature, which is a motion smoother. There are two sliders – one for reducing motion blur and the other for motion smoothness. With these, you can adjust the picture to your personal preferences – whether you prefer a more cinematic effect with gentle transitions between frames or a maximally smooth image perfect for watching sports.

When it comes to motion fluidity and ghosting, our feelings are quite mixed because the M95E is a paradoxical television. Let’s start with the absolute delights: the heart of the device is a 144Hz panel, but what truly impresses is its performance with 120Hz content, which is crucial for sports and console gaming. We must state with full responsibility that Haier has equipped the television with one of the best VA panels currently available on the market when it comes to minimizing ghosting. It is rare to encounter an LCD panel that offers such clean, sharp, and ghost-free motion. In this respect, the M95E is simply phenomenal.

And this is exactly why the unpleasant surprise waiting for us on the software side is so painful. It turns out that this fantastic hardware potential is completely untapped, as the television practically offers no functioning options for improving fluidity. The smoothing systems, which should assist with lower frame rate content, can indeed be found in the Menu but essentially do not respond to our settings. The conclusion is brutally simple: if you intend to watch high fluidity material, you must be sure that the source is transmitting it natively at 120. In every other case, you must resign yourself to a rather raw, choppy image because the M95E will not help smooth it out in any way.

Panasonic is mainly associated with home cinema televisions, but the Z85A shows that it can also enter the gaming world with a really strong punch. This is equipment that can easily be called a gaming beast - it has everything needed for comfortable gameplay.

Even though we only have two HDMI 2.1 ports, both operate at full bandwidth, so we can easily connect both a next-gen console and a gaming PC. All key features are supported: ALLM automatically switches the TV to game mode, VRR ensures smooth images without stuttering and tearing, and with properly implemented HGIG and Dolby Vision, HDR games look really good - colors are vivid, details clear, and dark scenes readable. There is also a Game Bar in the form of a clear, circular menu. It may not look as impressive as with the competition, but it is intuitive and contains all the most important settings that we would like to have at hand during gaming.

In summary - the Panasonic Z85A is equipment that really surprises with its gaming capabilities. It is a television where both console gamers and PC gamers will feel at home. It's smooth, dynamic, and simply good.

When it comes to features for gamers, the Haier M95E presents some really strong arguments. First of all, it is fully ready for the new generation of consoles and powerful PCs. It is equipped with two full-fledged HDMI 2.1 ports, which handle 4K signals at 120Hz effortlessly and even allow for gaming at 144Hz. This is a foundation that guarantees us full utilization of the potential of our equipment. Moreover, the key technologies work flawlessly here. The television accurately detects the console and automatically switches to low latency mode (ALLM), so we don’t have to dig into the settings. The frame synchronization (VRR) also works smoothly, eliminating the annoying tearing of the image when the game's fluidity slightly drops. Considering the remarkably low motion blur of the panel, which we have already mentioned, the M95E creates a truly comfortable and responsive gaming environment. Of course, this is not a perfect package. A dedicated "Game Bar," which would be a handy menu for gamers, would be a nice addition, but in essence, it is just a nice extra. A more serious shortcoming is the lack of support for the HGiG standard, which complicates the ideal HDR configuration on the console and can lead to overexposures. Despite these shortcomings, the basic "gaming package" offered by the M95E is really solid and fully functional.