Panasonic Z95B vs Samsung S85H

The quality of HDR in the Panasonic Z95B belongs to the absolute elite. Thanks to the latest generation panel, named by the manufacturer Primary RGB Tandem OLED, the television can achieve over 2000 nits of brightness in movie scenes. The effect is impressive and can amaze with the intensity of light, giving a sense of contact with the screen that goes beyond previous experiences. Similar sensations accompanied us only 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 closing credits in the movie The Meg. Even then, the Z95B maintains a level of around 1500 nits, which is still a result that makes a huge impression. One can say that HDR in this model has been brought to a masterful form. A significant step forward is also visible in the reproduction of the color palette. The new tandem OLED panel does not yet match the best QD-OLED screens in terms of full gamut coverage, but the gap between these solutions has significantly narrowed. When watching movies, the differences are subtle enough that it's hard to notice them under normal conditions, and the colors remain vivid and saturated.

Interestingly, the new WOLED SE panel has brought a slight improvement in brightness to the S85 series. In the same movie scenes the previous year's model stayed closer to about 700 nits, while the S85H can reach around 800 nits. Of course this isn't a change that completely transforms the HDR experience, but that extra headroom is noticeable especially with small highlights, reflections, and stronger special effects. Around 800 nits is already a very good result for an entry-level OLED and in most films it's enough for HDR to have the right impact. Bright elements can clearly stand out from perfect black, and that contrast still does most of the heavy lifting here. You should remember the typical limitation of organic technology, though. When a very bright scene covers a large part of the screen, brightness can drop by almost half. This is the result of the panel's protection mechanisms, which limit its power with large bright areas.

Colors

The S85H can produce very pleasant, saturated colors and in most HDR films it looks really good in that respect. We measured roughly 95% DCI-P3 coverage, so the palette most often used in movies is reproduced to a very large degree. Skin tones, greens, and stronger reds still have appropriate intensity, and during normal viewing it's hard to fault them. Only when you look more broadly at BT.2020 do the limitations of the new WOLED SE panel become apparent. Coverage was around 70%, a bit less than in previous-generation WOLEDs and noticeably less than in QD-OLED panels. In films this isn't a major loss, because most productions rarely use such highly saturated colors. You notice it more often in games, where developers are much more likely to employ more intense colors.

The factory color reproduction in Filmmaker mode, my friends, is a true phenomenon in the case of the Panasonic Z95B. I'm talking about our test unit, but the result was so good that it's hard to believe. The only detail to nitpick is a slight lack of blue in the white balance, but other than that, the television, right out of the box, displayed an image like we've never seen in factory mode. Color palette tests, Color Checker – everything pointed to values below Delta 2. This is a much lower result than the threshold of human eye perception, which means, quite frankly, that the viewer stands no chance of noticing serious deviations. It looks as if Panasonic really calibrated this model at the factory stage. Of course, we cannot rule out that we got an exceptionally well-set unit, but the result is still impressive. We are very strict in our assessments of factory calibration, and here our jaws simply dropped.

To evaluate color we, of course, selected Filmmaker mode, and in SDR our S85H unit was very well calibrated out of the box. The biggest deviation appears in the white balance, where a bit of blue drops out as brightness increases. In practice this means whites and grays have a slightly warmer tint than they should. It's not a major error and during normal viewing it generally isn't very noticeable. Gamma also stays close to the reference value, so the image is neither overly bright nor unnecessarily dim. The S85H's SDR picture quality is therefore very good straight out of the box. A few more imperfections show up in HDR. Here the white balance shifts more as brightness increases, with blue becoming dominant and the red component noticeably lacking. That also leads to larger errors in some colors. These aren't yet distortions that completely change the character of the image, but compared directly with the reference the difference is easier to spot. Overall, Filmmaker mode is a very good starting point before professional calibration.

The color reproduction after calibration in the Z95B is a topic that is difficult to elaborate on for long because there simply wasn't much to be done 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. I must admit that we haven't had such a small scope of work in a long time. If any of you are particularly observant, you might notice minimal deviations in the EOTF curve, but this is more related to the operation of the dynamic tone mapping function that we mentioned earlier. Really, this is not a flaw, but rather a feature of this solution, which intentionally changes the brightness characteristic depending on the scene. In summary, we are extremely impressed. The Panasonic Z95B is a television that already looks great right out of the box, and after calibration, it reaches a level where it is really hard for us to find anything to improve.

Calibration yields very good results on the S85H. First, the white balance can be set almost perfectly, which removes the slightly too-warm image cast that was visible earlier in SDR. Color reproduction itself also improves significantly; most errors drop to a very low level, and in everyday viewing it's hard to notice any visible inaccuracies. You can also improve a lot in HDR, although some issues remain due to the TV's inherent characteristics. The S85H doesn't always perfectly follow the brightness curve. The darkest areas are slightly boosted, and as you approach the panel's limits you can see small deviations in the brightest highlights. On top of that there's limited coverage of the wider BT.2020 gamut, which no calibration can of course overcome. Despite this, the end result is very good, and after calibration the S85H can deliver a well-tuned, natural image.

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

The situation is worse when it comes to digital processing. Features such as "gradation smoothing" or "block noise reduction" practically do not work – the tested material looked identical regardless of the settings. We might as well point out that this function simply doesn't exist. This is somewhat disappointing, especially since Panasonic strongly promotes its HCX Pro AI II processor, boasting of the presence of artificial intelligence that improves picture quality. Meanwhile, in such a basic matter, the television does not deliver a real effect and looks worse than one might expect from top-of-the-line equipment.

For the S85H, Samsung used the same proprietary NQ4 Gen2 AI processor as in last year’s S85F, and in terms of digital image processing it performs quite well. Upscaling is one of this model’s strengths. Lower-resolution content is well sharpened, edges look natural, and the image doesn’t feel overly artificial. Just bear in mind a common Samsung quirk: at very low resolutions you can’t completely disable overscan, so the TV may slightly crop the left edge of the image. The "noise reduction" function, which smooths weaker tonal transitions, also works very well. The processor can effectively remove posterization and other imperfections visible in lower-quality material. However, you need to be careful with the strength of this feature, because Samsung can be fairly aggressive here. When it’s enabled, along with unwanted artifacts, fine image details such as the texture of skin or clothing can start to disappear.

The OLED matrix with a very high refresh rate already provides an extremely sharp image even in dynamic sports scenes, such as soccer or basketball matches, and the Z95B is no exception. It's also very important that the television is equipped with the proprietary image smoothing system "Intelligent Frame Creation." Among the available sliders, the most important one turns out to be the one named "film smoothness," because it allows adjusting the motion to personal preferences when watching 24-frame material, that is, movies – from a more "frame-like" appearance to a smooth, almost theatrical effect. It's a bit of a shame that Panasonic did not choose to push the latest OLED matrix to 165 Hz, as Samsung did with the S95F or LG with the G5, because we know the panel is technically capable of it. On the other hand, this is mainly an advantage for PC gamers, so for everyday viewing this is not a significant drawback as we are limited to 120Hz.

The S85H uses an OLED panel, so it performs excellently when it comes to motion blur. Pixels respond virtually instantly, so moving objects don’t leave the characteristic ghosting seen on some LCD TVs. This is especially noticeable with sports or fast-paced games, where the image stays very clean even during rapid motion. The panel runs at 120 Hz. That’s more than enough for movies, TV series, sports, or console gaming. It’s a bit of a shame Samsung didn’t include a higher refresh rate aimed at PC gamers, since more and more TVs now offer 144 or even 165 Hz at 4K. However, that doesn’t affect motion perception in films or sports. There’s also the classic motion smoothing feature with two settings, blur reduction and judder reduction. So you can choose whether films should keep their cinematic 24 frames per second or if you prefer to smooth them a bit. The S85H gives you plenty of flexibility here, and the interpolation works well and, with reasonable settings, doesn’t produce too many artifacts.

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

Although the brand is mainly associated with home cinema and equipment for filmmakers, there is also a place here for conveniences for gamers. It comes with Game Bar (or rather Game Circles) – visually it looks a bit unusual, but it does its job and allows you to quickly check the most important image parameters. What it really lacks for complete happiness is actually just four HDMI 2.1 ports instead of two. It's a minor issue, but one would expect a full set in a TV of this class.

The Samsung S85H is very well set up for gaming, whether you connect a console or a PC. The manufacturer didn’t skimp on ports and all four HDMI inputs support full HDMI 2.1. That means you can use 4K at 120 Hz, VRR, and ALLM without worrying which input to plug your console into. With several devices that matters, because you don’t have to choose between a console, a PC, or a soundbar connected via eARC. The feature set itself is very comprehensive. The S85H supports VRR, FreeSync, and automatic switching to game mode, and Samsung offers its comprehensive Game Bar, which lets you quickly view key signal parameters and change settings without leaving the game. The only real omission is Dolby Vision, which will matter mainly to Xbox owners. That’s a typical trait of Samsung TVs. Game Motion Plus performs very well and is one of the features that have set Samsung TVs apart for years. It smooths motion in games running at 30 or 60 fps, but does so without as large an increase in input lag as traditional motion smoothing. In practice, with more relaxed games, racing titles, or action games this can really improve perceived motion, especially if you’re sensitive to low framerates.