Panasonic recently unveiled its new 2026 TV line-up (for UK and Europe — US news will come later), and it included a new OLED model that’s a world-first. The Panasonic Z86C will be a new entry-level OLED in Panasonic’s range, and it’s the only TV revealed at the time of writing to include LG Display’s new OLED SE panel, which is set to be cheaper and potentially brighter than previous budget OLED screens.
The Z86C (known in Europe as the Z85C) is the only new OLED from Panasonic this year, because the company is keeping the Panasonic Z95B flagship TV and Z90B mid-range OLED from last year — the new one will slot in right below them.
But the good news with the Z86C is that when looking at it in a strongly lit conference room, with the Z90B mid-range just behind it for reference, it looks like it’s delivering on the brightness front — and without any more obvious reflectivity than the Z90B.
Panasonic’s demo was a very OLED friendly set of space images, with nebulae and galaxies and space stations moving against a black (and starry) backdrop. The individual tiny stars had a good amount of pop to them, more than I might’ve expected, while obviously benefitting from being against the deep inky black that OLED can achieve right next to the light.
In images that can take advantage of brightness, on the face of it the new panel really seemed to stand up to the mid-range one. The bright corona of a sun shimmers off the screen, and a swirling galaxy is full of vibrancy and rich hues. At a glance, there’s very little to set the screens apart.
But there are signs of the differences — in this shot of the sun, you might notice that while the luminance of both appears more or less on par for the two sets, theres a lot more detail on the TV behind: the Z90B.
You can see more of a spread of dark and lighter areas dotted across the top of the sun in the TV behind, whereas on the Z86C these aren’t as clear — there’s less variation in the tone.
This suggests that either the processing or the panel (or the combination of the two) are better at tone mapping in the Z90B than the Z86C. Tone mapping is what happens when a video is encoded at a different brightness level to what a TV can display – the TV has to ‘compress’ brightness, and this can result in detail being lost because different tone levels get smushed together. It’s a common thing to see in less-bright TVs.
It’s possible that this could be improved by software updates before the TV launches, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this kind of nuance is the difference between this TV and the mid-range — just a reduction in the small nuances that make the really great TVs worth the extra cash.
I’ll be interested to see whether we similar results in other TVs (none has been announced, but I’d bet money on the LG B6 using it) that use this panel — a good sense of perceived brightness, but telltale signs that it lacks the overall performance of the step-up panel used in the Z90B (and the LG C5).
The element I was interested to see other than brightness was the reflectivity, since that will be a big question on TVs that use this panel — since it doesn’t have its own polarizer, it could vary wildly in TVs.
And in this case, I couldn’t see a major difference in reflectivity compared to the Z90B in the demo hall – in my pictures, there are more reflections on the Z86C, but that’s more a function of the photography angles. Panasonic has added a polarizer here — we don’t yet have a price for the TV, so I don’t know what that will mean for the price overall.
All of this means I’m not only interested to see more of the Z86C and what it can do in a full testing environment, but more of the LG panel as well, and whether I see similar results when it’s used elsewhere (and with other processing).
The Z86C doesn’t have a price and release date yet, but we know it’ll have 120Hz and variable refresh support for gaming, Dolby Vision and HDR10+ support, and Amazon Fire TV software (replaced by Google TV in Europe, in the Z85C version). It’ll come in 55-inch and 65-inch sizes.
The best TVs for all budgets
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
And of course, you can also follow TechRadar on YouTube and TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/v6FvkZHaMWMemP9s2pjqB8-2560-80.jpg
Source link
