Whereas costly in comparison with different latest 55-inch OLED TVs, the Panasonic HZ1500 is able to some fairly remarkably completed photographs from any supply and with an audio efficiency that’s very agreeable, Panasonic has continued its nice kind within the OLED market with the TX-HZ1500.
Professionals
- Detailed, secure, totally pure and plausible photographs
- Larger, better-realised sound than most TVs
- Each HDR base lined
- First rate ergonomics
- Good upscaling
Cons
- Costly for a 55in TV
- One or two lacking apps
- Sound will be bettered by a half-decent soundbar
Key Specs
- HDR10+
- Dolby Imaginative and prescient
- Dolby Imaginative and prescient IQ
- Dolby Atmos
- Filmmaker Mode
- Two-way Bluetooth
You solely should remind your self of our overview of final 12 months’s excellent TX-55GZ1500 to know Panasonic was unlikely to make a large leap ahead with its alternative, this TX-55HZ1500.
Not so far as image high quality goes, anyway – and particularly not if you realise the HZ1500 makes use of the identical Grasp HDR OLED panel because the display it replaces.
No, if Panasonic desires the HZ1500 to appear a worthwhile improve on the GZ1500 (and to justify the not inconsiderable worth improve on the identical time), the adjustments want to return someplace aside from in image high quality. On the face of it, it’s going to be tough to tug off.
Value and availability
The Panasonic HZ1500 has an RRP of £2399 for the 55-inch mannequin. Within the EU it has a worth of €1999, and worth drops have introduced the set all the way down to £1799 on the likes of Currys PC World, John Lewis & Companions, Richer Sounds and Hughes.
Design
- All display on the entrance, upfiring audio system on the again
- Built-in soundbar and speaker system
- Slim bezel makes it just about all display
From the entrance, the Panasonic HZ1500 is just about best: it’s nearly all display. The neat single-piece bezel surrounding the panel is slim and easily contoured, whereas alongside the underside of the display there’s a really tidily built-in soundbar. When you don’t need to hoist the HZ1500’s 25kg bulk onto a wall, it’s equipped with a compact-yet-weighty swivel stand.
Credit score: Panasonic
From the facet, it’s a barely totally different story. A part of the attraction of OLED TV expertise is how unfeasibly slim the screens are – however, in fact, that’s solely till you encounter the realm of the display the place all of the electronics, enter sockets and all the pieces else that make it operate as an precise tv are housed. Then even the slimmest OLED bulks up considerably.
The TX-55HZ1500 bulks up greater than most OLEDs when considered in profile. A part of that’s due to the standard concerns of inputs, mains energy and so forth – however a part of it’s all the way down to the HZ1500’s audio system. A great deal of the Panasonic’s nigh-on 6cm depth is defined by the presence of two upward-firing ‘racetrack’ speaker drivers organized in a kind of tower behind the display.
Credit score: Panasonic
Every is given 15 watts of energy (the identical as the 2 equivalent forward-facing drivers arrayed within the built-in soundbar), they usually’re designed to deliver a significant sensation of top to Dolby Atmos or DTS:X soundtracks. The remaining 20 watts of the HZ1500’s allocation of 80 watts of energy are taken by an built-in subwoofer.
That is an unarguably elaborate audio system in comparison with the outgoing TX-55GZ1500 – it’s the primary significant level of divergence between the 2 screens, and the primary try to correctly differentiate them.
Options
- Caters to cinema followers, much less to players
- Lacks next-gen gaming options
- Helps Dolby Imaginative and prescient IQ/Netflix Calibrated Mode
- Simple to make use of smarts
Choices for getting content material into the Panasonic HZ1500 are predictably quite a few. So far as bodily connections go, there are 4 HDMI HDCP2.2 sockets, one with eARC performance and all with Auto Low Latency Mode functionality, too. That’s it for HDMI 2.1 specification, so next-gen players ought to assume lengthy and laborious about whether or not this Panasonic is for them.
Then there are three USB inputs (certainly one of which is at 3.0 customary), terrestrial and satellite tv for pc tuners, an Ethernet enter, composite video sockets and a CI slot. Naturally sufficient there’s Wi-Fi on board too, in addition to push/pull Bluetooth compatibility. The power to make use of wi-fi headphones when having fun with some TV viewing is to not be underestimated.
As soon as the data is on board, it’s handled by Panasonic’s top-of-the-shop (and really nicely regarded) HCX Professional Clever processor. Panasonic has lengthy been a giant noise the place technical features of filmmaking and -mastering are involved, and the HCX Professional Clever processor brings a contact of Hollywood credibility to your home viewing expertise.
As a result of Panasonic appears to be much less idiotically tribal than various its nominal rivals, the TX-55HZ1500 enjoys common HDR compatibility: HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Imaginative and prescient requirements are all catered for. It’s additionally packing Dolby Imaginative and prescient IQ, which makes use of the display’s built-in mild sensor to regulate image brightness on the fly.
Credit score: Panasonic
Barely much less usefully (however admirable in box-ticking phrases, at the very least), the Panasonic options Filmmaker Mode (for many who need to introduce some motion-blurring and total dimness to their photographs) and Netflix Calibrated Mode (for many who need to know what it’s wish to have cataracts).
Panasonic’s ‘my Dwelling Display’ consumer interface is now in its fifth technology, and right here it’s as easy and straightforward to comply with as a big-print e book from the library. It’s comparatively easy to customize, too, which suggests it might simply be made to do what any smart consumer desires from an working system: comply with your directions quickly after which get out of the best way. This compares very favourably with the Android TV equal, which appears to assume it’s an important factor in regards to the TVs it’s fitted to.
Freeview Play is on board, which suggests a pleasant logical programme information and each UK TV catch-up service is current. Most streaming service apps can be found too, although Disney+ is a notable absentee.
Navigating the consumer interface, the predictably thorough-yet-simple set-up menus will be performed various methods. Panasonic’s distant management, for instance, is straightforward sufficient and doesn’t function too many tiny buttons – though it’s remained basically unchanged for thus a few years now it’s absolutely due a refresh. Or if there’s a mic-equipped good speaker on the identical community, the HZ1500 can be utilized together with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.
Image
- A terrific picture whatever the stage of content material
- A picture filled with contrasts
- Good upscaling
- Deep black ranges
Simply because the Panasonic HZ1500 makes use of the identical panel as final 12 months’s GZ1500, it doesn’t routinely comply with that this new Panasonic shall be off the tempo. In sensible phrases, an ideal OLED TV from 2019 doesn’t develop into a lemon simply because it’s now 2020. And make no mistake, the TX-55HZ1500 is a superb OLED TV.
The 4K Blu-ray remaster of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining illustrates the purpose completely. It options each HDR10+ and Dolby Imaginative and prescient dynamic metadata HDR on the disc (presumably to make issues simpler for many who didn’t have the foresight to buy an HDR-agnostic TV), and as a movie it poses challenges of each variety to the tv it’s being displayed on. These are all challenges the Panasonic rises to with gusto.
Credit score: Panasonic
There simply isn’t an space of picture-making at which the Panasonic HZ1500 doesn’t excel. It generates extraordinarily huge contrasts, with deep, lustrous and epically detailed black tones at one finish and clear, shiny however not overdriven whites on the different. It’s able to very delicate variations in each black and white with out impacting on element ranges or wanting in any method pressured or unnatural.
Even in a classic film comparable to this, there’s nothing in the best way of image noise to distract from the Panasonic’s talents. Even in wide-open scenes of uniform color, photographs are quiet, and edges are drawn with the steadiest of arms. A bit of finessing within the set-up menus is required to get motion-tracking simply so, however make investments the time and even the slowest, most testing pans are delivered easily. Intricate patterns, difficult textures, psychotic skin-tones… none of these items, which lesser screens can wrestle terribly with, trigger the HZ1500 any issues in any respect.
The Panasonic combines these super-wide contrasts, stratospheric element ranges, militaristic management of motion and edge definition, and wide-ranging and completely plausible color palette, into photographs which can be endlessly watchable. The HZ1500 has absolute authority over the content material it shows, and consequently is totally absorbing.
Credit score: Panasonic
Step down in high quality to a 1080p Blu-ray of Andy Lau’s Infernal Affairs and the HZ1500 proves a really adept upscaler too. Drop-offs in high quality are delicate: there’s a suggestion of image noise throughout essentially the most uniform scenes, and a gentle softening of skin-tones specifically – however in broad phrases the Panasonic performs admirably. Even correctly antiquated low-resolution stuff (one thing in 4:3 facet ratio that ITV4 likes to point out in the course of the day, for instance) is fairly nicely composed, even when it’s like watching via a frosted window after viewing some native 4K content material.
Dolby Imaginative and prescient IQ proves its price all through, with related content material having fun with a properly judged stage of brightness – no extra having to shut the curtains to get pleasure from optimum image high quality. And, whereas we’re speaking of curtains, it’s finest to attract a veil over each Filmmaker Mode and Netflix Calibrated Mode. I actually can not see any benefit in both.
Sound
- An completed audio performer for a flatscreen TV
- Achieved, tall sound
- Not as immersive an precise Atmos presentation
At this level, it’s vital to remind ourselves that all the pieces’s relative. Sure, contemplating it’s ‘simply’ a flatscreen TV, the Panasonic HZ1500 sounds fairly large and daring. It’s received real low-frequency presence, it’s surprisingly dynamic, and the midrange is loads detailed sufficient to make voices distinct and characterful. It even has a level of chew and assault on the high of the frequency vary.
Credit score: Panasonic
However should you’re anticipating an precise Dolby Atmos-style object-based presentation, with sound occurring above your seated place in addition to to the left and proper, you’ll be underwhelmed. Sure, the Panasonic’s sound comfortably escapes the confines of the display, and the quantity of top these upward-firing drivers can generate is, at instances, fairly startling. However, sonically, all the pieces that occurs is occurring in entrance of you. So, it’s not all that very like Dolby Atmos in any respect.
However, once more, all the pieces is relative. That is an audio system built-in into the chassis of the TV itself, and by these requirements it’s an completed and fairly spectacular pay attention. It actually means you don’t instantly should price range for a soundbar to try to deliver your audio expertise into line along with your video expertise.
You can purchase if…
-
You need glorious image high quality
the Panasonic is able to fairly remarkably completed photographs and from any supply.
-
You need all of the HDR bases lined
It covers all HDR requirements (which, to be honest, a extra inexpensive Philips does too), and it has nearly all of the catch-up and streaming providers you can ask for.
-
You need higher than common sound high quality
Whereas Panasonic’s claims for the HZ1500’s audio arrange are barely optimistic; the very fact stays that it sounds a sight higher than most options.
You shouldn’t purchase if…
-
When you assume it’s too costly
That is an costly 55in TV, no two methods about it. You solely have to have a look at some very succesful 55in OLED options from the likes of LG or Philips to understand that.
-
You’re a gamer
Other than ALLM, there’s not one of the new-fangled gaming options onboard the HZ1500.
Specs
‹
UK RRP
EU RRP
Producer
Display Measurement
Measurement (Dimensions)
Measurement (Dimensions with out stand)
Weight
Working System
Launch Date
First Reviewed Date
Mannequin Quantity
Mannequin Variants
Decision
HDR
Kinds of HDR
Refresh Price TVs
Ports
HDMI (2.1)
Audio (Energy output)
Connectivity
Colors
Show Expertise
Panasonic TX-55HZ1500
£2399
€1999
Panasonic
54.6 mm
1228 x 350 x 772 MM
750 x 1228 x 58 MM
25 KG
my Dwelling Display 5.0
2020
24/08/2020
TX-55HZ1500
TX-55HZ1500B, TX-55HZ1500E
3840 x 2160
Sure
HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, HLG Picture, Dolby Imaginative and prescient, Dolby Imaginative and prescient IQ
– 120 Hz
HDMI 2.0b eARC, 3x HDMI 2.0b, 2x USB 2.0, USB 3.0, Ethernet, Optical out, CI+ 1.4 Slot, Composite in, 2x Satellite tv for pc, Aerial, 3.5mm out
eARC, ALLM
80 W
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, DLNA
Black
OLED
›
