That is already shaping as much as be a first-rate contender for the perfect TV of 2019 award
Key Specs
- Evaluation Value: £4299
Panasonic TX-65GZ2000 first look – Panasonic’s flagship 4K OLED TV for 2019
Guess what? You don’t at all times must do loopy stuff to face out from the crowded halls of the annual CES expertise extravaganza. Typically you simply have to present individuals what they really need, somewhat than attempting to inform them what you suppose they need. Cue Panasonic’s seemingly somewhat superior new flagship OLED TV, the GZ2000.
Out there in 55 and 65-inch sizes, the GZ2000 is a 4K OLED TV. A lot, so meh by the out-there requirements of CES. Nevertheless, tucked away inside its aptly elegant (somewhat than “shouty”) kind is nearly every little thing right now’s severe residence cinema fan may probably need from a tv.
Associated: Panasonic’s GZ2000 flagship OLED boasts built-in Dolby Atmos audio system
For starters, it’s the primary TV on the planet to boast assist for each the premium HDR10+ and Dolby Imaginative and prescient HDR codecs. This can be a large win for AV followers, for the straightforward motive that they’ll now purchase any 4K Blu-ray they like, or watch any stream they like, and make sure that they’ll at all times be getting the perfect image high quality doable.
Associated: What’s HDR10+?
I anticipate different manufacturers to comply with Panasonic’s lead on this respect. However for now, the GZ2000 is the one TV that does all the important thing flavours of HDR (together with the newly ratified HLG Photograph system). And that issues. Loads.
Even higher, the GZ2000 doesn’t simply assist all the important thing HDR codecs; it additionally makes them look spectacular. There are a selection of causes for this, all of which set the GZ2000 except for and, fairly possible, above, different 2019 OLED TVs.
The one most fun advance is the introduction of unique Panasonic expertise, developed throughout the model’s plasma days, that’s designed to maintain the OLED panel cooler, in order that it could actually produce extra brightness.
This doesn’t allow the panel to hit considerably greater peaks of brightness than different OLED units, nevertheless it does permit the GZ2000 to supply and maintain the next common brightness stage throughout an HDR film or TV present.
It takes simply seconds watching the GZ2000 in motion to see what a distinction this further brightness makes. Shiny scenes look far punchier, much more HDR and, subsequently, much more life like on the GZ2000 than they do on final 12 months’s FZ952 Panasonic OLEDs. Regardless that these 2018 fashions have been additionally fairly superior.
Associated: What’s Dolby Imaginative and prescient HDR?
The soundbar (tuned by Technics) has been fantastically built-in into the GZ2000’s bodywork
In addition to giving a extra dramatic and devoted HDR expertise, the additional brightness additionally makes the GZ2000’s photos much better outfitted to fight any mild you might need intruding into your room.
The fear needs to be that Panasonic’s quest for higher OLED brightness has induced compromises elsewhere. If it has, I couldn’t see any of them throughout demonstrations at CES. Quite the opposite, the image appeared higher in each method than that of its already excellent FZ952 and FZ802 predecessors.
As an illustration, black stage response stays as attractive and deep as we’ve come to anticipate from right now’s OLED TVs. In actual fact, it appears to be like barely higher in that the wealthy black tones at the moment are given further affect by having the ability to seem alongside brighter highlights.
There appeared to be extra shadow element and color subtlety in darkish image areas, too – presumably a results of Panasonic’s new HCX Professional Clever processor having sufficient energy to higher handle OLED expertise’s somewhat tough near-black efficiency.
The brand new processor additionally joins forces with the spectacular brightness to make its mark in different methods. A head-to-head sequence of a bike owner driving in entrance of a hedgerow clearly reveals cleaner movement processing on the GZ2000 than final 12 months’s fashions. Numerous photographs of a seashore and sea confirmed each higher element and extra color refinement.
Colors look extra constant from one facet of the display screen to the opposite. Maybe better of all, there’s a way more pure look to the brightest colors, notably as a slight magenta tint to vivid backgrounds often noticeable on final 12 months’s fashions has now seemingly been eliminated.
Simply describing the quite a few methods the GZ2000 improves on the images of its predecessors doesn’t do the general image expertise justice, nevertheless. One of the best ways I can consider to sum every little thing up is to say that every one the GZ2000’s superior image touches (created with the assistance of Panasonic’s Hollywood Laboratory and luminaries from the post-production world) add as much as what seems up to now to be an exquisitely cinematic expertise.
With a lot image progress happening, you might forgive Panasonic if it had conveniently “forgotten” concerning the GZ2000’s sound efficiency. Because it occurs, nothing may very well be farther from the reality.
For starters, a strikingly giant soundbar has remarkably elegantly been constructed into the TV underneath the image’s backside edge. Plus a column operating up the center of the GZ2000’s in any other case trim rear offers the muse for a pair of upfiring audio system. These are there to assist the TV’s new Dolby Atmos sound playback.
This speaker configuration, designed at the side of each Dolby and high-end audio model Technics, actually does sound spectacular. CES demonstrations revealed a way more dynamic, impactful, open, detailed and – above all – spacious audio efficiency than even that of 2018’s FZ952 TV, regardless of that mannequin transport with a robust exterior soundbar.
Associated: What’s Dolby Atmos?
The addition of real peak to the sound stage, courtesy of the up-firing audio system, has a profound affect – particularly since these audio system show capable of place results with first rate accuracy at totally different heights and widths throughout the vertical audio sound stage.
It’s a disgrace, maybe, that the highest audio system hearth straight up somewhat than angling barely ahead. This implies you don’t get the notably sturdy sense of being enveloped in a bubble of sound such as you do with a full separates-based Atmos system. Nevertheless, it isn’t actually honest to be churlish a couple of built-in TV sound system that seems – from what I’ve heard up to now – to be head and shoulders above the norm.
First impressions
Given what number of new image and sound options the GZ2000 boasts, it’s more likely to value a good bit greater than typical 2019 OLED TVs. Nevertheless, except one thing goes unexpectedly incorrect between the GZ2000’s CES previews and the completed TV, I believe residence cinema followers will contemplate no matter it prices to be cash properly spent.
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