Panasonic TX-55LZ2000 review: The ultimate home cinema 4K TV

(Pocket-lint) – The Panasonic TX-55LZ2000 is the living room equivalent of a premium West End cinema. A no-compromise entertainment machine, boasting incredible 4K picture quality, courtesy of the brand’s HCX AI Pro SoC, shiny new OLED.EX panel technology, and arguably the best Dolby Atmos sound system you’ll hear built into a TV. Just like any premium cinema though, the ticket price is high.

The good news is here, no one is going to kick the back of your seat. Panasonic has also upped its game (literally), with its new Game Control Board interface and offers console-friendly features. If you spend as much time gaming as you do movie watching, then this is a TV that demands to be shortlisted.

POCKET-LINT VIDEO OF THE DAY

The LZ2000 is available in three screen sizes (one more than last year’s JZ2000 line): 55-, 65- and (the new) 77-inches (TX-55LZ2000, TX-65LZ2000, TX-77LZ2000), priced at GBP2,299, GBP2,899, and GBP4,299 respectively.

We’ve got the 55-incher on our test bench, and spoiler alert, we reckon it’s one of the best TVs of the year. Read on to find out why.

Our quick take

As befits its flagship status, the LZ2000 is predictably brilliant. We’ve always appreciated the accuracy and cinematic presentation of Panasonic’s HCX processing, and here we see it at its zenith, coupled with a startling dynamic OLED panel.

Big budget TV shows and movies get the red carpet treatment. I’m not entirely sure of the value of that new beamforming driver array, but the set’s overall Dolby Atmos delivery is a knockout. It’s more than able to keep pace with blockbuster movie soundtracks, in terms of steerage and visceral attack. 

The HDMI provision is also good, although it would be nice to graduate to four HFR cable inputs at some point; still, the set’s a great partner for a next-gen games console. We’ve not seen Call of Duty Warzone run smoother or look sharper than it does on the TX-55LZ2000. All things considered, the TX-55LZ2000 can be considered a total movie star.

It comes highly recommended.

Panasonic TX-55LZ2000

5 stars – Pocket-lint editors choice

For

• Superior 4k picture quality
• 360? Soundscape Pro Dolby Atmos audio
• Universal HDR coverage

Against

• Only two 4k 120fps HDMI inputs

Design 

• 4 x HDMI 
• 360? Soundscape Pro audio system
• 1 x Digital Optical Audio output
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

Admittedly, the LZ2000 looks much like its predecessor, the JZ2000, but lurking unseen behind the cosmetics, it features next-generation OLED glass and a Dolby Atmos sound system, which has been upgraded with an all-new, steerable, front-facing array.

You can actually point its sonic output left or right, using a nifty onscreen graphic, thereby favouring one part of a room over another. 

The flagship screen still sports its signature rear-mounted height channel speakers and side-firing drivers, augmented by a rear-firing woofer. Panasonic dubs this system 360? Soundscape Pro, with a total power output rating of an impressive 150W.

The TX-55LZ2000 may not be the slimmest of models – those rear placed speakers require some room to breathe after all – but the set looks elegant enough. The panel sits on a central pedestal stand and has a wafer-thin bezel (it’s so slim I’m not even sure it can be called a bezel anymore).  The remote control is similarly well made and substantial, with dedicated buttons for Netflix, Rakuten TV, Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube and Freeview Play. Connectivity is good, with a caveat.

There are four HDMI inputs, but only two can handle High Frame Rate (HFR) 4K 120HZ video. There’s eARC support (but given the potency of the set’s audio system, this is unlikely to be partnered with a soundbar), plus ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) and VRR with AMD Freesync Premium support. 

If you need them, there are three USB ports, plus a digital optical audio output and Ethernet. Wireless connectivity comes via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. 

The LZ2000 has terrestrial Freeview Play, and satellite tuners, plus a CI slot.

Features  

• My Home Screen v7.0
• Game Control Board interface
• Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa support

Handling the set’s smart streaming functionality is Panasonic’s My Home Screen platform, now up to v7.0. Intuitive use is still the biggest selling point here, with customisable Home pins for easy access to your preferred services.  

Pocket-lint

The streaming app selection includes Netflix, Amazon Prime, Britbox, Rakuten TV,  Disney+, plus all the catch-up services you’d expect from Freeview Play, including BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, My5, UKTV Play, CBS Catch Up and Legend. Gamers will appreciate the new Game Control Board, a pop-up overlay of related settings (picture mode, 4K Bypass, HDR tonemap status and VRR).

There’s also an info panel which offers minutiae about resolution, frame rate and colour space. To save having to navigate menus to find this cornucopia of detail, you can assign the Game Board to the ‘My App’ button on the remote zapper, which is a nice touch.

Pocket-lint

Input lag is good at 14.5 ms (1080/60).

Performance

• Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10+ Adaptive, Filmmaker mode with Intelligent Sensing
• HCX AI Pro processor
• Dolby Atmos audio

The TX-55LZ2000 is a joy to watch. Its images are detailed and colour rich, without any hint of unwanted emphasis or noise.

There’s depth in its shadows and nuance in its wideband colour.  The combination of the brand’s well exercised HCX AI Pro processor, and Master Pro OLED panel, translates to immense visual pop. This is as good a bright room set as it is a darker room monitor.

Leave the screen on its Auto AI preset and it’ll work in tandem with an ambient light sensor to present the best balanced picture it can muster, given your viewing conditions. The HCX AI Pro chip is immensely powerful, and helps to further ensure you’re always watching the very best picture you can. It can compare content frame by frame in real time, referencing it with a database using genre recognition, in order to tweak your picture settings accordingly.

Panasonic TV engineers have had plenty of practice when it comes to heat management, enabling them to drive panel technology hard to give better brightness.

Here that expertise gets a welcome lift, courtesy of OLED-EX.  Using the Normal screen preset, we measured HDR peak brightness in a 5 per cent window at around 1000 nits, which means it does a startling job with bright HDR highlights, like lamps, lights and fireworks.  At the other end of the spectrum, things look great too.

Of course all OLEDs deliver perfect black, but many crush near black detail in the process. Thankfully, that’s not the case here. In fact, this 55-incher does a terrific job pulling fresh detail out of the notoriously difficult opening firefight in The Terminal List (UHD/HDR Prime Video).

Our preferred image preset, True Cinema, looks sublime – filmic but smooth – without any obvious artefacts. As is Panasonic’s wont, colour tuning is signed off by Hollywood colourist Stefan Sonnenfeld, and the set has vibrancy to spare. There have been improvements made in terms of colour volume too, specifically blue. 

The LZ2000 offers universal HDR playback, with support for Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10+ Adaptive, and Netflix Adaptive calibrated modes, all of which dynamically adjust HDR content to suit ambient room lighting conditions.  There’s also the universally standardised cinematic Filmmaker Mode, bolstered by Panasonic’s own Intelligent Sensing, which does the same thing. There’s no penalty if watching non 4K content, as the set’s upscaling is top notch.

We’ve even got praise for the screen’s motion smoothing options, which work remarkably well with live sports and soaps.

Sound

• Built-in sound system
• Dolby Atmos support
• 150W total power output

Audio isn’t an afterthought. The LZ2000 range benefits from a fully committed Dolby Atmos sound system, via a built-in soundbar. You need to calibrate it during setup using Space Tune, an auto EQ system that optimises output for your room, but this only takes a couple of minutes.

The forward-facing ‘bar is supported by dedicated height speakers and side-firing drivers, and they’re substantial and effective, spreading the soundstage high and wide.

The set also has surprisingly powerful mid-to-low bass, courtesy of the rear-firing woofer. It doesn’t manage the trick of placing objects behind the viewing position, but still sounds appropriately large and immersive. With non-Atmos content, algorithms upscale regular multichannel and stereo streams to all drivers.

Total power output is rated at 150W. The front array gets 70W, with 2 x 15W going to the side drivers and 2 x 15W going to the heights. The woofer gets 20W to play with. 

Sound presets cover Auto AI, Standard, Music, Speech, Stadium and User. We found Auto AI for audio a little inconsistent, so Standard became the default setting. New on the TX-55LZ2000 is a Beam Forming function, which allows you to direct the front speaker array into a specific listening zone, using an onscreen graphic to judge direction.

We can see this feature appealing to those with large open-plan living spaces, where you really don’t want to disturb fellow housemates.

To recap

Panasonic has upgraded its range-topping OLED TV line with a high-brightness panel, novel beam-steering audio technology and an advanced gaming feature set, with High Frame Rate 4K playback. Whatever way you look at it, the LZ2000 is a winning package. Writing by Steve May.

Editing by Verity Burns.