Panasonic Viera TX-55AX902B review

It’s fair to say that Panasonic’s TX-50AX802 UHD TV had its fair share of stumbling blocks last year. It launched without 4K Netflix, still one of only a few ways of watching anything in 4K, and customers had to wait almost six months before a firmware update added it. By then, Panasonic was already readying its successor, the TX-55AX902 reviewed here.

Thankfully, the AX902 rectifies all of its predecessor’s missteps, as it comes with 4K Netflix and Amazon Instant Video support straight out of the box. It also retains the AX802’s elegant yet rather monolithic design, weighing a massive 26kg – and that’s not including the huge 14kg stand that props it up from behind.

For this review we tested the 55in model in the AX902B range, but it’s also available in a 65in (TX-65AX902B) screen size.  Both models have identical specifications except for their dimensions and power usage. We’re confident that image quality will be practically identical across the range.

You’ll need a hefty stand or sturdy wall to mount it on, then, but the AX902 produces a truly stunning picture. It’s the first Panasonic 4K TV we’ve seen to come with a direct LED backlight and full-array local dimming, which allow it to produce deeper blacks, better areas of contrast and a more uniform picture across the screen. It does this by analysing the video input across 128 local dimming zones and using 5×5 matrices instead of the usual 3×3 system, allowing it to fine-tune the brightness level on the fly without introducing any unwanted halo effects around brighter moving objects.

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It certainly made a big impact on our Blu-ray test footage, with distant stars looking pin sharp during Star Trek’s fast camera pans, and we didn’t see any patches of light start to creep in during darker scenes. Likewise, black levels were easily the best we’ve seen from any LCD set in recent months, and we were repeatedly amazed that we weren’t looking at an OLED panel. Admittedly, our post-calibration reading of 0.25cd/m2 would beg to differ, but to our eyes, the AX902’s black levels are about as deep as they come for an LCD, which will be good news for anyone mourning the loss of plasma.

Contrast was also impressive, as enabling the Contrast Control settings in the advanced menu made a huge difference to the level of detail present onscreen. On Auto, dark areas of shadow were given a significant boost compared to when we turned it off, but you can also customise the setting yourself using the adaptive gamma control, black expander and clear white effect options. Panasonic’s adaptive backlight control and ambient light sensor also do a great job of adjusting the panel’s brightness to suit your surroundings, so you don’t have to sit in total darkness to get the best picture.

As we’ve come to expect from Panasonic’s TVs, the AX902’s colour accuracy was high, although not before we’d sat down to tinker with the settings. Straight out of the box, for example, using the Normal picture mode, our colour calibrator measured that it was only showing 77.3% of the sRGB colour gamut. Once we’d changed the picture mode to Professional 1, changed the colour temperature to Normal and tweaked the white balance settings (to R-Gain +6, G-Gain +4 and B-Gain -5), we achieved a much more respectable 98.4%, putting it right up there with last year’s AX802.

Admittedly, Panasonic’s menu settings could be more intuitive to use, as its giant list of options can often become rather unwieldy. Still, you’re spoiled for choice, as there are eight picture modes, basic backlight, brightness, contrast, colour, tint, sharpness and colour temperature options, and several more advanced settings. These include colour gamut options, gamma controls and a full colour management system where you can control the hue, saturation and luminance for RGB and CMY.

Panasonic’s 24p Smooth Film can help adjust the frame rate to make 24p films appear smoother, but we rarely felt the need to turn it on thanks to the AX902’s superb image processing. Motion was handled extremely well during our Star Trek test scenes, and there were hardly any signs of judder at all.

Naturally, our 4K demo clips looked stunning on the AX902, but it also upscaled 1080p content extremely effectively. Blu-rays looked surprisingly sharp, but we’d recommend leaving the 1080p Fire Direct and 1080p Pixel by 4pixels options turned off as this made everything look very jagged and pixelated, particularly if there was any text onscreen.

Lower resolution content like standard definition TV broadcasts were also much crisper than other TVs we’ve tested recently. Text and clothing textures could be a little soft and fuzzy in standard definition TV, but this is to be expected. There are also noise reduction, MPEG and resolution re-master settings on hand to help eliminate any leftover patches of noise, although this too was kept to a minimum across both SD and HD channels.

For 3D, Panasonic uses passive technology and comes with two pairs of glasses in the box. We’ve had problems with Panasonic’s 3D in the past, primarily from the amount of crosstalk it generates from certain viewing angles, but as long as we sat around 2m away from the AX902, the 3D seemed to be more stable than other Panasonic sets we’ve tested. The Na’vi subtitles in Avatar, for instance, were also much sharper, and we only saw a bit of crosstalk start to appear when looking at the TV further to the side. Luckily, you can adjust the depth of the 3D effect to your liking, making it more pronounced or relatively subtle.

Unfortunately, the AX902B doesn’t come with Panasonic’s new Firefox OS interface, but we were pleased to see its old My Home Screen UI has received a few essential tweaks and updates. For instance, when you now turn on the TV, it defaults straight to the Freetime home screen, which gives you a large window of your current source as well as shortcuts to Freetime’s TV guide, on-demand channels, a search bar and Showcase, which collects all the best TV from the week into one handy location.

Previously, you could only use Freetime by having Freesat installed, but nearly all of Panasonic’s newest TVs come with it built it, giving you the full range of British TV catch-up services without the need for a satellite or additional set-top box. This includes BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD and Demand 5, and they’re all presented in Freetime’s familiar scrolling TV guide interface.

You’ve also got Netflix and Amazon Instant Video in the traditional apps menu (which can be accessed quickly by a handy shortcut on the remote) as well as YouTube, Crunchyroll and Wuaki.tv. This compares well with other TV manufacturers, although Samsung still has the widest range of smart TV services while LG has the bonus of built-in Now TV.

Round the back, you’ve got an excellent supply of ports, including four HDMI 2.0 inputs that are HDCP 2.2 compatible, one DisplayPort, an adapter for SCART and component inputs, a CI slot, an SDXC card reader, an optical S/PDIF output, three USB ports (one of which is USB3) and a headphone jack. There’s also an Ethernet port, but with built-in wireless on board, you shouldn’t need it.

Panasonic’s TX-50AX802 was a fantastic TV once 4K Netflix arrived, but the TX-55AX902 betters it in almost every way. At just under £2,000 at time of writing, it’s certainly not cheap, but has best-in-class black levels, fantastic image quality and excellent contrast controls. It’s also cheaper than LG’s current OLED set, the 55EC930V, which only has a Full HD resolution, making the AX902 an attractive choice for anyone who doesn’t want to wait for 4K OLED. With its superb upscaling and outstanding image quality, the AX902 is our new favourite 4K TV.

Buy Now: Panasonic Viera TX-55AX902B