Panasonic’s 2026 TV line-up is here, and I saw it in action — but it was one of its demos of future tech that impressed me most | Daily Reports Online
- Panasonic launches new 2026 TV range for the UK and Europe
- New OLED and mini-LED TVs, including a matte ‘Glare Free Ultra’ display
- Panasonic’s TVs will now be made in conjunction with Skyworth
Panasonic has just unveiled its new TV line-up for the UK and Europe, and it came with an interesting new twist: from now on, Panasonic’s TVs will be created in a new joint venture with Skyworth, best known for super-budget sets.
The setup sounds extremely similar to the one that Sony is exploring with TCL – a new company is formed that brings in expertise (and staff) from both Panasonic and Skyworth’s respective TV teams. The sets will be manufactured by Skyworth.
The team was obviously keen to say that the plan is to keep Panasonic’s high-end TVs at the “reference” quality Panasonic has always strived for (I’m quoting their presentation directly regarding the use of “reference”), but to add more scale and to be really competitive in the increasingly crunchy world of the best TVs, where Hisense and TCL have been aggressively redefining what makes a ‘value’ TV.
So interestingly, the new TV range will still be topped by the same Panasonic Z95B and Z90B OLED TVs that Panasonic currently sells – no change there.
Just below those will be a new, more affordable OLED TV model, called the Panasonic Z86C in the UK. This is the first set confirmed to use LG’s new, cheaper, and brighter budget OLED panel, and it also supports 4K 120Hz and variable refresh rate for gaming, both Dolby Vision and HDR10+, Dolby Atmos, and will use Amazon’s Fire TV platform for smart TV skills. (In the rest of Europe, this model will be called the Z85C and will use Google TV instead, but is otherwise identical.) It will come in 55-inch and 65-inch sizes.
There will also be a mini-LED lineup, and an interesting change here, brought in by the partnership with Skyworth, is a ‘Glare Free’ matte coating, much like the one used by Samsung in several of its sets, including the Samsung QN90F mini-LED.
Top of the range in the UK is the Panasonic W94C, available in 55, 65, and 75-inch sizes, with 4K 144Hz and VRR support, Dolby Vision HDR, and Fire TV.
Below that in the range is the Panasonic W91C, which supports 4K 60Hz with variable refresh rate, Dolby Vision HDR, Roku as its smart platform, and is available in 55-inch, 65-inch, and 75-inch sizes.
There will also be a range of cheaper QLED and straight LED sets – probably the most notable of these are new 32-inch and 40-inch Full HD TVs with QLED and Fire TV, promising a slightly more premium picture than most small HD TVs get.
My favorite was a TV that’s not in the line-up
Notably missing from this list is an RGB mini-LED TV, using a colorful mini-LED backlight, even though this has been embraced by the other big TV manufacturers for 2026 launches. However, it was not absent from the event entirely: Panasonic had a demo of an RGB backlit TV featuring its Glare Free tech, and this was the set that really stuck with me. You can read our RGB backlight explainer here if you want more info about the tech.
As you’d hope from an RGB TV, the colors looked incredibly vibrant and infinitely complex (though Panasonic had put a demo reel specifically designed to show this off, naturally). But I really couldn’t see any sign of blooming from the light areas to the black background, despite it looking bright and having so much pop – the hard line between the solid colors and the black looked 100% clean.
This was made even more striking by the matte coating that kept the black areas from reflecting the bright, chaotic space around me – we were in a big, open room full of lights and TVs, and I could only see the occasional, very strong reflection from certain angles. Otherwise, the dark tones stayed looking black, and weren’t obviously raised from black to deep grey (which can be a problem with matte displays).
The contrast was no doubt helped by the panel’s over 10,000 dimming zones, which is up there with the best mini-LED TVs offer at a similar size, whether RGB mini-LED or regular mini-LED.
Panasonic explained that it has developed a new processor for this TV to address the large number of control elements needed in the thousands of backlight elements, suggesting it’s serious about producing it in the future.
I hope it does, because with Panasonic’s history of putting image accuracy so high in its priorities, I’d love what it can do with the amazing color depth that RGB TVs promise (all the companies claim up to 100% of the pro-level BT.2020 color space, when regular mini-LED TVs struggle to hit 80%).
I’m also really intrigued to see more of the Z86C OLED TV, but maybe I just have RGB TVs on the brain — they’re the big TV story of this year, and I already thought they’re a real danger to OLED TVs. My first glance at Panasonic’s potential set only added to this – assuming they can get it out for a reasonable price at some point.
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 TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.
