Panasonic will release 55″ OLED TV in HZ980 series in August for 1800 euros

Panasonic is expanding its series of OLED TVs this year with the HZ980 series, consisting of a 55″ and a 65″ model. The successors of last year’s entry-level OLED TVs, the GZW954, will appear in August for suggested retail prices of 1800 and 2500 euros respectively.

The HZ980 series comes in addition to the HZ1000, HZ1500 and HZ2000 series of OLED televisions that Panasonic announced at the beginning of this year and which should be available in 2020. The HZ980 shares many of the features with those models, according to the manufacturer.

It concerns 4k TVs, they have the HCX Pro processor for image processing and there is support for Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, hdr10+, hdr10 and hlg. The HZ980 models also support Dolby Vision IQ with Filmmaker Mode, which turns off image interpolation on TVs to show images ‘as the creator intended’.

There is also support for HDMI eARC and wireless speakers and headsets can be connected via bluetooth audio link. The TVs can be controlled via voice using Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant. Panasonic has not yet released more details about the models and it is not known what exactly the differences are with the more expensive OLED TVs of this year, although this will probably be due to higher peak brightnesses and more connections.

The HZ980 series consists of the TX-55HZW984 and the TX-65HZW984, which will be available from August for 1,800 and 2,500 euros respectively.