MSRP: £4,999.00
Earlier in the year, at the Panasonic Convention, the company spent quite a lot of time discussing a product relatively far off, in terms of a release date.
In fact, we argued that they spent too much time discussing the upcoming 4K AX902/ AX900 at the expense of the, then top-of-the-range, AX802, encouraging consumers to sit tight and wait for the real flagship.
As it transpired, the AX802 was a pretty darn good Ultra HD TV but the omission of the 4K Netflix service – owing to a technical oversight – meant it lacked any easy means by which to watch native content.
At IFA, yesterday, Panasonic addressed both these issues by confirming that the AX902 will be released this Autumn and a software update would see the AX800 Series newly compatible with 4K Netflix – which is great, and somewhat unexpected, news for existing owners.
The AX900 has been designed and engineered with the knowhow Panasonic has developed through the company’s heritage in delivering the highest picture quality (*cough plasma), and they also believe it will deliver the, ‘smartest and most intuitive home entertainment experience available.’
As it transpired, the AX802 was a pretty darn good Ultra HD TV but the omission of the 4K Netflix service – owing to a technical oversight – meant it lacked any easy means by which to watch native content.
At IFA, yesterday, Panasonic addressed both these issues by confirming that the AX902 will be released this Autumn and a software update would see the AX800 Series newly compatible with 4K Netflix – which is great, and somewhat unexpected, news for existing owners.
The AX900 has been designed and engineered with the knowhow Panasonic has developed through the company’s heritage in delivering the highest picture quality (*cough plasma), and they also believe it will deliver the, ‘smartest and most intuitive home entertainment experience available.’
Panasonic really seem to have been putting in the R&D hours on this one!
As Panasonic rightly points out, reproducing deep blacks, whilst also retaining rich colours in dark scenes has been a long standing weakness of LCD TVs. To address these issues, Panasonic says the AX902 will deliver best-in-class black performance by using a Direct LED with full-array local dimming complemented with ‘Panasonic-unique’ Local Dimming Ultra technologies.
The company also boats that while other full array local dimming systems suffer from a ‘halo’ effect around moving bright objects because their local dimming fields lack sufficient brightness, the AX900 analyses the incoming video signal not in traditional 3 x 3 matrices, but across 5 x 5 matrices of local dimming fields and adjusts the brightness level of each individual field by extremely fine degrees - i.e. not just on/off. This, according to Panasonic should then provide smooth motion of bright objects, a high contrast ratio, deep, rich blacks and extremely fine gradation which retains detail even in the darkest scenes. It certainly sounds great in theory but we’ll reserve judgement on whether they’ve pulled it off until we get one in to test.
The AX900 engineers have also worked together closely with colleagues at Panasonic Hollywood Laboratories to ensure that the colours on the AX900 are exactly the same as the director intended. To achieve this Panasonic has adopted colour management technologies which have, until now, only been used to the same degree by professional studio monitors, such as their professional-standard 3D Look Up Tables with 8000 registry points which allow them to calibrate colour reproduction at extremely fine brightness steps, meaning that colour is reproduced accurately at any brightness level.
Studio-grade colour accuracy is another exciting prospect
Panasonic is the first company to use this technology in a consumer television and we must say that this is a particularly exciting development, for us, and again, we can’t wait to check it out properly.
One feature we are slightly dubious about is another industry first; the AX902 explicitly links its video signal processing to ambient light levels in order to deliver picture quality which, according to Panasonic, is a ‘perfect match for your living room.’ Now, in theory, that sounds good too but from our past experiences, ambient light sensing technologies can cause distracting luminance shifts so we’ll have to wait and see how this system will be any different - and the fact you can’t switch it off is curious.
This is one we are very excited about. Let’s just hope all the cutting edge technology works as described and the yet unannounced price isn’t too prohibitive. The AX900/ 902 will be available in 55 and 65-inch versions when it releases.
Who else is excited for this one?
One feature we are slightly dubious about is another industry first; the AX902 explicitly links its video signal processing to ambient light levels in order to deliver picture quality which, according to Panasonic, is a ‘perfect match for your living room.’ Now, in theory, that sounds good too but from our past experiences, ambient light sensing technologies can cause distracting luminance shifts so we’ll have to wait and see how this system will be any different - and the fact you can’t switch it off is curious.
This is one we are very excited about. Let’s just hope all the cutting edge technology works as described and the yet unannounced price isn’t too prohibitive. The AX900/ 902 will be available in 55 and 65-inch versions when it releases.
Who else is excited for this one?
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