Panasonic W95B, W85B, W61A and W60A: what they ship with and what comes off

Panasonic was already selling three operating systems at once across its 2023 LED range, and that seemed like plenty. Today's UK shop window has five, and you do not have to change page to see them: the W95B and the W85B declare Fire TV, the W61A and the W60A declare TiVo, the MX950 still runs my Home Screen8.0, the MX650 runs Android TV (v.11), and the MX610 and MX600 run Smart TV (+ Foxxum AppStore).

This page is about the first four: the two up top, which are the range that follows the A, and the two below, which are the entry range. The difference that affects you most is not in the panel. It is that two of them have ADB and the other two do not.

Four models, two worlds#

The W95B is the Mini LED at the top, in 55, 65, 75 and 85 inches. It declares 4K LCD/Mini LED, HCX Pro AI Processor MKII, Local Dimming Ultra and all four HDR formats in full, HDR10+ Adaptive/HDR10/HLG/Dolby Vision IQ. Sound is 50 W on every size, with Twin Tuner: Y and HDCP2.3.

The W85B is the QLED, in 43, 50, 55 and 65 inches, with a plain HCX Processor and High Contrast in the dimming box. It moves up where it matters: its Panel Refresh Rate reads 120Hz, against the 60 Hz of the W80A it replaces. And one detail is worth noting: on Panasonic's own page all four W85B carry the line "This product is not available in the market yet", while the W95B do not.

The W61A and the W60A are the TiVo sets, in 43, 50, 55 and 65 inches. 4K Colour engine instead of HCX, Filmmaker Mode: N, isf Mode: N, Calman READY: N, and three HDR formats rather than four: HDR10 / HLG / Dolby Vision, with no HDR10+.

The ports, one by one#

The W95B keeps the top-end split and adds to it. It declares HDMI Inputs: 4 (side: 4) and, in the features box, eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel) (Input 2), ALLM (All inputs), VRR (input 1 & 2), 4K HFR (input 1 & 2), AMD Freesync Premium (input 1 & 2) and SPD Auto Game Mode (input 1 & 2). Its VRR reads Y (Up to 144Hz).

The W85B has three ports and puts all of them on the side. Under "HDMI Inputs" it says 3 (side), not the 2 (side), 1 (back) of the W80A: the same three, but none at the back. If the set goes flat against a wall, that changes which cable you need to buy. It keeps eARC (Input 2), ALLM (All inputs) and VRR (input 1 & 2), and adds AMD Freesync Premium (input 1 & 2), which the W80A did not have. Its VRR reads Y (Up to 120Hz) and its HDMI 2.1 HFR Support is still N.

The W61A and the W60A go back to the W80A split. HDMI Inputs: 2 (side), 1 (back), eARC (Input 2) and ALLM (All inputs). On VRR, nothing: HDMI 2.1 VRR Support: N, and the same for HFR, AMD Freesync Premium and G-Sync Compatible.

On all four, eARC sits on input 2. It is the one box that does not move anywhere in the range.

The W61A and the W60A are the same television#

Put the two 55-inch sheets side by side and they match on everything that can be measured: 1,233 x 87 x 712mm without the stand, 14.5 kg, a 450 x 27 x 235mm pedestal, 200 x 200 (M6) VESA, same panel, same ports, same 20 W. Only two things change.

The energy label. The 55-inch W60A declares SDR: F; HDR: G and SDR: 77 kWh/1000h: HDR: 123 kWh/1000h; the W61A of the same size declares SDR: E; HDR: G and SDR: 64 kWh/1000h, HDR: 124 kWh/1000h. One letter better in SDR, one kilowatt worse in HDR. On the 65-inch there is not even that: both declare SDR: E; HDR: G and the same figures, 85 and 145 kWh/1000h.

Game mode. The W61A says Game Mode Plus w / Game Control Board; the W60A only says Y (with Game Control Board). And here Panasonic contradicts itself: on that very W60A page, among the selling points, sits "Level up your game: Game Mode Plus with Game Control Board". The table says one thing and the headline says another. When that happens, the table wins.

TiVo is not Android, which means there is no ADB here#

On the W61A and the W60A the "Smart TV" box reads TiVo. It is not Fire OS, it is not Google TV and it is not Android: there is no pm disable-user, no package list and nothing to uninstall from a console. What can be done is done from the set's own menus, and not much more.

The small print on Panasonic's page is worth reading, because it explains the system better than the brochure does: "Voice, Search, and Personalised Recommendations (‘Powered by TiVo Functionality’) is only available when you are connected to the internet, on compatible devices, and in certain countries where consent to its installation is needed, or your Smart TV will not provide the Powered by TiVo Functionality". In plain terms: search and recommendations are the feature, they run over the internet, and in some countries you have to consent to their installation. Refuse, and you do not have them.

Both declare TiVo Voice Assistant built-in: Y, Works with Alexa: Y and Alexa Built-in: N, and both ship a TV Remote (Bluetooth / embedded microphone). That microphone is there even though Alexa is not inside: it listens for TiVo's assistant. And neither declares Apple AirPlay or Apple Home, which the W85B does have.

On the W95B and the W85B there is real work to do#

Both are Fire TV, so the method and the vocabulary from the Z95A and W80A pages apply. The prefix that rules is com.amazon.: the launcher (com.amazon.tv.launcher) and the store (com.amazon.venezia) decide what you see when you switch on, and they are the two things not to touch until you have another launcher installed and working.

There are no Google packages, and the sheets confirm it by omission: under "Google Assistant Built-in" and "Works with Google Assistant" both print a dash. There is no Play Store either; the store is Amazon's Appstore, with a smaller catalogue, so overdoing the removals costs you on the way back.

What comes off without much thought is the usual: streaming apps you do not use and games you have never opened. They come back from the store in two minutes. And before touching anything, two settings remove a fair amount of noise with no ADB at all: under Settings → Preferences → Privacy Settings you turn off usage data collection and interest-based ads.

Leave alone anything to do with HDMI and external device control: ALLM and VRR run through there. And anything starting with com.android. that you cannot identify.

What Panasonic does not publish#

Not one nit on any of the four. Nor the zone count of the W95B's Local Dimming Ultra, nor the RAM, nor the storage, nor the Android version under Fire OS. And the "Panasonic Picture Index" that did appear on the MX800 and the MX950 has gone: none of these four sheets carries it.

Energy does something odd, and it is worth saying out loud. The W95B publishes nothing at all: no energy class, no rated consumption, no standby figure, on any of its four sizes. The W85B publishes the class on only two of its four, the 43-inch (SDR: E; HDR: G, 42 and 102 kWh/1000h) and the 55-inch (SDR: E; HDR: G, 64 and 124), leaving the 50 and the 65 with no box at all. Both TiVo sets, by contrast, publish class and consumption on all four sizes. The most expensive model documents the least.

How to tell whether this page is about your set#

Look at the prefix, which here separates the systems: TV- are the Fire TV sets and TB- are the TiVo ones. Panasonic documents TV-55W95BEB, TV-65W95BEB, TV-75W95BEB and TV-85W95BEB; TV-43W85BEY, TV-50W85BEY, TV-55W85BEY and TV-65W85BEY; TB-43W61AEY, TB-50W61AEY, TB-55W61AEY and TB-65W61AEY; and TB-43W60AEY, TB-50W60AEY, TB-55W60AEY and TB-65W60AEY. The final letters change by country.

On a Fire TV, Settings → My Fire TV → About gives the model and the Fire OS version, and with ADB connected getprop ro.product.model gives the internal identifier.

If you own one#

Almost nothing has been written about Panasonic's TiVo sets, and even less about the B range. If you switch on a W61A or a W60A and note down which apps it came with and what the menu let you remove, or if you pull the package list off a W95B exactly as the set returns it, the next person looking up the model finds the work already done.