Panasonic Z95A and W90A: what they ship with and what can come off

The W95A already carried a contradiction that was hard to swallow: a panel tuned with Panasonic's rigour and a home screen designed to sell you things. On the Z95A that contradiction grows, because the Z95A is the brand's top-of-the-range OLED.

Its official sheet calls it Master OLED Ultimate, gives it the HCX Pro AI Processor MKII, hands it the four HDR formats that exist (Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10+ Adaptive, HDR10 and HLG), Filmmaker Mode with light sensing, isf mode and even a calibrated picture mode specific to Netflix.

And in the "Smart TV" box on that same sheet it says Fire TV. The same as the W90A, which costs a fraction. You pay for the calibration and you switch on into Amazon's store.

This page is for whoever already has one of the two in front of them.

Four ports, two fast ones, and eARC on one of them#

Panasonic publishes the split port by port, and it deserves credit because almost nobody does. On both models it is exactly the same:

• eARC: on input 2.
• VRR, 4K at high frame rate and FreeSync Premium: on inputs 1 and 2.
• ALLM: on all of them.

Put the first line next to the second and the conflict appears: of the four ports, only two are any use for high frame rate gaming, and eARC occupies one of those two. With a soundbar connected you are left with a single fast port. Console on HDMI 1, soundbar on HDMI 2, and that is the lot.

If you plug the console into 3 or 4 without looking, nobody warns you: you simply will not have VRR or the high frame rate.

Five minutes on this pays off better than any app clear-out. Do it first.

What they are, in two lines#

The Z95A is a 2024 OLED in 55 and 65 inches. Panasonic quotes the refresh rate as "Up to 144Hz" (the word "native" appears nowhere) and it is the only one of the two that adds G-Sync Compatible on inputs 1 and 2. The sound is 160 W on the 65 inch and 150 W on the 55, across seven channels plus a woofer.

The W90A is its LCD sibling, in 43, 50, 55 and 65 inches. Same processor, same four HDR formats, same port split and the same quoted refresh rate. What drops is everything else: 20 W of sound from two 10 W drivers, two USB ports instead of three and no twin tuner. All four sizes declare the same sheet.

The W90A is not a Mini LED#

Worth saying because the opposite circulates. Panasonic's sheet reads Panel Technology: 4K LCD/Full Array LED, and its own product description calls it "Full Array LED". The Mini LED in the range is the W95A.

The difference is not a label. Panasonic does not publish how many zones there are (on either of them) so the only verifiable thing is the name of the dimming system, which on the W90A is Local Dimming Supreme.

The Z95A's microphone is not in the remote#

The W90A declares Alexa Built-in: Y (with Remote): the microphone is in the remote and you have to press a button. The Z95A declares Alexa Built-in: Y (Hands-free): the microphone is in the television, waiting for the wake word.

No app clear-out switches that off. It goes off in the Fire TV settings or with the set's own physical microphone switch, and if the television is going to sit in a room where people talk, it is worth the two minutes.

What changes because it is Fire TV and not Google TV#

If you have just read the page for a set with Google TV, forget the names you learned there:

There are no Google packages. No com.google.android.tvlauncher, no com.google.android.gms. Here the prefix in charge is com.amazon.. Panasonic's own sheet confirms it by omission: "Google Assistant Built-in" and "Works with Google Assistant" both carry a dash.

There is no Play Store. The store is Amazon's Appstore (com.amazon.venezia), with a smaller catalogue. If you overdo the clear-out, going back is less comfortable than on a Google TV.

ADB works the same. Fire OS is Android underneath, so the commands are the ones used on every other page of this site. What changes is the list of names, not the method.

What Panasonic does not say#

It does not publish the Android version underneath Fire OS, nor the RAM, nor the storage, nor the dimming zone count, nor a single brightness figure in nits. If you have seen one, it did not come from Panasonic.

The storage gap is the one that stings, because it is exactly what decides how many apps fit and for how many years the set can still update itself. It does not get filled in here with what circulates on forums.

What ships from the factory#

Amazon's part. The launcher (com.amazon.tv.launcher), the store (com.amazon.venezia), Prime Video and a good number of services with the com.amazon. prefix. It is most of what is there, and it decides what you see when you switch on.

Everyone else's part. Netflix, Disney+ and the rest arrive installed, and the remote usually carries dedicated buttons. The button stays even if you remove the app: it simply stops leading anywhere.

Panasonic's part. Little, and that is the interesting bit: Panasonic's picture settings (the Filmmaker modes, the isf mode, the calibration, the processing) are not apps. They live in the firmware, below Fire OS. No package list reaches down there, and so nothing you do here can spoil them.

What comes off without much thought#

The streaming apps you do not use. They take up room, update themselves, show up in the recommendation row and talk to their servers. If you subscribe tomorrow, they reinstall from the store in two minutes.

The games and associated services that ship on it and that you have never opened.

What to look at first#

On Fire TV two settings take away a good part of the noise with no risk at all and without ADB: under Settings → Preferences → Privacy Settings you turn off device usage data collection and interest-based ads. Start there.

And the recommendation engine, which on Fire TV is woven more tightly into the home screen than on Google TV: you can empty the row, but do not expect to leave it blank.

What not to touch#

The launcher (com.amazon.tv.launcher), as long as you have no other one installed and working. On Fire TV this is more delicate than on a Google TV because there are fewer alternatives and Amazon's store does not offer them.

The store (com.amazon.venezia): without it you cannot reinstall anything you remove.

Everything to do with HDMI and with the control of external devices, above all if you have a console: VRR, ALLM and the 144 Hz all pass through there.

And anything starting with com.android. that you cannot identify: com.android.systemui is the system interface and com.android.settings is the settings app itself.

Write down what you remove#

This holds for any television, but on a Fire TV it counts double: Amazon reinstates things with updates more often than Google does. Keep the list in a text file with the full command beside each entry, and save the complete package list before you touch anything.

How to tell whether this page is about your set#

Under Settings → My Fire TV → About you will find the model and the Fire OS version. With ADB connected, getprop ro.product.model returns the set's internal identifier, which in this family begins with AFT.

Panasonic documents TV-55Z95AEB and TV-65Z95AEB for the Z95A on its UK site, and TV-43W90AEB, TV-50W90AEB, TV-55W90AEB and TV-65W90AEB for the W90A. The trailing letters change by country. Careful with the 77 inch: at that size the model is called TV-77Z93AEB and belongs to another series, not to a large Z95A.

What you actually notice#

A considerably less commercial home screen, which on a Fire TV is a bigger change than on a Google TV because it starts from further away. Some storage recovered. And less background activity.

What does not change, and here that is the whole point: the picture. The panel, the four HDR formats, the 144 Hz, Filmmaker Mode and Panasonic's processing carry on exactly as before. That lives in the firmware, not in the apps, and it is precisely what you paid for.

All of this comes undone#

Packages disabled over ADB come back with one command, and a factory reset returns the television to the state it left the box in. Nothing here touches the system: you are only telling the set not to load something that was already installed.

If you own one#

The app list from your own Z95A or W90A, exactly as the set reports it, is especially valuable: there are far fewer Fire TV entries about than Google TV ones, and on a Panasonic fewer still. If you feel like sending it, the next person searching for this model finds the work already done.