For many years, Fire TV has been my go-to platform for streaming. The affordability of Amazon’s HDMI sticks, the benefit of Alexa for search, and the full offering of services made Fire TV better than some of its rivals. Fire TVs – as in televisions running on Fire OS – tended towards the affordable end of the spectrum, meaning you didn’t just have to buy a streaming stick, you could get the whole package.
But Fire TVs have been slightly limited. They were often designed to hit a price point, with even Amazon’s own-branded models such as the 2-Series and 4-Series most attractive because of their bargain prices during Prime Day sales. Amazon moved to up the quality with its Omni QLED model and it’s a pretty good model for the price. I should know, I bought one last Black Friday as a second TV.
At CES 2024, Panasonic announced that it was going to be powering its TVs with Fire OS, in a move that shifts the very definition of what Fire TV is. Sure, other brands like Hisense and Toshiba have Fire TV offerings, but Panasonic went and put Fire TV on its flagship model, the Z95A.
Panasonic offers Fire TV on a full spectrum of OLED models
That was January and now in May 2024, Panasonic has announced its full line-up of TVs for the year and Fire OS runs pretty much all of them. There’s a couple of exceptions – in the UK there is a model that’s TiVO-powered in the W60A – and in Europe there will be a Google TV model too. But most of the serious TVs in Panasonic’s line-up run Fire OS, with the Fire TV at the centre of the action.
That range of TVs spans the Panasonic Z95A and Z93A at the flagship level (announced in January) and then the Z90A, which is going to come in sizes as small as 42-inches, offering 144Hz refresh rates and, yes, Fire TV. These models also offer far-field microphones, so you can talk to Alexa directly, without using the remote.
IMAGE CREDIT: THE DISCONNEKT
Still within the OLED range you then step down to the Z85A (which is 120Hz and doesn’t have as sophisticated sound as the models above it), and then the Z80A, which has a lower-grade processor and is the entry-level OLED TV.
That’s five premium OLED models that now offer Fire TV. Last year there were none and this is a serious reorienting of the Fire OS preposition.
Fire TV is also on Panasonic’s LED televisions
But it doesn’t stop there. Panasonic then goes on to offer a full range of LED TVs in various formats. At the top of the range is the W95A which is a Mini-LED panel, while the W90A is a Full Array LED model – both packed with the same powerful HCX Pro AI Processor Mk II that powers the flagship models and support 144Hz refresh rates. These are serious LED TVs and they both offer Fire TV too.
Then you move towards the sort of TV that has traditionally run on the Fire OS platform, the W80A, a 4K LED TV supporting Dolby Vision – like the Amazon Omni QLED. You could say that everything we’ve mentioned before this most recent model lifts the Fire TV experience above where it was before in terms of picture quality and performance.
IMAGE CREDIT: THE DISCONNEKT
Why Panasonic’s Fire TV migration matters
Two things have happened through Panasonic’s adoption of Fire TV. Firstly, Panasonic has moved beyond its home grown user interface, boosting the experience that its TVs offer. They are smarter and better connected thanks to Fire OS – offering a wider selection of apps too. It’s a more modern solution and it means that the developments that Amazon makes with Fire OS is now to the benefit of Panasonic televisions.
The second thing is that those wanting to buy a Fire TV, rather than just connecting a Fire TV Stick to an existing television, have some seriously premium televisions to choose from. It’s a win-win situation: brands like LG with webOS or Samsung with Tizen OS have invested a lot into their TV platforms and would never abandon it all. But in Panasonic, we have a TV company with excellent Hollywood credentials teaming up with a huge streaming platform in Fire TV.
Emma Gilmartin, director of Fire TV at Amazon Europe, was on stage at the Panasonic TV unveiling in Dusseldorf, Germany, to confirm that Fire TV is the most popular streaming player platform. In 2023, Amazon said that it had sold over 200 million Fire TV devices globally; in 2020 it said that it had 50 million active users, a number that’s now likely much higher (Roku claimed 80 million monthly active users in 2024, but we don’t have a more recent figure for Fire TV).
Your future Panasonic TV will be able to shift into Ambient Mode, showing widgets like weather, as well as sticky notes, becoming much more than a television and more like a giant Echo Show. It will give you access to your smart devices, previewing your Ring Video Doorbell, for example, or able to respond to other Alexa voice commands. This is a huge step towards integrating the biggest screen in your house into the rest of your smart home – and now there’s no quality compromise.
IMAGE CREDIT: THE DISCONNEKT
Panasonic and its Hollywood connections
I’ve mentioned quality and Hollywood a couple of times. Yes, Panasonic is not unique here – all TV brands love to make links to the home of cinema. Panasonic has had a long running partnership with Company 3, a Hollywood colour grading company founded by Stefan Sonnenfeld.
Panasonic’s flagship model is used by Sonnenfeld as a reference monitor. Panasonic also works with Picture Shop and more recently Platige too, giving some credibility to those performance claims.
I’ve seen all the models in the 2024 line-up and the flagship Panasonic Z95A really does stand out with its Micro Lens Array (MLA) panel. Available in popular 65 and 55-inch sizes, it’s Panasonic’s top television, now boosted by the Fire TV platform. There has quite literally never been a better time to buy a Fire TV, well, until the Black Friday sales, of course.
