Toshiba 46YL863

Page 1: Design and Features Page 2: Features and first picture thoughts Page 3: Picture and Sound Quality User Reviews Comments Specs Photos

At its recent 2012 product launch, Toshiba had plenty of new TVs to show off. But these imminent new sets did not include any replacements for Toshiba’s current flagship TVs, the WL863 and YL863 models.

Driven by Toshiba’s proprietary, high-powered CEVO Engine processing, the 2011-launched YL853 and WL853 models represent the brand’s most concerted attempt to bring some of the huge processing power used in its Japanese Cell Regza TVs to the UK. So presumably Toshiba believes that for now, at least, these flagship TVs are still able to hold their own against the newer sets starting to arrive on UK shores from rival brands.

Naturally we decided to put this Toshiba theory to the test by putting one of these flagship sets, the Toshiba 46YL863, through its paces.

The first thing that strikes you about this 46in LCD TV is how good looking it is. Toshiba has employed the design talents of the Jacob Jensen Design Studio for these top tier TVs, and the results are genuinely lovely. Its silver, metallic finish, elegant lines and extremely trim bezel and rear both shout ‘flagship TV’ at the top of their lungs. What’s more, the brushed aluminium chassis is remarkably well built.

The 46YL863 continues to live up to its flagship status with its connections. Its got four HDMIs for digital, HD and 3D video feeds, which should be enough to cope with even the most extreme user demands. Multimedia playback, meanwhile, is supported by two USBs, a LAN port and, best of all, built-in Wi-Fi.

The USBs can be used for playing back a healthy though not exhaustive selection of music, video and photo file types from USB storage devices, while the Wi-Fi/LAN options are there to access files stored on networked DLNA-enabled PCs or for going online with Toshiba’s Places ‘smart TV’ system (which we’ll come back to later).

The inclusion of Wi-Fi as standard is significant, since all the research we’ve seen shows clearly that consumers are hugely more likely to use a smart TV’s online functionality if they can do so without having to hardwire their TV into their network.

There is one further significance to the LAN connectivity too, in that it’s there as required support for the set’s inevitable Freeview HD tuner. The 46YL863 also, intriguingly, has a satellite tuner on board. But since this isn’t compatible with the ‘Freesat’ packaging exclusive to the UK, it’s of very limited interest on these shores, so we won’t dwell on it.

The CEVO Engine inside the 46YL863 should on paper be able to deliver much more powerful and, crucially, speedy picture processing than you get with other Toshiba sets, hopefully leading to boosts in everything from colour and detail to contrast and motion response. Particularly eye-catching is the way the CEVO Engine can control an impressively sophisticated ‘local dimming’ system for the edge LED lighting.

Obviously local dimming with edge LED lights is not quite as accurate when it comes to localised levels of brightness as it tends to be with local dimming on direct LED TVs. But we’ve certainly seen edge LED TVs with local dimming start to deliver much more sophisticated results in recent months than the first locally dimmed models tended too, so hopefully the CEVO Engine’s power will continue this positive trend. Certainly the set’s 7,000,000:1 contrast ratio claim is mighty impressive.

The 46YL863’s powerful processors further enable it to offer a very unusual set up feature: an auto calibration system. Cough up around £250 on an optional TPA-1 package, and you can bag yourself a colour meter that plugs into one of the TV’s USB ports and then hangs over the screen so that it can take readings from a series of built-in test signals and automatically calibrate your TV’s settings.

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Finlux 32H503

Page 1: Design and Specs Page 2: Picture Quality Page 3: 2D Picture quality and Sound User Reviews Comments Specs Photos

As people who have been knocking around in the AV world for far too long now, we can easily remember the days when you could find yourself coughing up as much as £1500 for a 32in CRT TV. So it’s actually quite hard to comprehend the Finlux 32H503: a 32in LCD TV that can be yours for just £228.99.

Not surprisingly such a furiously price-driven TV isn’t particularly over-burdened with features. There’s no online functionality, no DLNA networking support, no fancy picture processing (not even 100Hz), the native resolution of the 32in panel is an HD-Ready 1366x768 rather than a full HD 1920x1080, and the built-in tuner is only Freeview standard def rather than Freeview HD.

But really, when you’re talking about forking over under £230 for a 32in TV, such feature omissions are kinda beside the point. All you can really hope for at such a price point is a decent picture and sound performance.

We’ll get onto finding out if the 32H503 very soon, we promise. But in the mean time, for all its inevitably stripped back nature, Finlux’s entry-level 32in TV does have one or two tricks up its sleeves.

The most useful of these centre around the USB port tucked away down its rear left side. For this can both play back video, music and photo files stored on USB-based memory devices, and record from the Freeview tuner to USB HDDs. Both of which can be classed as impressive tools on such a preposterously cheap TV.

Tucked away within its bright and colourful, if rather cheap-looking, onscreen menus, meanwhile, is an adjustable noise reduction feature; a quartet of backlight settings, including a reasonably clever ‘auto’ one; a sliding bar that lets you shift the colour between enhanced red and green saturations, and a ‘True Black’ option for the set’s HDMI ports that boosts the black level depth of HDMI sources.

It’s a pity, perhaps, that there are only two HDMIs on the 32H503. But then we guess it’s not totally unreasonable for Finlux to figure that people buying such a phenomenally price-driven TV will either be looking for a set to go in a second room where there will be less sources, or else they’ll likely only have a fairly limited selection of digital video sources.

What's also disappointing about the 32H503’s connections is that most of the important ones face straight out of the TV’s rear, making wall hanging the TV more problematic than it would otherwise be.

Again, though, in reality we don’t see many people really wanting to stick a 32H503 on a wall. For a start, it arrives already attached to a desktop stand. But also, with its rather wide black, angular bezel and chunky (by today’s standards) rear end it’s not exactly up there with a Monet in terms of something you’d want to adorn your wall with.

Starting out our tests with a selection of HD sources, it’s soon clear that as with the brand’s recently reviewed 55in model, the 32H503 is quite a bit better than expected.

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Panasonic TX-P65ST50

To date, Panasonic has saved its largest 65in plasma screens (not including the monster 85in, 103in and 152in models reserved for its ‘pro’ wing) for the top tier of its home TV range.

There’s nothing wrong with this per se, but it has meant that Panny’s biggest screens have tended to be rather too expensive for the vast majority of people. Happily Panasonic has decided to address this situation at last by introducing a 65in set to its new mid-range ST50 series - and from what we saw of this TV at Panasonic’s recent Hamburg product convention, you can colour us very excited indeed.

The single most exciting thing about the P65ST50 is its price. Panasonic hopes to have it on sale for as little as... £2,500. Still a hefty chunk of money but barely half the price of the usual 65V series models.

Making this price look even more enticing is the fact that the P65ST50 enjoys the same up-to-the-minute Panasonic plasma panel that’s found in the step-up GT50 and VT50 models; you’re not having to compromise with some previous generation of Panasonic’s plasma designs.

The benefits of this new panel design include improved phosphors that can be driven at lower power levels or produce 30% more brightness at last year’s power levels; reduced pixel ‘after glow’ thanks to it being easier to dissipate the lower charges being fed to each plasma chamber; and perhaps most significantly of all, a brand new ‘2000Hz subfield drive’ system. Previously Panasonic has only been able to deliver a 600Hz subfield drive, which has sometimes meant motion doesn’t look as natural as we would like.

Moving to 2000Hz also has the potential to improve plasma’s traditionally limited colour and greyscale gradations when watching dark 3D scenes.

The P65ST30 carries the latest Smart Viera platform, which can be access via integrated wi-fi (a very welcome improvement over last year’s ‘Viera Connect’ models). We won’t go into detail on the new Smart Viera functions here - not least because there’s still plenty of room for further development in the coming weeks. But it’s fair to say that content levels look set to surge in 2012, with NetFlix, MySpace, and the fun-looking Disney Digital Books among the most notable additions.

The ST50 series doesn’t enjoy the dual-core processors found in the GT50 and VT50 models, meaning you don’t get those higher-spec models’ split-screen multi-tasking Smart TV functionality. The other models also have better black level filters, and 2500Hz sub-field driving.

Panasonic has made a substantial effort with its TV designs for 2012. So it is that the P65ST50 looks much more fetching than most Panasonic TVs thanks to its tasteful grey bezel colour and eye-catching ‘crystal’ finish - a finish which extends slightly beyond the main bezel to create a transparent ‘trim’.

Spending as much time as possible in front of an ST50 given the ‘tricky’ circumstances of the packed Hamburg convention centre, the excitement we’d already started to feel when we heard the set’s £2,500 price merely grew. For even in these less than ideal surroundings, its 2D picture quality looked excellent for its money, with blacks even deeper than those of last year’s NeoPlasma models, and a reduction in the sort of ‘fizzing’ noise during dark scenes that tends to affect plasma technology. It was also obvious in a selection of ‘this year versus last year’ head to heads that the P65ST50’s motion reproduction is much crisper than 2011’s models, and that its pictures are capable of being markedly brighter without negatively impacting power consumption in any way.

The good news continues with 3D viewing to some extent. For while our time spent in the ‘3D booth’ at the convention still had us feeling that plasma could do with retaining a little more brightness when showing active 3D material, brightness levels certainly looked higher than they did on last year’s 3D plasma models, and the boost in the subfield driving circuitry seemed to deliver more shadow detail and gradation in dark scenes. The set also reaffirmed how impressively little Panasonic plasmas suffer with 3D crosstalk.

With Panasonic introducing large-screen LCD TVs in 2012 for the first time, rumours have already started to creep around suggesting that plasma’s days may be numbered. But on the evidence of the P65ST50 seen so far, we’d suggest that you write Panasonic’s still-preferred TV technology off at your peril.

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Panasonic Viera TX-L42ET5B

Page 1: Design and Features Page 2: Features Page 3: Picture Quality User Reviews Comments Specs Photos

If you’d said to us a couple of years ago that a Panasonic range debutant would use passive rather than active 3D technology, and LCD tech rather than the brand’s beloved plasma, we’d have laughed in your face.

Yet here we are at the start of Panasonic’s 2012 TV launches with the Panasonic L42ET5 sat on our test benches: a 42in LED TV with passive 3D technology onboard. Wowza.

Basically, it would seem Panasonic has had to wake up and smell the coffee. For while plasma still has a well-deserved following, you just can’t deny the commercial reality that many people can’t think beyond LCD, even where large screen sizes are concerned. And while we have plenty of sympathy with qualitative arguments in favour of active 3D, there’s a large and entirely justified market for the simplicity, affordability and comfort of the passive 3D format.

Panasonic has even confessed to a technical/commercial reason for going the passive 3D route. Namely that it’s become increasingly convinced that you can’t do active 3D using a 100Hz panel (something borne out last year by Sony’s disastrous EX7 series). Which effectively means you can’t do active 3D on a really affordable LCD TV.

This explanation, or excuse, for going passive sounds a bit odd given that the Panasonic L42ET5’s spec sheet claims a "300Hz" system. But as with many such apparent fast refresh-rate claims, the reality is that the screen’s native refresh rate is 100Hz; the 300Hz bit comes from the way this combines with a blinking backlight.

We should add here that Panasonic hasn’t given up on its core values in any way. Far from it. It has an extensive and radically improved plasma range coming our way too, and the ET5 series is its only passive 3D offering, with multiple series of active 3D models elsewhere in the brand’s range. But it just so happens that the ET5 is the first new set to explode out of Panasonic’s warehouse, so let’s find out how this out-of-the-comfort-zone model shapes up.

It starts off very well, thanks to aesthetics that rank among the very best Panasonic has delivered. The smoky grey colour of the bezel makes a pleasant change, but this is given extra lustre by the application of a nice high-gloss finish that extends slightly beyond the main bezel to deliver a cool little transparent outer trim.

The set is surprisingly well connected, too. Particularly welcome is an integrated Wi-Fi system - though the set also has a wired LAN if you don't have a wireless system set up in your home. There are also four v1.4 HDMIs, a D-Sub PC port and a handy trio of USB ports through which you can play a fairly good selection of video, music and photo formats. These include JPEG, MP3, .mov, .qt, .divx, .avi, .mkv. wmv, .m4a and most MPEG-related file types.

It’s worth adding, too, that the L42ET5 has an SD slot, so you can play the same multimedia files from SD cards if you prefer these to USB storage devices. And still more good multimedia news finds the Panasonic L42ET5 able to stream files from networked DLNA PCs.

All this and we haven’t considered yet possibly the most key component of the L42ET5’s multimedia functionality: its Viera Connect platform. For the first time with a Panasonic TV, this includes a (rather hidden away, slightly buggy but well presented) Web browser rather than just restricting you to Panasonic’s ‘walled garden’ of content.

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Samsung UE46ES8000

We haven't yet produced a review of the Samsung UE46ES8000, but we have given our full verdict on its big brother, the UE55ES8000. Why not read that review while our TV experts are beavering away?

The smaller of the TV twins boasts similar specs to its big brother, with an LED-lit 1080p screen. It's a 3D television, using Active 3D shutter glasses. Two pairs of glasses come as part of the package. This is a style-conscious set, with an extremely thin screen bezel and a natty-looking design.

A Freeview HD tuner features, and it has access to the Samsung Smart TV channel, letting you watch things like the BBC iPlayer. A wireless module is inbuilt, so you won't need to spend any more money on an often-expensive dongle.

The Samsung UE46ES8000 also has four HDMI inputs, an 800MHz motion engine and microphone plus camera to let you use Skype on your TV. Clever, eh? At the time of writing, we're yet to see conclusive retail pricing for the TV.

While we get get on with reviewing this top-end model, why not read our other Samsung TV reviews?

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Kogan LED55

Page 1: Design and Specs Page 2: Picture performance Page 3: Performance Continued User Reviews Comments Specs Photos

The vast majority of the TVs we see come from somewhere "out east" - Japan, Korea, Taiwan or China. But today we’re heading south. Way south. For the Kogan brand behind the Kogan LED55 KULED551HDAA TV on our test benches today is actually Australian.

Kogan has dabbled its toes in UK waters before, but only this year has it really made a full-blooded assault on our infamously tough TV marketplace, setting up its own online retail website and launching a surprisingly full range of TVs. And sitting right at the top of this range is the Kogan LED55, a 55in TV with a Freeview HD tuner, 100Hz processing, and a surprisingly slender design made possible by its use of edge LED lighting.

The home for Kogan’s UK flagship screen - which remarkably only costs £749 - is a passably attractive one, thanks to a high-gloss finish and some respectable build quality. The TV’s lines are a bit ‘standard’, it has to be said, and its bezel is wider than we’re becoming accustomed to seeing, making the Kogan LED55 quite a dominating presence. But at least its rear end is quite trim for a budget TV.

Connectivity is perfectly decent too. HD fans should be satisfied by the provision of a trio of HDMIs, for a start, while there’s also a D-Sub PC port so the TV can double up as a computer monitor; an Ethernet port; and a USB jack that’s able to play video, music or photo files using the AVI, MP4, DivX4, DivX5, XVID, MP3, WMA, JPEG and BMP file formats.

The USB port can also be used, impressively, for recording from the HD tuner, with USB drives up to 1TB supported. This sort of functionality certainly goes beyond what you would normally expect to find on such an aggressively-priced 55in TV, and raises hopes that the Ethernet port might extend to such "value added" functionality as DLNA streaming or even online Smart TV functionality.

Sadly - if predictably - this does not prove to be the case. The Ethernet is there simply because the inclusion of the Freeview HD tuner demands it. It doesn’t provide a pipeline to your PC or any wider online services. Oh well. Such is budget TV life.

If you’re the sort of person who tends to tremble in fear at the very sight of a few onscreen menu options, the Kogan LED55 could be the TV for you. For its onscreen menus are just about as basic as basic can be, in terms of both their presentation and the limited amount of functionality and adjustments they contain. The only surprise is an elementary colour management system, which lets you tweak the balance of the red, green and blue image components.

While the Kogan’s onscreen menus are straightforward, though, trawling through them is not. This is because the set’s remote control system is really pretty horrible, with rubbery buttons, a vague layout, and worst of all, a far-too-narrow effective reception range that prevents the TV responding to your remote commands unless you’ve got it pointed at the screen from exactly the right angle. Very annoying.

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