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When it comes to detail, the Toshiba captured individual strands of hair and wrinkles in the skin, along with all of the tiny details that decorate Tahani’s grand house. However, as with Daredevil, the image often seemed to verge on being overly sharp. Sound quality
The shiny finish on the bezel makes it look a little cheap and it’s prone to fingerprints, but it isn’t overly chunky allowing much of the real estate to be taken up by the DLED screen. The flashiest part of the design is the stand in its metallic silver shade. You also have the option to mount the TV on a wall. TRU Resolution TRU Resolution upscales a wide variety of non 4K content, delivering a more refined image that feels fully immersive." Used to throttle request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_. Chat Widget offers out-of-the-box cookie consent management, see here: Enabling cookie consent for the Chat widget & Web SDK The Toshiba UL21 is inexpensive, reasonably bright, delivers colour accurate SDR images, and HDR performance is bolstered by Dolby Vision support. If you can find it for the right price, it’s a solid buy.The Toshiba UK31 hasn’t taken a big enough step forward, with other TV brands in this budget space boasting a better feature set – the 65-inch Hisense Roku A7200G is available for the same price and is a better value-priced buy. While there’s plenty to watch on Freeview, I was disappointed to learn Search couldn’t surface content from Netflix or other streaming apps.
Used to determine a user's inclusion in an experiment and the expiry of experiments a user has been included in. The sound also projects forward and sideways from the screen quite effectively, avoiding that feeling so often heard with built-in TV audio systems that sound only seems to exist behind the screen. The available picture modes include Cinema, Natural, Dynamic, Sports and Game alongside their HDR versions. Cinema, Natural and Dynamic are your best bets, but they come with caveats. Hold down the manual button on the unit for 30 seconds (if unsure of location please refer to the user manual). The panel is also a VA type rather than an IPS type, which again usually results in better contrast (albeit at the expense of comparatively limited viewing angles).
To access Freeview channels, the TV will need to be tuned into a digital aerial. Connecting the TV to the internet will allow you to access the SMART features and applications on the TV, but not the full channel list. Basically, there’s seldom anything in the 50UK3163DB’s sound profile that actively distracts you from what you’re watching, while there’s actually quite a bit that actively tries to involve you. Verdict To test the Toshiba UL21 we used Portrait Displays Calman colour calibration software. Toshiba UL21 review: Sound quality Toshiba hasn’t gone for the full HDR sweep by also including support for the HDR10+ system that Samsung TVs favour over Dolby Vision. Providing Dolby Vision on top of the more routine HDR10 and HLG HDR formats is still a compelling proposition, though. TRU Flow TRU Flow analyses the image and frames to minimise judder effect and keep up with fast paced action scenes.
The most intriguing feature is the Alexa integration, which could prove to be the UL5A’s MVP alongside Dolby Vision. Called Toshiba Connect, it allows for interaction with the Alexa interface built into the system’s core. For one, it supports Dolby Vision HDR, to compensate for the miserly HDR10 performance of sets at this price. There’s broadcast HLG, which will aid HDR performance in the BBC iPlayer app, but there’s no Wide Colour Gamut (WCG), which is a shame. Toshiba has pinpointed its picture performance as an area of growth, developing the TRU Picture Engine. It breaks down the TV’s picture performance into three parts: micro dimming, motion control and upscaling.Between them, the intense sharpness and surprisingly potent handling of HDR leave almost all of the 50UK3163DB’s similarly priced rivals looking staid and dull by comparison. If you really want to get an impression of HDR’s strengths without having to spend big on a much higher end TV, the 50UK3163DB won’t let you down. As is the case for SDR content, the Cinema mode is the most colour accurate of the five non-Dolby options, but not the brightest. I measured peak brightness in that mode at 334cd/m² on a 10% white window, while Natural mode returned a peak figure of 376cd/m² in the same conditions. Both are good scores, though they don’t translate to jaw-dropping HDR images, which is to be expected given how affordable the UL21 is. The ability to play audio/video files from the network is unreliable: the "audio video sharing" option often disappears from the list of sources, even though it is enabled in settings.
The set’s upscaling is quite effective: standard definition DVD footage looks reassuringly smooth, with jaggies on diagonals smoothed out, while HD Blu-ray content is pixel dense, mapped to 2160p. Audio is perfectly ok for everyday use and is able to go loud without sounding shrill. The set has a 20W downward-firing stereo sound system but supports Dolby Atmos, which is good news if you want to partner it with an Atmos The 50UK3163DB’s HDR efforts aren’t the only way it makes an unexpected mark on the affordable TV world, either. Its native 4K pictures also look remarkably sharp and detailed. So much so, in fact, that they make the efforts of even some recent LCD TVs we’ve seen from the usually dependable Samsung look soft and undefined by comparison. (Though its upscaled HD pictures, by comparison, look a little soft and noisy.) This message will show when the TV is not receiving a signal, either through the aerial or an external device connected if you have selected an input source but a device is not providing a signal. Finally in the negative column, motion handling is only solid rather than great, even with the Tru Motion feature active.What Hi-Fi?, founded in 1976, is the world's leading independent guide to buying and owning hi-fi and home entertainment products. Our comprehensive tests help you buy the very best for your money, with our advice sections giving you step-by-step information on how to get even more from your music and movies. Everything is tested by our dedicated team of in-house reviewers in our custom-built test rooms in London, Reading and Bath. Our coveted five-star rating and Awards are recognised all over the world as the ultimate seal of approval, so you can buy with absolute confidence. Toshiba has also recently introduced an Ambient Screen Mode called ‘Alexa Home Screen’ for its Alexa Built-In models. This acts as a customisable screensaver feature when the TV is in standby mode, displaying information such as the time, weather and calendar events.
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