46-inch Tosh HDTV Well-Worth The Look

The new 46-inch LCD TV from Toshiba delivers excellent picture quality, good black levels, and has quite a number of ports for added connectivity. It is well-worth looking at if you want a monstrous screen to satisfy your movie or gaming needs.

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The Toshiba Regza 46XV500A comes packed with features which includes a Full HD panel, 100Hz, DynaLight for deep blacks, CineSpeed for high speed response, an Ambient Light Sensor that automatically adjusts the contrast, and a Meta Brain Pro that ‘enhances’ your viewing experience.

The 46XV500A sports a piano black bezel with a metallic silver-grey lining found at the edge of the screen. There are no control buttons up front; instead Toshiba has placed the Power, Channel up and down, Menu, and Input select buttons on the right side of the screen behind the bezel. In addition, a headphone jack, a composite port with RCA audio jacks, an S-Video port, and an HDMI port are located below the control buttons for easy device connection.

The rear of the unit hosts two HDMI ports, a component port with RCA audio jacks, a D-sub port, two sets of composite with RCA audio jacks (In and Out), as well as output for digital audio (optical and coaxial).

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Users would first have to search for available stations in the area before being able to adjust the device settings. The unit comes with six pre-set picture settings (PC, Dynamic-user, Standard, Mild, Movie, and Game), with users being able to do further adjustments to the screen in the Picture Menu (3D Colour Management, Base Colour Adjustment). Users can also adjust the auto contrast, active backlight control, xv Colour selection, and MPEG NR (Noise Reduction) in the Picture sub-section.

The unit also comes with five other sub-sections that can help in fine tuning and adjusting the TV settings. These sub-sections include Sound, Setup, Regza-Link, Timer, and Function.

We have connected various devices, including Toshiba’s new DVD upscaler XD-E500, to test the XV500A’s performance.

This screen’s black levels were outstanding, thanks to its highly intelligent dynamic backlight control called DynaLight. This feature automatically monitors the brightness level of each video frame and automatically adjusts the backlight intensity based on the image content. Colours were vibrant thanks to the unit’s Wide Colour Gamut that improves colour accuracy, purity, and colour saturation.

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The only problem is, in order to get the best possible blacks and colours, users would have to manually calibrate the unit first. Out of the box, colours were oversaturated, with greens looking overly-rich, and images suffering from a lack of fine details in shadows.

Images were crisp and bold and did not look washed out during our move test, with the 100Hz picture processing eliminating screen blur in fast-moving scenes. Overall, this 46-inch LCD screen was able to give us good pictures and reproduced images to our liking.

Audio performance was good, with the Regza’s built-in speakers reproducing dynamic sound despite its slim profile. Low frequency sounds were reproduced without much of a problem, while conversations were clear. If you are not satisfied with the sound output however, users can always hook the telly up to a home theatre system (via the digital audio output) for a cinematic feel.

While the new Regza XV500A can produce good blacks and rich colours, users would have to take their time in adjusting the colour settings first for the best possible experience. But once everything is adjusted accordingly, this HDTV will certainly not disappoint. The Toshiba Regza 46XV500A is available now with an RRP of $3,699.

See page over for product specifications and final rating.

Toshiba Regza 46XV500A Specifications:

Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Dynamic Contrast Ratio: 30,000:1
Panel Contrast Ratio: 3,000:1
Viewing Angle: 178
CineSpeed (Response Speed (ms)): 6

Receiving System:
Digital: DVB-T
Analogue: PAL, SECAM, NTSC
Video Signal: 480i/p (60Hz), 576i/576p (50Hz), 720p (50/60Hz), 1080i (50/60Hz), 1080p (24Hz/25Hz, 50Hz/60Hz)

Visual:
Major Technology: Meta Brain Pro
ClearFrame (100Hz): Yes
Auto Contrast: Yes
3D Colour Management: Yes
Dynalight: Yes
Active Backlight Control: Yes

 Input: 3xHDMI, 2x Composite+ RCA, S-Video, D-Sub, Component + RCA
Output: Composite Out + RCA, Digital Audio (Optical and Coaxial)
EPG: Yes (7-day)
Dimensions with stand: 1108x746x308
Weight: 31.2kg

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Toshiba Regza 46XV500A | $3,699 |  | www.toshiba.com.au

For: Superb black levels; Vibrant colours; 100Hz; Full HD panel; Abundance of ports
Against: Users need to tweak colour settings to get the most out of your screen.
Conclusion: Toshiba’s flagship is a fine performer.