Panasonic has just unveiled its 2026 TV range, and it's not what we were expecting.

While there is a new OLED model, it's not a replacement for the flagship Z95B, or even the step-down Z90B. Both of those models will continue through 2026.

Instead, it's an all-new Z86C model (Z85C in mainland Europe), which Panasonic says features "a new OLED panel".

Our working theory is that this new panel is the budget-oriented OLED SE panel that LG Display introduced last month at CES.

When we put that to a Panasonic representative, they said, “LG display has launched a new panel; this is that panel”, which feels like confirmation to us.

The use of an OLED SE panel would position the Z86C as an entry-level OLED. Perhaps even at a similar level of affordability as last year's Philips OLED760 and Toshiba XF9F.

We're working on getting pricing information out of Panasonic.

The Z86C has a 120Hz refresh rate and VRR support, so it could be a good option for gamers, though the number of HDMI 2.1 sockets it has is yet to be confirmed.

All flavours of HDR are supported, so that's HLG, HDR10, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos is also on board.

Amazon's Fire OS provides the Z86C's smarts, whereas mainland Europe's Z85C features Google TV.

Both TVs will be available in 55- and 65-inch sizes.

QD Mini LED sets galore

While there's just one new OLED TV on the way from Panasonic this year, there is an onslaught of Mini LED models – but they're not all coming to the UK.

The Mini LED range starts with the flagship W97C and W95C, which differ only in the colour of their casework. These models are limited to mainland Europe.

They feature a 144Hz panel, "more than" 1000 dimming zones, and a claimed peak brightness of 1500 nits.

They also feature what Panasonic is calling "Glare Free Ultra", which is designed to reduce reflections and improve viewing angles.

The W97C and W95C will be available in sizes ranging from 55 to 86 inches.

Definitely destined for UK shores is the W94C, which will come in 55-, 65- and 75-inch sizes.

This looks on paper to be very similar to the W97C and W95C, thanks to its 144Hz panel and Glare Free Ultra anti-reflection tech, but it isn't clear whether it has the same number of dimming zones or brightness.

The W94C does feature the Amazon Fire OS, though, whereas the W97C and W95C are Google TVs.

The final UK-bound Mini LED model in Panasonic's 2026 range is the W91C. Interestingly, this is a Roku TV, rather than a Google or Amazon-powered one.

This model has just a 60Hz refresh rate, but it does feature the Glare Free Ultra tech, HDMI 2.1 sockets and support for VRR and ALLM.

All of Panasonic's new Mini LED sets feature Quantum Dots for added colour vibrancy, but there is also a range of QLED TVs with non-Mini LED backlights, too, as well as some entry-level LCD models.

Our man on the ground, Lewis Empson, will be getting hands-on time with some of Panasonic's new TVs later today, so stay tuned for his first impressions pieces.

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Guilt is a powerful motivator. I’m acutely aware of that, as I have a Catholic mother-in-law (who hopefully isn’t reading this). And recently, I’ve been getting a fairly heavy dose of it.

In part because I told my wife that I have an amazing plan in place for Valentine's Day. I don’t. And I have no clue what I can now book that will live up to the high expectations I've set. But it’s mainly because I was one of the team who just gave Toshiba’s latest OLED a three-star rating.

To be clear, the team and I stand by that rating. While the Toshiba XF9F is the cheapest OLED TV we have seen at its size, with the 55-inch model we reviewed currently selling for an astonishingly low £699, it has too many flaws to recommend. Black crush, poor motion-handling, noisy upscaling: there are a lot of flies in the ointment.

No, I feel guilty because the confines of a review, and its focus on helping people know if the product is worth buying, meant I had to cut a lot of the positive things I wanted to say about the wider importance of Toshiba's OLED.

So I am unburdening my sins here, explaining why I'm still happy this set exists, even if I wouldn't buy it.

As home cinema fans, we all know OLED is great. Not every set is created equal, of course, but there’s a reason that sets with the technology on board continually earn accolades at our yearly What Hi-Fi? Awards are a staple of our best TV buying guide.

Their ability to offer perfect blacks and pixel-level light control are two things that no other panel tech can offer right now.

The rub is that they are still premium sets – undeniably a luxury item. Even entry-level 55- and 65-inch models, such as LG’s B-series, tend to carry £1500+ price tags at launch.

And over the past three years, we have seen sets belligerently refuse to drop into the truly “affordable” £500/$500-ish price point.

Unless you’re willing to go down in size to 48- or 42-inch sets, entry-level OLEDs have refused to drop below £899, even during big sales events such as Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day.

Toshiba bucked that trend for the first time last year, with the XF9F. And while it may have missed the mark in a few performance metrics, based on my nearly two decades of experience covering AV hardware, this is a big deal.

Even if it’s not perfect, in my experience, when one company manages to drive a technology down in price, it rapidly starts a trend.

Companies, unsurprisingly, don’t like being undercut. I can’t see LG, Samsung and co leaving Toshiba's OLED undercutting their wares in big-name stores unchallenged for long, as a result.

And I’ve got plenty of examples of this happening. Take the arrival of affordable 4K TVs over a decade ago.

For years, 4K was available, but it was an expensive luxury. That all changed when Hisense, which at the time was a tiny player in the market compared with top-dog Samsung, launched its H7 line of affordable 4K sets.

Were they great? No; like the Toshiba XF9F, they were not perfect. But they were the first affordable 4K TVs that normal people could easily buy. And as a result, they got quite the reaction, both from the press and consumers.

This sowed the seed in rival companies' minds, and a wealth of affordable 4K sets began to flood the market over the next few years. The technology then became increasingly mainstream, to the point that nearly every TV 55 inches or bigger now supports the resolution.

I’m not expecting the same to happen for OLED – I don't think we will see affordable £299 sets with the tech on board any time soon. But I can see the Toshiba generating a similar reaction. Especially as we’ve already seen early signs from LG Display, which, at CES 2026, confirmed it is working on a new “affordable” OLED SE panel tech.

We don’t have full details, but the company confirmed to us at the show that it will sit below the OLED EX tech seen on most step-down OLEDs, including LG’s own C-series. The only question is quite what LG Display regards as “affordable”. Does it mean truly affordable, or affordable by OLED standards? These are two very different price points…

Either way, I still can’t help but feel positive about the general shift in direction I’ve already seen start happen since Toshiba threw the gauntlet down last year. I certainly hope it reaches fruition in the not too distant future.

After all, the current state of the world means most of us are on tight budgets, while at the same time very much in need of the occasional escape from reality. Something that a good movie clearly offers – especially when watched on a decent OLED TV…

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You know what they say about OLED TVs: you wait your whole life for a cheap one to come along, and then two arrive at once.

So, hot on the heels of our review of Toshiba’s XF9F OLED TV, we have Philips’s take on the budget OLED, the OLED760.

It currently costs just a little more than the Toshiba model, but the OLED760 is still remarkably affordable for an OLED. It also boasts better specs and fancy Ambilight, and is, perhaps crucially, the product of a brand with almost a decade of experience in the OLED TV game.

So, can it succeed where the Toshiba struggled?

Price

The 65-inch Philips OLED760 launched at an impressively low price of £1499, but its current £1099 asking price makes it potentially one of the year’s biggest TV bargains.

OLED TVs – especially those equipped, as the OLED760 is, with an eye-catching supporting cast of Ambilight technology and strong gaming support – just aren’t supposed to be this cheap. Yet here we are.

Not surprisingly, the other screen sizes of the OLED760 keep the value flag flying, with the 55-inch costing £899 and the 77-inch costing £1599.

Philips’s website lists a 48-inch OLED760 model as well, but at the time of writing, we couldn’t find anywhere in the UK selling this model. Philips OLEDs unfortunately aren’t available in the US or Australia.

Cheap though it is by OLED standards, the Philips OLED760 can, remarkably, be beaten for price, with the recently reviewed Toshiba XF9F OLED currently available for just £999 in 65-inch form.

The cheapest 65-inch OLEDs from more established brands such as Samsung and LG, meanwhile, start at around £1500.

Design

Far from being the lump of boring plastic we would expect such a budget-conscious OLED to look like, the OLED760 is actually rather glamorous. It combines a remarkably narrow, premium-feeling black screen trim with a chassis so slim at the outer edges that it gives your credit card a run for its money.

The TV does bulk out a fair bit over its more central rear portion – all of its connections, processing, speakers and the like have to go somewhere, after all – but you won’t notice this chunkier bit unless you’ve hung the TV on the wall or you’re watching it from a really severe angle.

Even the little blade-style feet supplied with the screen enjoy a quite premium ‘satin chrome’ finish.

Then there’s the OLED760’s most eye-catching claim to design fame: its three-sided take on Philips’ Ambilight technology.

This, if you’ve somehow never come across Ambilight before, uses an array of LEDs arranged down the back of the screen’s left, right and top edges to produce a pool of coloured light on the wall behind and around the TV.

This pool of light can be purely ambient, set to a colour of your choice, or set to have the LEDs constantly mirror both the tone and the position of specific colours of what you’re watching.

We realise Ambilight perhaps sounds a bit much when just described in writing like this, but while we would advise toning down Ambilight’s brightness and responsiveness from its default settings, it really can enhance the viewing experience. As well as making for a fun dinner party talking point.

Features

You would expect a £1099 65-inch OLED TV to be stripped back to the bare bones in terms of features. The OLED760, though, is having none of that.

Gamers will be delighted, for starters, to find the set capable of supporting 4K/120Hz feeds, complete with VRR in the generic, AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync formats. Even more impressively, these features are supported across all four of the TV’s HDMI sockets, rather than being limited to just a couple.

When the TV’s receiving a game source, you can call up a dedicated game menu that shows both information on the incoming game feed and a small selection of gaming aids.

The screen takes just 13.1ms to render 60Hz graphics in its Game preset, too – and that drops to only around 6ms with 120Hz sources. There’s even a special Game Mode setting for the Ambilight system.

The OLED760 can also play all four of the current TV HDR formats: HDR10, HLG, HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. In other words, it will take in the best version of any content you feed it.

A Filmmaker Mode is provided for AV fans looking for an instantly accurate picture mode, though there’s also extensive Calman calibration support if you want to pay for a professional calibrator to come in and further optimise the set.

The OLED760 even retains a version of Philips’ P5 AI Perfect Picture Engine processor.

This isn’t the latest, most powerful, most feature-packed version of this processor, but it still has elements working on the core five aspects of picture quality referred to in the ‘P5’ part of its name: colour, contrast, sharpness, motion and source detection/recognition. This means it’s still got way more about it than the processing systems found on most high-value TVs.

Smart features are provided by the relatively new Titan OS platform. This isn’t the most dazzlingly presented smart service around, but it does carry the vast majority of the streaming services most UK TV buyers will want, including Disney+, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer.

In fact, it even carries the new Freely service, via which you can live stream (as opposed to receive through an aerial) most of the channels found on the Freeview HD terrestrial broadcast service, and enjoy subscription-free access to tens of thousands of hours of on-demand content.

Bluetooth 5.2 and Apple AirPlay are built in, too, and it also works with both Apple Home and Google Home, while Amazon Alexa voice control is built in and accessed via a microphone built into the remote control. The one major app that isn’t available during testing is Apple TV – but you can these days access Apple TV content through the Prime Video app, albeit at a lower bitrate (and therefore quality).

While the OLED760’s 2 x 10W sound system isn’t the result of one of Philips’s collaborations with audio brand Bowers & Wilkins, the set still supports playback of both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X soundtracks, as well as providing a few handy audio features including bass enhancement, dialogue enhancement, room calibration, a graphic equaliser, a night mode, and even the option to establish specific individual hearing profiles.

In these days when all OLED panels are very much not equal, we need to wrap this section up by stressing that the panel inside the OLED760 does not boast the MLA, ‘Evo’, Quantum Dot or Primary RGB Tandem technologies found in various of today’s mid-range and premium OLED TVs.

Instead, it’s a basic OLED panel without any significant brightness-boosting or colour volume-enhancing tricks up its sleeve (beyond anything Philips’ P5 processor can bring to the table). Even a pretty basic OLED panel still has the potential to rock the mid-range TV world, though…

Picture quality

While the OLED760’s pictures don’t hit the same HDR-hungry heights that the premium likes of the LG G5, Samsung S95F and Panasonic Z95B do, they’re anything but a disappointment for the set’s money.

But let’s get the downers, such as they are, out of the way first. The most obvious one is that the OLED760 isn’t nearly as bright as this year’s top-level OLEDs are. This applies both to full-screen bright HDR content (which looks to be around half as bright as this year’s boldest OLED performers) and the intensity of small bright peaks.

Motion is also less assured here than it is on Philips’ more premium TVs these days. Judder with 24p film sources is a bit stark with no motion processing active, but then some motion settings leave images looking a little soft and blurry, while others that clean this softness up push too far in the other direction, leaving motion feeling too fluid to still feel natural.

While we never quite find a perfect solution for the screen’s slight motion niggles, though, the brightness issue is really just part and parcel of equipping the OLED760 with an OLED panel affordable enough to hit its budget-conscious retail price. And it comes with plenty of healthy mitigating factors in tow.

For instance, since the OLED760 naturally retains OLED’s unique ability to have each and every self-emissive pixel produce its own light and colour independently of even its closest neighbours, local contrast is still super-impressive compared with any LCD TVs available for the same sort of money.

The OLED760 can, after all, produce an image’s deepest black pixels right alongside its brightest whites, contributing to a degree of contrast and intensity that provides more than ample compensation for the screen’s relatively limited core brightness.

Those deepest black pixels really are black, too, revealing none of the greyness that you get to some degree with even the strongest mid-range LCD TVs.

Nor is there any instability in the OLED760’s portrayal of dark scenes; baseline brightness levels always look rock solid, even with dark shots that contain multiple subtle shifts in their overall light balance.

Plus, of course, since this is OLED technology, there’s no backlight clouding or blooming to worry about.

The OLED760 improves over its predecessors in Philips’ TV range by also managing to reveal impressive amounts of shadow detail in even the darkest image corners.

We don’t find ourselves troubled, either, by any major green or mauve undertones while watching dark scenes, even when watching the screen from a wide angle. In fact, watching the OLED760 from an angle merely reminds us of OLED’s innate advantage in this area over the vast majority of LCD TVs.

The exquisite degree of light control the OLED760 provides, albeit within a constrained light range, feeds into its colour performance. There’s never any trouble with significant colour striping or posterisation with HDR feeds, and shading even in the most vibrant areas remains present enough to avoid the flat and cartoonish look such areas can exhibit with lesser TVs.

Philips has very much learned over recent years how to cater for a range of picture quality tastes, and this underrated talent continues even with a TV as affordable as the OLED760.

A Filmmaker Mode is provided and works very nicely for people who want an accurate but relatively flat, ‘laid back’ picture that thrives on subtlety and nuance. Philips’s default Crystal Clear setting, though, is also on hand to deliver an eye-catching demonstration of how intense and vibrant the OLED760 can look, despite the OLED panel’s limited brightness.

While this default setting initially feels a bit too strong and aggressive, especially if you’ve watched the Filmmaker Mode first, it’s surprising how much its extra vibrancy starts to grow on you as you tune into it. Especially as it’s actually much more consistent, balanced, nuanced and faithful to the feel of the original source material than some of Philips’ previous default picture presets have been.

There’s a relatively simple way to take the edge off this mode’s most aggressive instincts, too, if you really can’t tune into them, in the shape of a Colour Content Adaptation setting. Just switching this to Balanced from its default (in Crystal Clear Mode) Vibrant setting can calm the picture down without losing too much of that enjoyable extra brightness and punch that the Crystal Clear mode is designed to provide.

It’s worth adding, too, that the OLED760 provides an HDR Movie preset that gives you (with minimal tinkering) an image that feels nicely positioned between the relatively dark, subdued Filmmaker Mode and the exuberance of the Crystal Clear mode.

The OLED760 effortlessly adapts its talent for subtlety and finesse to SDR content too, as well as, finally, delivering a crisp, clean, responsive gaming performance that’s way better than we’d expect from such an affordable 65-inch OLED TV. Not least because it also largely avoids (especially with 120Hz sources) the slight motion inconsistencies and flaws noted during video playback.

Sound quality

The OLED760’s trend of punching above its price weight continues with its audio. It can get surprisingly loud for a TV with such a thin (at the outer edges, anyway) chassis, but at the same time, it manages to retain excellent levels of detail and clarity even when pushed to volume levels that would have many TVs’ speakers crumbling.

These details are well placed, too, creating an effective sense of 3D space with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X mixes that includes making dialogue sound locked to the screen.

The sound also projects forward quite nicely, and there’s nothing harsh or thin about even the most trebly details. At the other end of the frequency spectrum, meanwhile, the OLED760 manages to deliver a pretty solid bass showing, despite the slenderness of so much of its bodywork.

The midrange sounds spacious too, with enough headroom to cope with substantial sound mix expansions during action scenes without starting to sound thin or boxed in.

The movie world’s most bonkers bass drops and sustained rumbles can instigate a little humming interference from the TV’s chassis, and/or cause the stereo drivers to succumb to some minor and short-lived booming interference.

The auto calibration system doesn't make as much difference to the TV’s sound profile as we would like, and we also find we have to add an audio delay of around 30ms to our sources to stop the OLED760 suffering from the occasional lip-sync slippage.

Overall, though, as with its pictures, the OLED760’s audio strengths easily overwhelm its weaknesses – though, as ever, a dedicated sound system is highly recommended.

Verdict

While we’ve seen one or two previous OLED TVs venture down into the same sort of price territory the OLED760 occupies, no similarly affordable 65-inch OLED TV before it has delivered anything like the same level of features and performance that this Philips set does.

As such, it’s a potential value-driven game changer, the likes of which we were starting to think the OLED TV world would never give us.

SCORES

• Picture 5
• Sound 4
• Features 5

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Best OLED TVs: the 3 Award-winning sets our experts recommend

OLED panel tech has dominated our best TV buying guide and yearly list of What Hi-Fi? Award-winners for close to a decade. The only constant complaint we’ve had is that OLED TVs tend to have high price tags, making them luxury items, even among home cinema fans.

Enter the catchily named Toshiba XF9F, an aggressively priced TV designed to offer movie fans with regular-sized pockets a seat at the OLED table. And, packed with all the key hardware and specifications most fans will want, it’s certainly an enticing proposition.

But is that enough for it to succeed against veteran heavyweights such as LG, Panasonic, Sony and Samsung?

Price

The Toshiba XF9F is available in 55- and 65-inch options in the UK. Sadly, it hasn’t made its way to the US or Australia yet.

The 55-inch model we have in for testing (the 55XF9F53DB, to give its full, super-sexy name) launched with a competitive £999 price tag, while the larger 65-inch model would cost you £1299 at that time.

To put that pricing in context, at launch, the entry-level 55-inch LG B5 would have set you back £1699 and the 65-inch model an even heftier £2499.

Since then, both series have seen hefty discounts, but the Toshiba continues to be the cheapest OLED of its size. At the time of writing, numerous retailers are offering the 55-inch XF9F for £799, and the 65-inch model for £999 – and it was cheaper than that during Black Friday.

This is the first time we’ve seen a new OLED in these sizes so cheap – to the point the price places the XF9F as more of a direct rival to Mini LED sets, such as the Award-winning TCL C7K (£629 and £799 for 55 and 65 inches respectively), than any of the recent OLEDs we’ve reviewed.

Build

The Toshiba has a utilitarian but generally solid build.

The set’s central metal stand is easy to attach using the eight included screws and is suitably sturdy.

The only minor design embellishments are a tiny sensor and power indicator bolted onto the bottom of the TV and an incredibly shiny finish on the back. This shiny finish is an absolute fingerprint magnet, but you shouldn’t be touching the TV much once it’s in place.

The remote is also a basic plastic affair. We would have liked a backlight or USB charging, but it is functional, having intuitive shortcuts for most of the apps you’ll need, and also for the TV's various settings, littered across it.

Features

The Toshiba XF9F is a reasonably well-stacked OLED, considering its price. For starters, it has three HDMI 2.1 inputs. Most of the OLEDs we test, outside of those from LG and Samsung, only have two full-fat HDMI 2.1s, which are required to run current-generation consoles at full speed (4K/120Hz).

And while one of the Toshiba OLED’s three HDMI 2.1 inputs does still double as the eARC connection, so will very possibly be taken up by a soundbar or other audio system, the added connectivity is a welcome inclusion we weren’t expecting.

The HDMI 2.1 inputs will handle 4K/120Hz and VRR, and there’s a dedicated low-latency game mode which ALLM will automatically switch to.

While PC gamers may sniff at the 120Hz refresh rate (144Hz has become common on most step-down OLEDs, including this year’s LG C5, Samsung S90F and Panasonic Z90B), this won’t be an issue for the vast majority of potential buyers, as consoles can only run at up to 120Hz, and only the most powerful of PCs will run top titles at framerates beyond that with acceptable-looking graphics.

The only downside is that it doesn’t have any other HDMI inputs. So, while it’s well-stacked for current-generation console gamers with a Dolby Atmos soundbar, it’s a little limited for people with lots of older boxes, such as old DVD / Blu-ray players, retro consoles or media PCs.

At the XF9F’s heart, a custom TRU Picture Engine CPU runs the show. This handles picture processing elements such as upscaling and motion processing, and we’re pleased that there isn’t lots of ‘AI’ branding to be wary of.

HDR support is also excellent, with the Toshiba promising to understand and play nicely with all four of the current formats used for movies, TV shows and games. So, that’s the dynamic Dolby Vision and HDR10+ formats, as well as the more standard HLG and HDR10.

Finally, app support is excellent thanks to the XF9F’s use of Amazon’s Fire OS. Ad-heavy and slightly confusing in terms of what’s actually yours and what’s behind a paywall, sure, but Fire OS also supports pretty much every streaming service you can think of, including Apple TV, Disney+, Netflix, Now, Paramount+ and Prime Video, as well as niche ones, including Shudder, Crunchyroll and the like.

In the UK, Freely and local catch-up services BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, and 5 are all present and working correctly.

So, from a pure specifications perspective, the XF9F is more than competitive, especially compared with similarly priced rivals.

Picture

But how good is its picture? This is where things get a little more complex.

Out of the box, the benefits of OLED compared to LED are immediately apparent as we watch a demanding scene from our Civil War 4K Blu-ray.

The flames in the nighttime forest hold serious intensity and wonderfully bright hues of red and orange, giving them a life missing from many Mini LED TVs. Blacks are also inky deep in a way that only OLED, with its pixel-level light control, can deliver. There’s a nice sense of depth to the picture, which feels immersive and, in most ways, delivers the impact the scene deserves.

By comparison, the similarly priced TCL C7K looks a little soft, and though it has more dark detail, the image isn’t as defined or three-dimensional on account of its good, but not perfect, blacks.

But there are big issues with the Toshiba TV’s picture. Transitioning to a bright daytime scene in a military camp, the XF9F’s motion handling is far too heavy-handed. Helicopters’ movements are too smooth, and the cast look like marionette puppets as they float through the camp.

Colours are oversaturated, with greens and reds feeling artificial, and the set oversharpens to an extreme, making everything look slightly wrong.

Going into the settings, there’s no Filmmaker Mode, and even the Movie and Custom settings are fairly heavy-handed. It is, of course, possible to manually tweak individual settings within these presets, but even the lightest touch adjustments have a big impact on the picture, and not often in a beneficial way.

Even in their lowest settings, the motion handling and sharpness are far too aggressive. We also find it impossible to get the colour balance and contrast right, regardless of how much we tinker with the settings.

Colours feel either too warm or too cool, and while the Dynamic Contrast setting does boost dark detail as Civil War transitions to a night-time battle, allowing us to see details on the soldiers' uniforms and parts of characters' faces that previously were pure black, it comes with a big compromise.

Even in its lowest setting, Dynamic Contrast introduces picture noise, and parts of the picture, particularly faces, become too defined, giving the picture a slightly cel-shaded quality.

Eventually, we settle on the Custom picture setting with all processing features turned off and the sharpness control set to zero. The TV is still far from perfect when set like this, but it is as good as we’re able to make it.

Moving to our Alien Romulus test disc, the menacing space’s blacks are deep, and the ship emerging out of the darkness holds a solid three-dimensionality, with every rivet and detail standing out – at least in the parts we can see.

But entire parts of the picture that we can see on the TCL C7K are missing entirely on the Toshiba, coming up as pitch black. The issue repeats on dark-skinned characters, who at times become entirely faceless, thanks to the loss of dark detail.

The issue also makes bright white peaks over dark elements, such as the stars and even reflections on characters’ skin, appear too defined and a little distracting.

With our Dune: Part 2 disc, things pick up, with the panel dealing with the bright desert battle fairly well, especially compared to other TVs in the same price bracket.

The slightly over-etched characters don’t ruin the experience, and the picture still looks solid and nicely three-dimensional. There’s even a decent amount of detail and life in the characters’ skin tones, which, while slightly too warm, otherwise look fairly realistic and are far from the worst we’ve seen on an OLED.

It’s only when we move to our Brightness stress test, Pan, that the set once again struggles. The picture isn’t anywhere near as bright as any other recent OLED we’ve tested, let alone the C7K. This isn't a great surprise, given the XF9F's claimed peak brightness of just 500 nits, but it combines with some seemingly quite unsophisticated tone mapping to produce highlights that lack impact and bright detail.

It’s just a shame that the flies in the ointment around black crush and motion keep popping up, distracting from the perks of the picture. It’s this inconsistency that is ultimately the Toshiba’s undoing, with the issues appearing often enough to prevent us getting fully lost in what is playing out on the screen.

Running our final, demanding SDR stress test, via our old-faithful Blu-ray of True Grit, history repeats. The set instantly struggles with the incredibly difficult, nighttime opening.

Though the lanterns look great, the entire porch remains pitch black, missing details that are clearly visible on rivals. A fuzziness creeps into the falling snow and continues as the film moves to a daytime town scene, adding noise the director definitely didn’t intend.

This all adds up to make the Toshiba a frustrating set that is capable of doing things that similarly priced rivals can’t, but that lacks the finesse to do them consistently.

Sound

The XF9F features a 2.1, 24W sound system “with sound by Onkyo”. While no upfiring drivers are included, which is to be expected at this price, it also supports virtual Dolby Atmos.

And, as in-built speakers go, it delivers a just about passable performance. During the Civil War nighttime battle, the TV manages to suitably separate dialogue from the background gunfire and explosions. And while they’re a little thin and lack the heft to make it sound truly immersive, there’s a vague sense of directionality from left and right as the tracer rounds fly across the night sky.

But the low end is underpowered and occasionally tries to punch above its weight. During a particularly big explosion, distortion creeps in, and there’s an unpleasant acidic quality to the sound of a helicopter minigun.

The TV's loudness capability isn't great, with our testers being able to easily converse, even with the volume set to 85. Any higher and their composure completely falls apart, with the low end taking on a flabby quality and distortion frequently rearing its ugly head.

Moving to our new test disc of Wicked, the speakers struggle with the admittedly demanding music, lacking the dynamics to do the singers’ vocals justice. It’s still enjoyable, just nowhere near as good as the performance we’ve enjoyed on cheap-ish soundbars, including the Sonos Beam (Gen 2).

Verdict

The Toshiba XF9F is the cheapest large-sized OLED we’ve tested, and one that comes loaded with all the features most gamers and movie fans will need.

That’s undeniably something we want to applaud, but the constant black crush, a lower-than-average peak brightness and aggressive processing rear their heads too many times to make us able to recommend the set.

This is especially true right now when there are a number of stellar, similarly priced Mini LED sets and smaller step-down OLEDs available that offer a holistically better experience.

If Toshiba could combine the XF9F’s raw materials with some more careful and considered processing and settings, it could be on to a winner. Here’s hoping that’s what we get next time.

SCORES

• Picture 3
• Sound 3
• Features 5

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There isn’t anything about the Toshiba 24WK3C63DB that instantly jumps out at you (apart from its almost bizarrely forgettable model name).

It’s cheap without being the cheapest 24-inch TV in town. It looks decent and is reasonably well built without being the prettiest or most robustly designed small TV we’ve seen. It’s well-featured without delivering absolutely everything a small TV ideally should.

And yet, we’ve ended up developing rather a soft spot for it. 

Price

The Toshiba 24WK3C63DB isn’t the cheapest 24-inch TV. There are sets around from the likes of Sharp, JVC and Blaupunkt (all of which are, literally, no longer the brands they used to be) that cost quite a bit less than the 24WK3C63DB’s £139 price of entry. 

There are also, though, plenty of 24-inch TVs that cost much more, including Samsung’s recently reviewed UE24N4300. And by the time you’ve added the 24WK3C63DB’s thoughtful picture performance into the equation, £139 starts to look like really good value.

Note that Toshiba TVs aren’t sold in the US, and that while the model was once sold in Australia, it seems as if the UK and Germany are now the only territories where it’s still readily available.

Design

The 24WK3C63DB is better looking than most small TVs. The frame around its screen is quite compact by 24-inch TV standards, and its mildly glossy black finish contrasts neatly with the dark metallic grey of the included plate-style desktop foot. Both the screen and its mount look and feel reasonably well built, too – not as ultra sturdy as the Samsung UE24N4300, but certainly more robust than the featherweight feel of the 24-inch RCA Roku TV, a review of which we will be publishing very soon.

The 24WK3C63DB ships with a single flimsily built remote control. Despite its uninspiring build quality, though, this handset actually turns out to be quite well laid out and easy to use. 

Features

As with the Samsung and RCA 24-inch TVs mentioned, the 24WK3C63DB uses a VA panel with standard (as in, there’s no local dimming) backlighting. It sports a native HD Ready resolution of 1280x720 pixels and, surprisingly, supports high dynamic range playback in the HDR10 and HLG formats. There’s no playback of the premium Dolby Vision or HDR10+ HDR formats – these default to simple HDR10 – but any sort of HDR support on a 24-inch TV must count as a bonus. Provided it doesn’t look like a dog’s dinner, anyway.

Another sign that Toshiba is trying to be quite ambitious with the 24WK3C63DB’s picture quality is the presence of a couple of the brand’s proprietary picture processing systems: Tru Resolution for enhancing sharpness, and Tru Micro Dimming, which analyses the image in small blocks to better optimise the screen’s picture settings frame-by-frame.  

The 24WK3C63DB’s connections only provide two HDMIs rather than the three sported by the RCA Roku TV, but these twin HDMIs are backed up pretty well by a USB port, a VGA PC port that can also be used for component video, an Ethernet network port, a composite video input (these sorts of legacy video connections are still a hit with 24-inch buyers, it seems), a headphone jack and, of course, an RF port to feed the built-in Freeview HD tuner.

The HDMIs don’t support any of today’s advanced gaming features, such as 4K/120Hz or VRR, but nor would we expect them to. At least the 24WK3C63DB does a pretty good job of not ruining your Call Of Duty skills by hitting a pretty reasonable 32.8ms of input lag when set to its Game picture mode.

The 24WK3C63DB’s smart features initially impress. The interface superimposes app links over the bottom of the picture you’re watching rather than the home screen taking over the whole screen, which is a nice throwback to a simpler smart TV time. The menu structure is really clever in how it gives you access to the TV’s features without eating into much screen real estate, too. There are some direct app access buttons on the remote too, and you can easily re-order the apps on the OSD so that your favourites appear first.

There’s also built-in support for Amazon Alexa voice control, as well as Miracast so you can share your smart device’s screen with the TV.

The only pity – and it’s a significant one – is that the roster of apps supported by the 24WK3C63DB doesn’t include Disney+ or Apple TV. There’s Netflix, Prime Video, Freeview Play (complete with the catch-up apps for all the big UK terrestrial TV broadcasters), Britbox, YouTube and plenty more besides. But if you’re one of the large number of households invested in Disney+ or Apple TV subscriptions, you’ll have to rely on an external device to play those on this Toshiba TV.

Picture

Provided you’re able to sit almost directly opposite its screen, the 24WK3C63DB is a very effective picture performer. We mention the 'directly opposite the screen' thing right away, though, because it really is an unusually big deal with Toshiba’s set. Any TV that uses a VA panel will lose colour and contrast if watched from much of an angle, but the angles you can watch the 24WK3C63DB from before the picture quality is affected are really exceptionally limited.

Viewed head-on, though, the 24WK3C63DB has more than a few pleasant surprises up its sleeve. Its contrast performance, for instance, is excellent by small-screen TV standards. Its deepest black levels might not be quite as deep or natural as those of the Samsung UE24N4300, but they’re significantly better than those of the RCA 24-inch Roku TV and seldom cause you to be distracted from what you’re watching. 

At the other end of the light spectrum, while it doesn’t get quite as bright as the RCA Roku model (despite that model not joining this Toshiba in supporting HDR) the 24WK3C63DB is much brighter than the Samsung. So overall it delivers a marriage of good brightness and black levels that helps both SDR and HDR content enjoy a really balanced and eye-catching look that holds up well in both dark and light room settings.

The natural feel to dark scenes is enhanced, too, by the 24WK3C63DB’s ability to pick out lots of shadow detail in dark areas, rather than crushing it out or greying it over as many budget TVs do.

The 24WK3C63DB’s colour handling is its best attribute, though. With small-screen TVs these days, especially at the more affordable end of the market, colours can tend to look either pale or gaudy, without much subtlety and naturalism in between. This Toshiba, though, achieves a colour range wide enough to deliver at least a little extra impact with HDR content while also being subtle enough to ensure that heavily textured areas never look clumpy or soft. 

Skin tones are delivered with enough nuance and clarity to avoid the plasticky look all too many small screen TVs suffer with to some extent when showing flesh, and wider tones are consistently realistic and believable. There are none of the frankly weird hues and ‘black and white’ moments that the Samsung UE24N4300 suffers from when trying to show HDR.

The balance of the 24WK3C63DB’s colours is a credit to such an affordable TV too, with no hues drawing too much attention to themselves.

With a good sense of sharpness and detail to add to its mix of colour subtlety and balance, the 24WK3C63DB also delivers a more effective sense of depth than we’d expected to ever see from such a small TV.

The 24WK3C63DB’s very limited viewing angles aren’t its only picture limitation, though. Very dark scenes can reveal some faint clouding from the backlight, and motion looks slightly softer than it does on the RCA Roku TV (though it also looks much crisper than motion on the Samsung 24N4300).

Its niggles, though, don’t stop the 24WK3C63DB from ultimately producing more immersive and engaging pictures than you may well have thought possible from a TV of such diminutive proportions.

Sound

The 24WK3C63DB’s audio isn’t as impressive as its pictures. Chiefly because it joins many of its small-screen rivals in not being able to get very loud or deliver much in the way of bass. This lack of bass means action scenes sound a bit thin and shrill, while the lack of power denies the sound any significant projection either forward or sideways, compounding the sound’s somewhat ‘trapped in’ feel.

It’s not all bad news, though. The speakers typically sound quite crisp and clean, and they remain free of distortion and dropouts with all but the most truly extreme soundtrack moments. Dialogue is always intelligible too – even if those speaking tend to sound a bit small. 

Verdict

While the Toshiba 24WK3C63DB doesn’t do anything flat-out spectacular and requires you to work around extremely limited effective viewing angles, it also shows more sensitivity towards and appreciation for all-round picture balance, finesse and consistency than any of its small-screen rivals. The result is a TV that’s far more immersive to watch than a TV this small and cheap has really any right to be.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 3
• Features 3

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Japan Display has announced that its new eLEAP type of OLED panels will enter production by the end of 2024.

The company, a joint venture between Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi's display panel divisions, originally said mass production of the new displays was set to begin in 2025.

The eLEAP OLED variant was first revealed in May 2022 and promised lofty goals, including twice the peak brightness and three times the lifespan of OLED panels currently available. 

eLEAP is a tortured acronym for “environment-positive Lithography with maskless deposition, Extreme long life, low power, and high luminance, Any shape Patterning.” Quite the mouthful.

It's an OLED display manufactured without using the traditional metal mask. It apparently retains the thinness and fast response of an OLED but with expanded light-emitting capabilities.

One of the main advantages that allows eLEAP panels to achieve this is its larger aperture ratio, Japan Display says. This refers to how much of each OLED pixel can be used to generate light. Typical OLED displays have an aperture ratio of around 28 per cent, whereas eLEAP displays are said to offer up to 60 per cent.

So, should LG Display and Samsung Display, who between them make the panels for every current OLED TV, be worried about the rise of Japan Display? Certainly not yet: these new eLEAP panels are initially planned for use in laptops, smartphones, car displays, and wearables such as smartwatches. 

Perhaps in the future, though, we may see eLEAP technology come to TVs and provide some competition, which is almost always good for consumers. Japan Display will be able to produce much larger eLEAP OLED panels, potentially for TVs, once its 8.7 generation plant is in operation in 2027.

Japan Display has a 14-inch eLEAP OLED panel intended for laptops, which should be one of its first products in production. It is said to be able to reach a peak brightness of 1600 nits and is based on a single-stack structure, but Japan Display says when using a tandem structure that eLEAP technology can exceed 3000 nits. 

Japan Display hasn’t yet announced any partnerships with particular brands, so we are looking forward to finding out where we may see this new OLED technology in use. 

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Having been a household name for decades, Toshiba has its fingers in many consumer electronics pies, but it's the brand's TVs that have been a mainstay of its portfolio. It specialises in budget to mid-range models that compete with similar offers from the likes of Amazon, Insignia, TCL and Hisense.

With a niche speciality like this, its range is much smaller than the likes of Samsung or LG. In fact, Toshiba only makes a handful of models for sale in the UK and US.

So, should you buy a Toshiba TV, and if so, which one? What features do Toshiba TVs have versus other competing brands, and how do they compare in terms of pricing? We’ve reviewed some Toshiba TVs, but there’s a lot we can all learn from looking at specs.

Relax, grab a drink, and read on to learn everything you’ll need to know to decide whether or not a Toshiba TV is the right fit for you…

Should you buy a Toshiba TV? The short answer…

Across the US and the UK, Toshiba offers up a slew of budget TVs that will get the job done when it comes to providing modern TV features and the ability to stream from whatever services you subscribe to. However, most TVs – even affordable models – do that these days, so we’d check prices against similar-spec TVs from the likes of TCL and Hisense. Depending on the TV, you may well be able to find a similar alternative for cheaper, especially if you find a decent sale.

In the UK, the QF5D Series looks to be the most competitive offering from Toshiba, bringing a QLED display to the table for barely more than a similarly-spec standard LCD Toshiba TV. While sometimes you might find another QLED cheaper on sale, the QF5D offers up strong specs, on paper, plus a competitive price that’s hard to ignore when you’re looking for a TV.

Toshiba TVs in the US

In the US, Toshiba has two primary TV models, each of which is available at a variety of sizes. First up is the smart, 4K C350 series, second is the also-smart, HD V35 series. Unfortunately, the most intriguing, gaming-focused M550 series has now been discontinued.

As you might expect, these TVs scale up in terms of performance, price, and features. However, all of the US Toshiba TVs have an LCD screen with an LED backlight, and most support Dolby audio tech. You’ll get familiar smart functionality out of these TVs as well as VESA wall-mount support, too.

In general, Toshiba TVs tend to offer similar features and similar prices to other budget brands such as Hisense, Insignia, TCL, and Amazon, but Toshiba tends to offer surprisingly good deals on feature-rich TVs you likely won’t be able to beat for value.

Should you buy a Toshiba V35 Series TV?

• Sizes: 32-inch, 43-inch
• Display type: LCD
• Resolution: 720p (32-inch), 1080p (43-inch)
• Refresh rate: 60Hz
• HDR: None
• HDMI: ARC

The V35 Series is Toshiba’s most basic line of TV, and it only comes in two sizes. The 720p 32-inch V35 officially costs $200, while the 1080p 43-inch V35 goes for $290. You can, however, often find both on sale for a lot cheaper. So, what's in a V35?

Well, it’s pretty standard stuff. You get an LCD panel with an LED backlight, either HD or Full HD (depending on size), and a 60Hz refresh rate. Plus, the V35 TVs are smart TVs, so you’ll be getting all the familiar smart TV functionality (via Amazon's Fire TV platform) here as well, along with Alexa support for voice controls.

At full price, neither of these TVs looks like a great deal, but you can often pick up both for significantly less. The 32-inch V35 currently sells for just $89, at which point it looks like pretty good value if you need a screen for your kitchen or guest room, for example. The 43-incher is currently $140.

Should you buy a Toshiba C350 Series TV?

• Sizes: 43-inch, 50-inch, 55-inch, 65-inch, 75-inch
• Display type: LCD
• Resolution: 4K
• Refresh rate: 60Hz
• HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
• Audio: Dolby Atmos
• HDMI: ARC

The C350 Series is Toshiba’s mid-range budget 4K Fire TV, offering up a bunch of different sizes, the full-fat 4K experience, HDR, and a ton of different audio technologies. The C350 Series starts off at $280 for the 43-inch and goes up to $650 for the 75-inch, though you can often find these sets on sale.

This is a modern set with competitive features for the budget side of the TV market, more so than the V35 Series at any rate, so if you’re looking for a set you can use to stream all the 4K/HDR content you can imagine without spending an arm and a leg, the C350 Series from Toshiba can get you there.

Generally, pricing on the C350 Series is reasonably competitive, falling in line with other brands such as Insignia, but your money is best spent on the C350 Series when on sale. Spending $280 on a 43-inch TV in this day and age, even a 4K/HDR set, is usually not too hard to beat, so we’d recommend waiting for a sale.

Plus, if you’re willing to just spend a little more cash, you can often nab a set with more premium display tech or gaming-focused features such as VRR or 4K/120Hz. So, before you buy a C350 TV at retail, make sure you do your due diligence and check out some other sets first, depending on what you’re looking for out in a TV.

Toshiba TVs in the UK

This side of the pond, Toshiba offers four models of TV, all of which are QLEDs. The QA5D and QF5D are very similar but run different operating systems: the QA5D runs Android TV, while the QF5D runs Amazon's Fire TV operating system. Both the QV2F and QV3F run Hisense's VIDAA platform.

All four models start at 43 inches, but while the D series top out at 65 inches, the F series models come in 75-inch variants.

You get support for HDR10 and Dolby Vision, as well as the TRU Picture Engine that offers up motion smoothing, upscaling, and more. The D series models are a bit brighter than the F series, and have the TRU Micro Dimming feature, which the F series lack. There are some slight differences between the QF5D and QA5D – the former has more sound modes, for example.

UK Toshiba TVs target the budget TV market, so you can expect low prices comparatively across all of UK Toshiba TVs.

Should you buy a Toshiba UF3D Series TV?

• Sizes: 43-inch, 50-inch, 55-inch, 65-inch
• Display type: LCD
• Resolution: 4K
• Refresh rate: 60Hz
• HDR: HDR10, Dolby Vision
• Audio: Dolby Audio, Dolby Atmos, DTS Virtual:X

Toshiba’s UK UF3D line of TVs is the brand’s standard flagship 4K TV. This line of TV comes with smarts courtesy of Amazon’s Fire OS, 4K support, HDR10 and Dolby Vision, and a slew of audio technologies and Onkyo speakers.

Across these TVs, you’ll get fairly robust HDR support, Dolby Atmos support, and the Fire TV OS for all the 4K streaming you could want. Onkyo speakers are a nice addition, but of course, for a premium sound, you’ll want to invest in an external sound solution, such as a budget-focused soundbar. All told, with modern features and specs, these TVs can get the job done.

The UF3D line starts off at £349 for the 43-inch set, and scales up the bigger the size you’re interested in. However, you'll rarely find this set at retail price, as usually it will be on sale for well below the RRP.

As mentioned above, 4K Samsung sets can often be found on sale for around £350, and other budget brands such as TCL can offer up 4K sets for less than £300. So, unless you’re a big fan of the Toshiba brand or can’t find a better deal, outside of a sale, you’ll generally have the option of spending less.

Should you buy a Toshiba QF5D Series TV?

• Sizes: 43-inch, 50-inch, 55-inch, 65-inch
• Display type: QLED
• Resolution: 4K
• Refresh rate: 60Hz
• HDR: HDR10, Dolby Vision
• Audio: Dolby Atmos

Toshiba’s UK QF5D Series is its most interesting, most premium line of TV that brings QLED technology to the table for the first time for Toshiba UK TVs. These TVs come in a variety of sizes, support 4K, smarts courtesy of Toshiba’s own OS, and a range of HDR and audio technologies. And for Toshiba’s most expensive UK TV, it’s not much more expensive than the UF3D.

How much are they, exactly? Well, the QF5Ds start off at £329 for the 43-inch model, which is right around what the UF3D retails for at MSRP; however, like the UF3D, this set rarely sells for its retail price.

In terms of value, the QF5D Series is priced competitively with other budget QLEDs. You’ll see other budget QLEDs for around the same money, such as TCL’s CF630K QLED TV, which goes for £379 for the 50-inch model. If you find a QF5D on sale, you may well be getting some of the best value you can get with a budget QLED, but even at full price, it’s generally competitive compared to what you’ll see from other brands.

If you want a modern 4K TV with some fairly premium display tech on top of easy access to streaming of all of your favourite shows and movies, you could do a lot worse than the Toshiba QF5D Series. If you’re a gamer, you might want to spend your money on a set with 120Hz or VRR support over going for a QLED TV, but if you’re looking for a good way to watch content, the QF5D is worth a look.

Should you buy a Toshiba QA5D Series TV?

The Toshiba QA5D is very similar to the QF5D (same panel technology, same screen sizes), but with Android TV in place of Fire TV. It has Freeview Play too, and Google's usual suite of apps (Google Play. Google TV & Movies and Chromecast Built-in).

Should you buy a Toshiba 24WK3C63DB TV?

• Sizes: 24-inch, 32-inch
• Display type: LCD
• Resolution: HD
• Refresh rate: 60Hz
• HDR: HDR10, HLG
• Audio: Dolby Audio, DST:X

The Toshiba 24WK3C63DB (catchy name!) is a very good small TV. It might only be 24 inches in size, but it earned four stars in our review, thanks to its low price, balanced, engaging picture and simple operating system.

There are no bells and whistles, but given it's a small TV for a kitchen or bedroom, that's to be expected. It's better looking than most TVs at this size, and has Alexa voice controls, which we weren't expecting.

Despite its narrow viewing angles, it produces a very good picture. Contrast is excellent, dark detail very good indeed, and the colour range is more than broad enough. As long as you temper your expectations, you'll be pleasantly surprised by this little wonder.

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I checked in with Toshiba during IFA 2023 in Berlin to see what it had been working on, and it was certainly a story of two halves. Many of the TVs on display were existing models oriented towards the mid to lower end of the market, but these were totally juxtaposed by a whole host of interesting concept models all with one thing in common: OLED panels. 

While Toshiba hasn't officially launched an OLED TV quite yet, it seemed to us that it isn't far off, although I was assured that these were in fact concept devices with no current plan to take them to market quite yet. That being said, we were informed that these models could indeed signify what the future holds for Toshiba.

Out of this range, there were some truly innovatively designed models that instantly caught my eye. A TV with a tripod design with front-facing speakers built into the side stands? Yes, please. And how about the retro stylings of the TV pictured below – perfectly blending modern super-slim OLED screen tech and vintage, almost art deco designs?

And yet, out of all of these unique concepts, it was the standard OLED TV that looked closest to being a viable product that caught my eye – especially a certain variant of it. As I have made clear numerous times, I am consistently on the edge of caving in and buying a 42-inch OLED, however, they're always slightly too pricey for my liking (unless we're talking about Black Friday of course).

Lo and behold, I turn to see a 42-inch Toshiba OLED placed in the spotlight, and it's like my prayers were answered. Admittedly, no pricing was shared as these were concept models of course, but I can assume that this model is likely cheaper than the LG C3 equivalent. Seeing the very thing I've been manifesting into existence this last year right in front of me was both a triumph and a curse.

On one hand, a (supposedly) cheaper OLED with deep inky blacks, ultra-thin panel and compact screen size was proved possible (there was one right in front of me after all) and served as proof that other manufacturers can do it. On the other hand, this is the forbidden fruit, a TV that no matter how much I want, I can't have. There was also the slight issue of a 60Hz maximum frame rate, but that's something I'm mostly willing to look past, although not ideal. 

Of course, Toshiba showed this TV in various sizes, ranging from this 42-inch set-up to 65 inches and beyond, all of which were mere hypotheticals. Yet it was that compact OLED that got the biggest reaction from me as I exclaimed "If you're going to make any of these TVs, make this one!" While I may not be able to will these TVs into existence just by writing enthusiastically about them here, I'm certainly always open to seeing a new player in the increasingly crowded OLED market.

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The Toshiba 55QA5D63DB deploys no less than five promising lines of attack to try and win the hearts and minds of hard-pressed UK TV punters. First, its 55-inch screen uses Quantum Dots to make its colours, rather than the more common but less efficient and less effective filters. Second, it boasts a content-rich smart system courtesy of Android TV. Third, it supports all four of the current HDR formats, when most brands only support two or three. Fourth, it boasts a speaker system designed with audio brand Onkyo. Fifth and most importantly, it costs just £429 (around $525 / AU$750) – remarkably little for such a big and promisingly specified TV. Time to go in search of the catch…

Price

Getting a 55-inch TV of any sort for just £429 (around $525 / AU$750) looks like a great deal. And that’s even before you’ve added into the equation the Toshiba 55QA5D63DB’s premium Quantum Dot colour system, expansive high dynamic range support and content-rich Android TV smarts. 

The only other TV we’ve looked at that offers Quantum Dots on a 55-inch TV for anything like the same price is the £529 (around $645 / AU$925) TCL 55C735K which, while obviously a little more expensive, also offers some key gaming features that the Toshiba does not. 

If you want to go even cheaper and can live without Quantum Dots, Toshiba’s 50UK4D63DB is a surprisingly effective all-rounder currently available for just £349 (around $400 / AU$575).

All of these TVs are, unfortunately, exclusive to the UK.

Design

The 55QA5D63DB’s design sets a mixed tone. The frame around the screen is wider than we typically see these days, and it has a seam that looks a bit clumsy. Build quality is decent for such a cheap TV, though, and the mixture of black on three sides and grey for the deliberately and stylishly protruding bottom edge works well.

The two desktop feet set towards each corner if you’re not wall hanging the TV feature an attractive blade design that means they all but disappear if you’re looking at the TV straight on.

The 55QA5D63DB ships with a plasticky, rather drab-looking remote control – though this does redeem itself a bit by carrying a fair selection of buttons for providing direct access to key streaming services.

Features

The 55QA5D63DB’s combination of a Quantum Dot colour system (which can deliver cleaner, purer, brighter colours than the usual LCD colour filter approach) and direct LED lighting (where the LEDs sit directly behind the screen rather than around its edges) raise hopes of a better performance level than you’d usually get for so little money. 

Potentially undermining these hopes, though, is the 55QA5D63DB’s use of an IPS type of LCD panel rather than a VA one. This means, based on past experience, that it may remain enjoyable to watch from a wider viewing angle than VA rivals, but will likely struggle to deliver serious contrast.

There’s no local dimming system to deliver local light controls, but this isn’t surprising at all at the 55QA5D63DB’s price point.

Also not surprising for the 55QA5D63DB’s money is the slightly limited nature of its connections. Three HDMIs dominate rather than the four you can generally expect if you step up a couple of hundred pounds, and none of these three HDMIs supports the latest premium gaming features of 4K/120Hz or VRR. 

There does seem to be some support for the ALLM switching feature that can switch TVs into their fast-response Game mode whenever a game source is detected, but this doesn’t work as consistently during our tests as it should.

Our resident Xbox Series X detects the 55QA5D63DB as capable of operating in Dolby Vision HDR mode while gaming, but warns that this mode will likely be affected by high levels of latency. A warning that proves correct to a pretty much unplayable extent, alas. 

Dolby Vision is far from the only HDR format the 55QA5D63DB supports. In fact, it also covers all three of the other key HDR formats found in today’s content world: HDR10, HLG and HDR10+. This means that the 55QA5D63DB will take in the best version available of any source it’s presented with. 

The 55QA5D63DB’s Dolby connection extends to Dolby Atmos audio decoding too, while its onscreen menus include a surprisingly broad range of picture set-up options – including various tweaks for Toshiba’s proprietary ‘Tru’ Picture Engine video processor. For the most part, though, the impact of many of the provided adjustments is pretty limited. Some of the features are so inscrutably named and poorly explained, too, that it’s actually pretty much impossible to figure out what they’re supposed to do. 

As noted earlier, the 55QA5D63DB has gone for Android TV for its smart system. This means that there’s no repeat of the missing Disney+ and Apple TV+ apps situation found with the otherwise impressive Toshiba 50UK4D63B. In fact, content levels are high, especially as Toshiba has also brought on board Freeview Play to cover Android TV’s blind spots when it comes to the catch-up apps for some of the UK’s main terrestrial broadcasters.

The 55QA5D63DB’s Android implementation is slightly sluggish at times, and during our time with the set, we’ve experienced a few bugs, such as sudden momentary brightness drops seemingly unrelated to any specific picture setting, and complete losses of sound (and loss of control over the sound) that could only be fixed by fully powering the TV down. Hopefully, these niggles can be addressed by firmware updates.

Picture

With just the right content, the 55QA5D63DB can deliver some pretty engaging pictures. Unfortunately, though, most of the time its picture quality varies between disappointing and flat-out poor.

The main source of both its strengths and flaws is its brightness. Right out of the gate, you can tell that it’s much brighter than its cheaper 50UK4D63B sibling. This enables it to deliver much more of the brightness, both in small ‘peaks’ and full-screen situations, that high dynamic range content thrives on. 

In fact, while we’re obviously not talking about levels of brightness even close to those the best OLEDs or, especially, premium LCD TVs can produce, the 55QA5D63DB is bright enough to deliver comfortably the biggest escalation from SDR to HDR of any TV in its price class.

The higher native brightness of the 55QA5D63DB also means it suffers less with clipping (loss of subtle shading and details) in the brightest areas than the 50UK4D63DB.

Bright HDR scenes additionally reveal the benefits of the 55QA5D63DB’s Quantum Dots, as they appear richly saturated, vibrant and intense, yet also surprisingly rich in nuance and shading subtlety for a TV with such a modest price tag.

The 55QA5D63DB’s love of brightness, though, together with its use of an IPS panel, sees its picture wheels falling off spectacularly whenever there’s a dark scene – or even a dark part of an otherwise bright image – to handle. Black levels are the weakest we’ve seen for many a moon, leaving dark scenes looking consistently washed out, greyed over, flat, short of subtle detailing and just totally unconvincing. 

You can improve things marginally – and we do mean marginally – by tinkering with the Adaptive Luma and Local Contrast controls. But even with the 55QA5D63DB’s contrast optimised as much as possible, very dark scenes in beloved films are honestly difficult to watch.

It doesn’t help, either, that the mist and clouding that hangs over dark scenes can sometimes take on a reddish or bluish tint that throws up an even greater barrier between you and what you’re trying to watch.

The 55QA5D63DB’s inability to deliver anything remotely resembling a true black colour means, too, that even its Quantum Dots can’t stop colours looking much flatter and less natural during dark scenes than they do during bright scenes. 

The 55QA5D63DB’s black-level woes are less pronounced when you’re watching SDR content, and can also be countered to a degree by making sure there’s quite a lot of ambient light in your room. These are hardly ideal compromises, though – especially as the 55QA5D63DB is in many ways designed with HDR in mind. 

There are, to be fair, one or two more picture areas where the 55QA5D63DB does pretty well. Its native 4K pictures are crisp and sharp (a touch too much in its Vivid and Standard picture presets, perhaps), and the sharpness doesn’t break down badly when there’s motion in the frame. Nor is there any of the overt smearing or excessive judder we still often see on budget TVs, even with 24p movie sources. 

We recommend using the Low setting of the TV’s motion processing system, as this slightly eases judder without causing unwanted processing side effects or turning films into soap operas. But if you just can’t cope with the idea of using motion processing, the 55QA5D63DB is still pretty easy to watch without it.

The 55QA5D63DB is a better upscaler of HD sources than we might have expected for its money, adding good texture, sharpness and even depth to HD sources. And as one final small strength, its IPS panel retains colour better when the TV is viewed from an angle than rival VA-type panels would. 

The IPS panel can’t stop contrast suffering quite badly during viewing from an angle, though, giving us one apt final reminder that for all the things the 55QA5D63DB gets right, its problems with contrast are so fundamental during all but the most glaringly bright content that they’re really pretty hard to live with. In fact, we much prefer the pictures of Toshiba’s substantially cheaper 50UK4D63B, proving – not for the first time – that just throwing Quantum Dots at a screen isn’t the guarantee of better picture quality you might expect. At least at the budget end of the TV world.

Finally, if you’re a gamer desperately clinging to the idea that the 55QA5D63DB’s brightness and bold colours might still play nicely with today’s HDR games, we’re afraid we have more bad news: even in its Game preset, Toshiba’s TV only manages to get input lag down to an underwhelming 50ms or so. That’s five times longer than the best gaming TVs manage.

Sound

The 55QA5D63DB’s speakers, which have been designed in conjunction with Onkyo, are seriously powerful, making it one of the flat-out loudest budget TVs we’ve ever heard. 

Dolby Atmos playback enjoys a really large sound stage too, which as well as spreading far to left and right actually seems to have a degree of height to it. Certainly, you get the impression of a wall of sound rather than just a horizontal ‘splay’.

The speakers are sensitive enough to present even the subtlest of audio details with conviction and presence, while dialogue is clear and intelligible at all times, no matter how much of a racket there might be going on behind it.

The speakers even have the dynamic range and power to keep on growing in step with an escalating action scene – something many TVs costing way more fail to do – and the sound consistently has direct impact, rather than sounding as if it’s all getting swallowed up somewhere behind the screen. 

The only issue is that treble effects can sound over prominent, drawing too much attention to themselves and becoming a touch abrasive at high volumes – something that happens in part because the 55QA5D63DB isn’t as generous with its bass as it is with its high frequencies. Despite these relatively small niggles, though, the 55QA5D63DB sounds impressive overall for such an affordable TV.

Verdict

The 55QA5D63DB sounds good, stands out from crowded budget TV shelves thanks to its brightness and price, and offers a comprehensive smart TV solution. Unfortunately, though, all of its good work is fatally harpooned by a contrast performance so bad it can be borderline unwatchable at times.

SCORES

• Picture 2
• Sound 4
• Features 4

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Best TV: brilliant budget to premium 4K Ultra HD TVs

Back in September, we reported on the launch of Toshiba's new line-up of smart TVs for the UK, including its first-ever Fire TV, the UF3D.

Fans of Amazon's Fire TV platform will be pleased to know that the UF3D has just been discounted by a massive 25 per cent in the Prime Day sale for both its 55-inch and 65-inch sizes, bringing them down to just £340 and £410 respectively. 

The UF3D is Toshiba’s first TV with Fire TV built-in. It’s designed to integrate with an existing Alexa setup and includes an Alexa Remote for voice control.

This 4K UHD model also features Toshiba’s TRU Picture Engine with Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG. Dolby Atmos is supported, and Onkyo has also designed its speaker system, which includes an internal sub.

This isn't a model we have tested, but we were able to give it a spin at IFA and found it very user-friendly.

As you would expect from Amazon's TV platform, there is comprehensive app support. Of course, it benefits from the Fire TV Voice Remote with Alexa to allow you to quickly find, launch and control content as well as compatible smart home devices.

If you are looking for an inexpensive, well-specified smart TV with Amazon's popular platform on board, this Toshiba could be well worth picking up in the Prime Day sale.

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Toshiba has announced a new line-up of smart TVs for the UK at IFA 2022, including models with quantum dot technology plus a choice of operating systems from Amazon, Google and Linux.

The flagship 4K QA5D display features Toshiba’s top-of-the-range panel technology, including its TRU Picture Engine and support for Dolby Vision, HDR 10 and HLG HDR formats. Dolby Atmos is also onboard, as is DTS:X and built-in speakers by Onkyo.

Available in 43-inch, 50-inch, 55-inch and 65-inch screen sizes, the QA5D has a slim, ‘frameless’ design and features the Android 11 TV operating system. It offers two HDMI 2.1 ports with ALLM and eARC and Chromecast is on board with voice control courtesy of Google Assistant.

Prices for the QA5D start at £400 (around $461 / AU$697), while a sibling model, the QL5D, will offer the same design, quantum dot panel and audio system but with Toshiba’s Linux-based operating system instead of Android TV. The QL5D will be exclusive to Costco and Buy It Direct, with prices yet to be announced.

For fans of Amazon's TV platform, the UF3D is Toshiba’s first TV with Fire TV built-in. It’s designed to integrate with an existing Alexa set-up and includes an Alexa Remote for voice control.

This 4K UHD model also features Toshiba’s TRU Picture Engine with Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG. Dolby Atmos is supported, and Onkyo has also designed its speakers.

With prices starting at £370 ($427 / AU$677), the UF3D is available in 43-inch, 50-inch, 55-inch and 65-inch sizes. Also on display at IFA is the QF5D, another Fire TV model but with a QD film display, available in the same screen sizes with pricing still to be released.

Next up, the UK4D brings another operating system to the table. This time, it’s Toshiba’s Linux-based platform with Alexa built-in. Available in 43-inch, 50-inch, 55-inch and 65-inch sizes, the UK4D has a frameless design with a 4K UHD panel and TRU Picture Engine with Dolby Vision, HDR 10 and HLG. Prices for the UK4D start at £350 (around $403 / AU$593).

Toshiba’s mid-range Android TV option is the UA3D, available in 43-inch, 50-inch and 55-inch sizes. It doesn’t boast the sleek build of its big sibling or Dolby Atmos, but the 4K sets do support HDR10 and Dolby Vision. The UA3D starts from £350 (around $403 / AU$593).

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Toshiba has unveiled a new range of 4K TVs which are the first Fire TVs to feature full-array local dimming. This backlight technology improves black levels by reducing the potential for light bleed, suggesting Toshiba's LCD TVs could potentially deliver superior picture quality to Amazon’s own Fire TV Omni line.

Available in 55-inch, 65-inch and 75-inch sizes, the M550KU-Series is quoted as having “up to 48” dimming zones. There's also Dolby Vision, HDR 10, Dolby Atmos and DTS Virtual:X support built-in. Like Amazon's Omni range, the new Toshiba TVs offer hands-free control of Amazon Alexa via built-in far-field microphones and there's also a picture-in-picture option to let you check your Alexa-compatible security cameras without interrupting your viewing.

In addition to local array dimming, the M550KU-Series will also be the first Fire TVs to boast a 120Hz native refresh rate. However, gamers should note that this will only be of benefit when playing via apps as the HDMI 2.1 sockets on the Toshiba TVs top-out at 4K@60Hz. Furthermore, although auto low-latency mode (ALLM) is onboard, variable refresh rate (VRR) is not.

Toshiba’s M550KU TVs will go on sale at Amazon and Best Buy later this month, priced at $800 (55-inch), $1000 (65-inch) and $1200 (75-inch).

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Disney Plus is now available on Hisense and Toshiba TVs powered by the latest version of the Vidaa operating system (via flatpanelsHD).

Vidaa is a Linux-based smart TV platform that was once part of Hisense, but is now independent and aiming to establish itself as a rival to platforms such as Google's Android TV, Samsung's Tizen and LG's webOS.

If you own a Vidaa-powered Toshiba or Hisense TV, you should be able to access the Disney Plus app by updating your set's firmware to the "latest version" (that's likely to be 2020's Vidaa 4 or 2021's Vidaa U5).

Disney Plus recently won 'best video streaming service' at the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2021, so it's well worth considering. It provides shows from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic for just £7.99 / $7.99 / AU$11.99 a month or £80 / $80 / AU$120 a year.   

The service supports streaming in excellent AV quality – up to 4K Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos – but it's not known whether the highest streaming quality is supported by Vidaa. The company seems to have big plans, though...

"Our cooperation with The Walt Disney Company is a major milestone for our organisation," noted Guy Edri, EVP of VIDAA USA. "Bringing Disney+ to the VIDAA platform globally is just the first step. We're looking forward to working with Disney on ways to expand our collaboration."

Today's announcement brings Toshiba and Hisense TVs in line with those from LG, Samsung and Sony, all of whom already offer TVs that come pre-loaded with the Disney Plus app. Panasonic also joined up with the House of Mouse recently, announcing the arrival of the app on Panasonic TVs released from 2017 onwards.

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Check out our  Toshiba 50UK3163DB 50-inch TV review

Upgrade your TV's speaker with the best soundbars

What Hi-Fi?'s first high-definition disc player test was published in our October 2007 issue.

Back then, there was a format war between Blu-ray and the (short-lived) HD DVD format, so our test included a mix of products from both camps, including the likes of Pioneer, Panasonic, Toshiba and Sony. There was even an early PS3 in there.

When the dust settled, Sony’s first dedicated UK player, the BDP-S1E, walked away with a glowing five-star rating. It’s a feat the company has managed more regularly since then than just about every other manufacturer.

The BDP-S1 wasn’t perfect though. Unusually for a Sony it wasn’t great to use, and its specification list, as with all the early Blu-ray players, was far from comprehensive. The likes of HDMI 1.3a, ethernet and the ability to decode DTS HD Master Audio – run of the mill now – were missing.

Despite these shortcomings, the player set the template for Sony’s future models.

It had a highly detailed picture with convincing colour rendition. Its sound was excellent (for a Blu-ray player), having all the precision and agility we’ve come to expect from Sony.

Fast forward to today’s Sony BDP-S5200 and we’re pleased to note it continues the brand’s fine tradition.

This player is much cheaper than the BDP-S1E, of course – £85 versus £700 – so build is notably less luxurious, but it also packs in the kind of network capability and file compatibility the original could only dream about.

Importantly, despite all the differences, this latest machine retains Sony’s performance edge. When it comes to picture and sound quality, few do it better.

MORE: Sony BDP-S5200 review

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