Toshiba 55SV670U Review

Toshiba 55SV670U

Design Rating: 80/100
Features Rating: 80/100
Performance Rating: 70/100
Overall Rating: 76/100

The high-end model from Toshiba is 55SV670U and the features on it really prove it.FocaLight LED Backlight,1080p Full HD CineSpeed™ Display, 2,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio, ClearScan 240™ with New Backlight Scanning Technology makes this LED LCD HDTV one of the best from the 55-inchers.Also the price is a very competing one.

Specifications
Diagonal size: 55 inch;
Resolution: 1920 x 1080;
Contrast:2,000,000:1;
Refresh rate:ClearScan 240Hz;

Note: We have made an in-depth review on the 55-inch Toshiba 55SV670U, but this evaluation also applies on the 46-inch Toshiba 46SV670U.They have identical features and specifications.

Pros:

• Great value for the money
• Very good overall picture quality;
• Good connectivity :four HDMI,USB port, SD Card Slot and one PC input;
• Accurate color

Cons:

• Benefits of 240Hz effect difficult to discern
• Glossy screen

We are about to review a LCD TV from Toshiba’s new 2009 REGZA line-up. This HDTV is Toshiba’s answer to Sony’s, Samsung’s and LG’s high-end models. Plasma and LCD TV are fighting for supremacy, and if not so long ago Plasma was the clear winner, nowadays LCD TVs tries to fix their main disadvantages which is image blurring. So, new technologies were implemented like 120Hz and the newest one 240Hz, which is found on high-end models. To keep up with other manufactures, Toshiba’s latest LCD TVs come with a 240Hz effect. This technology is different from the true 240Hz refresh rate but the outcome is similar. We will talk more about this feature when we review all features available on Toshiba 55SV670U. For those of you how need a LCD TV with 240Hz refresh rate effect and don’t mind paying a bit extra, this top rated LCD TV need’s to be taken in consideration.

55SV670U Design

Deep Lagoon Design

To keep up with Samsung’s TOC (touch of color), Toshiba has made 2009 REGZA LCD TV models with the Deep Lagoon Design. If before 2009 Toshiba didn’t had a very slick design, this year they raised the bar with SV670U series. The Deep Lagoon Design gives you a three dimensional felling and the name tells us that is inspired by nature. The thing that makes this LCD TV’s design unique is the new Infinity Flush Front. At one of Toshiba’s press conferences, they compared it to a swimming pool. You have your standard swimming pool, you see the edges of the pool and the water is slightly down. An infinity pool is different, the water is right up to the edge and you can’t see the edges. Other LCD TVs look like a normal swimming pool, while the SV670U series looks like an infinity pool and features a single sheet of glass with anti-reflective coating covering the entire front of the LCD TV. This could be a problem because, although the glass has anti-reflective coating, we believe that a LCD display that hasn’t glass covering it is less reflective. Toshiba bottoms this unique designed LCD TV with a swivel stand.

The menu

The menu has definitely improved from last year models. The icons are better organized and the layout has been simplefeid. The color scheme makes the menu very easy to read but the thing we don’t like is that is missing explanatory text for each selection. We can’t say that this is the perfect menu, far from it…but we like that Toshiba has made a major progress compared to last year menu.

The remote control

The remote control it’s pretty big and has quite a few buttons. We like that it makes good use of size and placement differentiation so you can operate it just by touch alone. We also like the design. We don’t like that it’s not illuminated. With this remote control you can also control other pieces of gear.

Features

Compared to last year, Toshiba has made some serious improvements to 2009 line-up HDTVs, especially to high-end ones. When we look at others big players on the market like Sony, Samsung and LG, these improvements were a must because, otherwise, Toshiba would have been left behind.

ClearScan 240Hz

On the 240Hz market we have two players that actually quadruple the original frames – most sources are at 60 frames per second -.Those two manufactures are Samsung and Sony, so they are the ones who deserve the “true 240Hz” title. Toshiba calls this feature ClearScan 240Hz which doubles the original frames to get 120 frames like a standard 120Hz LCD TV, while flashing the backlight much faster then human vision can perceive, and this way Toshiba LCD TVs achieve further reduction in blurring. This method is also used by other two manufactures on the market: LG and Vizio. We appreciate Toshiba being fair play and carefully calling this technology “the 240Hz effect”, although we are certain that this distinction will confuse many customers. The main thing that we need to know is that ClearScan 240Hz isn’t the true 240Hz technology but achieves similar results.

FocaLight LED Backlight with Local Dimming

All the manufactures have one thing in mind when it comes to LCD TVs picture: to be as real as possible (lifelike picture). For this to be obtained, there are some very important aspects that manufactures work on: resolution, ability to reproduce millions of colors and what makes a picture awesome - black level (ability to produce just one color: black).What I’m going to say next could confuse you a bit: an LCD’s ability to generate black levels is directly tied to its light source. Fluorescent backlights found on most of LCD TVs illuminate the display at all times. This is not the case with Toshiba 55SV670U which LEDs can be controlled by zone to achieve higher dynamic contrast ratio and deeper blacks. “Local Dimming” is a feature that allows backlight of a LCD panel to be dimmed -even shut off completely- in some areas, to achieve deep blacks without reducing the peak white brightness.

AutoView makes it a lot easier

One of the biggest problems that LCD TV owners have to deal with is the level of natural or artificial ambient light. As we all know, ambient light changes through the day and if you watch a movie in the evening, light conditions will definitely change. What if you’re LCD TV could automatically adapt its performance in any light conditions. Well, this is the case with AutoView that tweaks brightness, contrast, gamma, sharpness, color saturation and also color temperature using an external light sensor. All of this controls can be tweaked also manual, so if you don’t like the outcome of AutoView you can do it yourself. This may not be so helpful for experienced LCD TV owners, but it will surely help users that are new to this technology.

Toshiba’s Resolution+ technology

This feature tries to make everything fell like HD. Resolution+ improves 480i, 480p, and 720p image detail for enhanced video quality on everything that output less than Full HD.This technology adds some sharpness to the image but it also introduces edge enhancement. Toshiba made a big deal out of this, and…it’s good but not great. It’s impossible to get FULL HD from SD (Standard definition).We will talk more about this in the performance section.

Dolby sound

One problem found on today’s LCD TVs is an audio one. Many users complain about the inconsistent volume levels when changing channels or with commercials. This problem is what Dolby sound tries to fix. Applying a sophisticated psycho-acoustic model of human hearing this feature automatically reduces the volume of louder stations or raising the volume of lower stations and keeps user’s preferred listening level.

Good connectivity

Toshiba equipped the SV670U with plenty of connectivity: four HDMI, one USB port, one SD Card Slot, one VGA PC input, AV input with composite and S-Video, along with digital and analog audio outputs. We are going to focus a bit on InstaPort feature for faster HDMI switching between components. Did you notice that when you change HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) there is a delay of about five or six seconds? Not any more, this problem is fix with InstaPort. The delay is gone, as soon as you select a HDMI source; it will connect in a fraction of the time. Watching a DivX has never been easier. It incorporates a USB port into which you can plug a USB hard drive or just a USB flash drive so you can play a movie of your choice. Beside DivX movies, users can view their JPEG pictures, listen to MP3 audio and watch MPEG-1 & 2 video. This LCD TV is also equipped with a SD Card Slot, so user can view JPEG digital pictures by tacking the memory card of the device and placing it in the TV.

Performance

Video processing

Toshiba 55SV670U doesn’t perform as well as true 240Hz displays. With ClearScan 240Hz activated it appears to affect blurring only, while leaving it turned off reduces motion resolution. For smoothing dejudder action we have a setting called Smooth. With this setting activated a film looks more like a video and the picture is about the same as Standard on Samsung.

Black level

The black level of this model can be compared to the Samsung B8000 series. Thanks to FocaLight LED Backlight with Local Dimming this LCD TV can achieve deeper blacks then any other Toshiba model and can be compete with 2009 LED based LCD TVs from Samsungs 2009 line-up, also with best CCFL HDTV - Samsung B750 series – but not as good as Sony XBR8 series or Samsungs A950 series.

Bright lighting

To create Deep Lagoon Design, Toshiba placed a single sheet of glass with anti-reflective coating covering the entire front of the LCD TV. Although is anti-reflective it still doesn’t perform as well as best standard LCD displays when bright light is involved. To fix this, Toshiba implemented AutoView between other adjustable picture modes. This is great for normal users but for advanced ones we recommend to manually tweak the controls for a better result.

SD content

As we expected this LCD TV performs good in this area, but not as great as Samsung B750 series. Despite the SV670U’s Resolution+ processing that tries to make every SD content look like HD, this feature isn’t that impressive and adds some sharpness to the image. In our eyes we can achieve the same outcome by increasing the Sharpness control on any LCD TV.

PC usage

Toshiba offers connectivity to PC via HDMI and VGA inputs. Via HDMI this LCD TV performs excellent (as we expected) displaying every line of a 1.920×1.080 source with no overscan. This was not the case with VGA input, although the set can hit 1,360×768 wide-screen resolution, other LCD TVs perform better in this area.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that this LCD TV is the best Toshiba model and has great value for the money.