Reviews Toshiba - 50 Class - Led - 2160p - Smart - 4k Uhd Tv With Hdr - Fire Tv Edition

Concluding year's Chemical element Burn down Tv set Edition (and Westinghouse, but they were the aforementioned Boob tube) showed that Amazon's Fire Television set platform can be put directly on a 4K Television receiver, without the demand for a divide media streamer. Amazon'south continuing its Burn down Television push button with a new partner in 2018. If y'all want the newest model with Burn down Television set built-in, Toshiba's now your get-to, with the Toshiba Fire TV Edition. This series is even less expensive than the Chemical element/Westinghouse Fire Telly Edition (at $479.99 for the 55-inch 55LF621U19 we tested), and at present supports high dynamic range (HDR). It's functional, but poor dissimilarity keeps it from beingness nearly as strong a recommendation as our Editors' Pick for upkeep Television receiver, the slightly pricier TCL six-Series.

Editors' Note: This review is based on testing performed on the 55LF621U19, the 55-inch model in the series. Autonomously from the screen size difference, the $399.99 l-inch 50LF621U19 is identical in features, and we expect similar functioning.

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Savings Over Style

The Toshiba Burn TV Edition looks very plain, with a nondescript glossy plastic bezel around the screen measuring 0.7 inches wide on the sides and acme, and 1.three inches on the bottom border. An infrared receiver for the remote sits on the lower right corner, and the Toshiba logo appears in the middle of the bottom bezel. The ii feet the Television stands on are equally unassuming, simply sleeky black plastic legs that extend from the bottom of the screen at an birdbrained bending. It's a functional design, but similar virtually budget TVs, it won't get whatsoever points for style.

On the dorsum of the Tv, iii HDMI inputs, a USB port, and an optical audio output sit just over a pes in from the left edge, facing left. An Ethernet port, antenna/cablevision connector, and an RCA composite video input face downward, at the same location. A combination power/input button rests on the lower correct corner of the dorsum of the TV, and that's information technology for physical controls.

Similar Products

The included Fire TV remote is designed specifically for TVs, and is a chip larger and more complex than the phonation remote included with Amazon Fire Goggle box media streamers. It shares a similar blueprint, though, every bit a slim black plastic wand with a prominent glossy black circular navigation pad. Three menu buttons sit higher up the pad and three playback buttons sit below, with power and microphone buttons on the superlative of the remote most a pinhole mic.

That's the standard layout for Fire TV streamer remotes, but Toshiba adds a volume rocker, mute, and alive TV button beneath the playback controls, and dedicated service buttons for Amazon Prime Video, HBO, Netflix, and PlayStation Vue below them. The remote is also infrared in addition to Bluetooth, and so you can use it to control the Television set if the Bluetooth connection drops, without needing to re-pair the remote offset.

Burn TV OS and Alexa

The Amazon Fire Boob tube platform is congenital effectually using your Amazon business relationship for transactions like downloading apps and renting or ownership media, with an Amazon Prime number membership calculation instant access to a broad selection of streaming movies, Television set shows, and music on top of that. Because of this, you demand to sign in with your Amazon account to access near of the Burn down TV features. However, different the Burn TV media streamers, you don't absolutely need an Amazon business relationship to use the Toshiba Burn TV Edition. An optional Basic manner lets yous use the Boob tube as a Idiot box, cutting out most streaming and online features from the interface, but providing admission to the TV's different inputs. If you lot want to rely entirely on external video sources and not deal with an Amazon business relationship, information technology's a viable selection.

Still, most users will want to employ their Amazon business relationship to admission the total features of the Toshiba Fire Television Edition, because merely how robust information technology is as a smart Tv platform. Fire Television lets you access most major streaming services, including (of form) Amazon Video and Amazon Music, Crunchyroll, Hulu, Netflix, PlayStation Vue, Sling TV, Spotify, and Twitch. Google Play Movies & TV and Google Play Music are both absent from the Burn Tv ecosystem, though, and YouTube curiously loads only through the Firefox or Silk web browsers, rather than through its own dedicated app. While the Fire Idiot box OS is ostensibly based on Android, Google and Amazon don't go forth much in terms of content.

Burn TV includes access to the Alexa vocalization banana, which you can use on the Toshiba Fire Telly Edition by pressing the microphone push on the remote and speaking into it. It isn't easily-gratuitous like an Echo or Echo Spot, but it's still functional out of the box with a push button press. You tin can also pair your Telly with an Echo to access Alexa through the TV hands-costless and command it with your vox. This combination comes shut to offering the functionality of the Fire Tv Cube, but without the Cube's infrared blasters, home theater vocalization commands are limited to the Telly itself.

Alexa is a very powerful vocalization assistant, capable of searching for content, controlling media playback, providing general information, and fifty-fifty controlling smart domicile devices. While Google Assistant is a fiddling more flexible with tongue and doesn't require quite as specifically phrased voice commands, Alexa can practise a lot one time yous effigy out how to talk to information technology.

On the Toshiba Burn Boob tube Edition, y'all can ask Alexa for whatever media, bringing upward movies and TV shows with multiple options for streaming on different services including Amazon's own. You tin enquire Alexa questions nearly weather, news, and broad facts, and data will appear on the TV.

Y'all can likewise use your vox to control the Toshiba Fire Tv set Edition itself, by telling Alexa to switch to different inputs, open apps, and accommodate the volume (of course, information technology's faster to just use the book buttons on the remote for that). If you lot have Alexa-compatible smart lights, thermostats, and locks, you can command them by speaking into the remote, as well. You tin can even bring up alive feeds from Alexa-compatible home security cameras like the Amazon Deject Cam on the Television set.

Minor Colors, Disappointing Contrast

The Toshiba Fire Telly Edition supports 4K high dynamic range (HDR) content with the HDR 10 format. It does not support Dolby Vision.

Nosotros test TVs using a Klein K-10A colorimeter, a Murideo Six-G betoken generator, and SpectraCal's CalMAN software on a Razer Blade Pro laptop using testing procedures based on Imaging Science Foundation's scale methods. Out of the box, in Moving picture mode with all extraneous prototype processing features turned off, the Toshiba Fire Television receiver Edition shows a solid top brightness of 352.79cd/m² and a dismal black level of 0.2cd/m² for a disappointing 1,764:1 contrast ratio. The Boob tube has a dynamic backlight feature that adjusts luminance based on the picture, simply without full-array backlighting that can dim dissimilar zones, this feature doesn't improve contrast; setting the fashion to loftier reduces the black level to a beneath-mediocre 0.12cd/m² and cuts the peak brightness by most a third to 249.44cd/m². For comparison, the similarly priced Chemical element Roku Television has a much dimmer tiptop brightness than either setting (201.77cd/1000^two), simply a much more reasonable 0.06cd/m² black level for a iii,363:1 contrast ratio.

The to a higher place nautical chart shows Rec.709 broadcast standard colour levels as boxes and measured colour levels equally dots. While the Toshiba Burn down Telly Edition supports an HDR indicate, information technology doesn't offering a specially wide color gamut, and barely exceeds broadcast standards, with reds appearing slightly undersaturated. The colors are balanced and not tinted, but they aren't specially bright.

This functioning is mutual in budget TVs, which is a standing shame in the wake of TCL'due south 6-Series. While the 55-inch TCL 55R617 is nearly $200 more expensive than the 55-inch Toshiba Burn Goggle box Edition, it offers a much better picture than the Toshiba in every fashion. Its measured dissimilarity ratio is most 30 times greater than the Toshiba'southward, thanks to a much brighter panel that tin can produce a 0.01cd/m2 blackness level, and its color range is much wider to boot.

Despite the poor dissimilarity and limited colour range of the Toshiba Fire Tv Edition, BBC's Planet Earth II on Ultra HD Blu-ray looks quite overnice on it. Fine details like fur and leaves are sharp and clean, and colors look natural and counterbalanced, fifty-fifty if they aren't nearly as vivid as they are on the TCL half dozen-Series. Sunny scenes await brilliant, though the console'due south low contrast ways that shadows tend to wait diddled out against the calorie-free. This isn't the all-time picture you can observe, even on a upkeep Television set, but it yet manages to look pretty practiced because its limitations.

The Toshiba Fire TV Edition makes an beauteous attempt with The Great Gatsby, doing its all-time to keep upwards with the very high-contrast party scenes with black suits and bright white setpieces. Highlights and shadows both manage to preserve fine detail well-nigh of the time, with the cuts of black suits and white shirts coming through clearly on the screen. Occasionally very vivid or very dark details become blown out or muddy, particularly the texture of black hair and the edges of calorie-free fixtures, but these are small exceptions rather than huge weaknesses. The limited dissimilarity still means that black suits tin can appear occasionally done out, simply for the price it is a consistently pleasant picture. Off-bending viewing is acceptable, but saturation dips and colors start to appear gray when y'all move beyond xxx degrees off-axis from the center of the Tv.

Input Lag and Power Consumption

Input lag is how long it takes for a display to update later it receives a betoken. In Movie mode, the Toshiba Fire Tv Edition shows a poor 70.6ms input lag. Switching to Game mode cuts that downwards to a much more reasonable 40.2ms, just that's yet far also high for united states to consider it to exist a good TV for gaming. The TCL 55R617 and 50-inch Element Roku Television both have far amend performance, respectively lagging only 17.9 and 14.8ms in their Game modes.

Nether normal viewing conditions, the 55-inch Toshiba Fire TV Edition consumes 137 watts in Motion-picture show mode. The Tv set doesn't have any specific power-saving features or modes available, though you can save a flake of electricity by dimming the backlight. This is in line with similar 55-inch LCD TVs; the TCL 55R617, the 55-inch model in TCL's 6-Series, consumes 163 watts under normal viewing conditions with its brightest settings, and 129 watts with a power saving style that dims the picture to a comparable level as the Toshiba.

A Frugal, Functional TV

The Toshiba Burn down Television Edition is a more economical smart Telly than the Element Fire Telly Editions we saw terminal year, and the add-on of HDR 10 support is a nice benefit on paper. It makes significant compromises in picture quality to hit its depression cost, nevertheless, resulting in downright poor black levels and a color range that no HDR signal will improve past circulate standard levels, but that's to exist expected when you lot find a 55-inch TV for nether $500. The Amazon Fire Television set platform is still very total-featured and useful, especially with Alexa integration, and while the motion-picture show quality is uninspiring, it doesn't make any massive mistakes similar skewing colors or completely destroying highlights or shadows. This is a solid choice if you want to get a 4K, HDR-capable smart TV while spending as little as possible, but we withal strongly recommend the slightly pricier TCL half dozen-Series, which remains our Editors' Choice for budget TVs.

Toshiba 50-Inch Burn TV Edition (50LF621U19)

The Bottom Line

The Toshiba Burn down Goggle box Edition is a very affordable 4K HDR TV with all the benefits of Amazon'southward Alexa voice assistant and Fire TV streaming media platform, but you lot can go a much improve picture past spending only a little more than.

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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/toshiba-50-inch-fire-tv-edition-50lf621u19

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