Toshiba 65 4k Uhd Lcd Smart Tv (65l621u) Review
Our Verdict
The Toshiba 55-inch 4K Fire Television set Edition (55LF621U19) is the all-time Amazon-branded smart TV nosotros've seen, but mediocre hardware and over-aggressive advertizement still weigh it down.
For
- Amazon's Fire TV OS is piece of cake to navigate
- Congenital-in Alexa
- HDR back up
Against
- Aggressive advertising
- Confusing app store
- Mediocre picture and sound
Tom'southward Guide Verdict
The Toshiba 55-inch 4K Fire Tv Edition (55LF621U19) is the best Amazon-branded smart Television receiver nosotros've seen, but mediocre hardware and over-aggressive advertising still weigh information technology downward.
Pros
- +
Amazon'south Fire Television receiver Bone is easy to navigate
- +
Born Alexa
- +
HDR support
Cons
- -
Aggressive advertising
- -
Confusing app store
- -
Mediocre picture show and sound
The Toshiba 55-inch 4K Fire Television Edition (55LF621U19) is Amazon'south second cleft at selling its own smart TVs, the 2018 follow-up to concluding yr's Westinghouse and Element Amazon Burn down Television receiver models.
While the new TVs are ameliorate in most respects, with improved display quality, HDR back up and a more refined user feel, the finish result is nonetheless weighed down past Amazon's reliance on third-party manufacturers and less expensive hardware. While the sub-$500 toll is a potent selling point, it introduces some weaknesses that make it hard to recommend Amazon's solid smart Television receiver platform, seeing every bit it's tied to less-impressive hardware.
Editors' Note: (Updated Apr 18, 2019) Amazon and Google take made upward, and YouTube is now bachelor on Amazon Fire TVs, fixing i of our biggest issues with the Amazon-powered smart TV.
Toshiba 55-inch 4K Fire TV Edition (55LF621U19) Specs
| Price | $479.99 |
| Screen Size | 55 inches |
| Resolution | 3840 x 2160 |
| HDR | HDR10 |
| Refresh Rate | threescore Hz |
| Ports | 3 HDMI, one USB |
| Sound | 2 x 10-watt aqueduct |
| Smart Tv Software | Burn TV OS |
| Size | 28.7 10 49.ane ten 3.7 inches |
| Weight | 32.four pounds |
Design
The 55LF621U19'south design is quite basic, with a fairly thick plastic cabinet. Without the stand, the TV measures 28.7 ten 49.ane ten 3.7 inches and weighs 32.4 pounds. The back of the TV cabinet is simple black plastic, but information technology'due south not 1 single piece.
The rear panel is actually several separate pieces held together with visible screws, and the unabridged display chiffonier is pretty chunky, thicker than the TCL Roku 55-inch 55S405 (iii.0 inches) or the Insignia 55-Inch Roku Tv (iii.5 inches).
The stand consists of two crescent-shaped anxiety, made of glossy plastic. While the stand seems fairly stable, it's not the most aesthetically pleasing design we've seen. The footprint of the stand up measures 29 ten 12 inches and raises the Television set up 1.5 inches.
From the front, the 55LF621U19 has a very bones design, with sleeky black bezels that are fairly wide (0.7 inch). In the centre of the bottom bezel is a Toshiba logo, while a single push button for power and input selection gives you lot a concrete command if your remote isn't handy.
The rear console also has holes to accept a 200-millimeter x 300-millimeter VESA mountain, should yous want to hang information technology on the wall or adhere a flexible mounting arm.
Ports
On the left-facing side, you volition find 1 USB port, three HDMI ports (including one with Arc support), a optical digital sound port, and a headphone jack. While we wish these ports were closer to the edge of the screen — they are more than a foot in from the edge — they are at least visible and attainable.
On the back, you will find additional RCA blended-video inputs, a LAN connection, and a screw-on coaxial connector for antenna and cable. These ports are considerably less accessible, thanks to an inset, down-facing position. Thankfully, the networking cable and antenna or cable connections are the sort that y'all connect once and mostly go out unchanged.
While yous tin can use the LAN port to connect the TV over a wired Ethernet connectedness, you lot can also utilise the born Wi-Fi. The Telly supports 802.11ac.
Smart Features
Amazon's Fire TV Os has an easy-to-navigate dwelling screen, simply information technology's got lots of content recommendations and advertising banners to bargain with. Unfortunately, nosotros couldn't find a way to disable this advertising, which makes sense given Amazon's retail focus. And then, y'all'll demand to merely put up with aggressive promos for movies and shows on Amazon Prime.
While many smart Tv set platforms include some form of advertising, unremarkably in the form of recommended content from preferred apps and services, Amazon's Burn Television receiver also includes ads for Amazon trade. This ranged from the obvious, like movies and abode theater gear, to the interest-specific, like sports equipment and recommendations personalized to my Amazon history. Sometimes, information technology got a piddling weird, such as the fourth dimension I turned on the Toshiba Amazon TV to exist served an ad for the Samsung Q7F goggle box.
While many smart TV platforms include some course of advertising, the Toshiba Burn Television receiver likewise includes ads for Amazon merchandise.
Voice-assistant integration has get common on smart TVs, and Amazon's Fire Boob tube is no different, with the aforementioned Alexa voice assistant congenital in that'due south constitute in the Amazon Echo and similar devices. Using Alexa, you lot can search for content, adapt settings on the TV ranging from volume and channel control to picture settings and some apps, and control any Alexa-compatible smart home device.
Amazon'due south app ecosystem is quite large, with the Fire TV Bone benefiting from the years of app development done for Amazon's other Burn products. The most-popular apps, similar Netflix, HBO Get and others, are promoted and easy to find on the habitation screen. You'll have to discover the residual in the app store. These will be spread beyond 27 different app categories, including both common smart-TV uses such equally Movies & Television receiver, News, and Sports, too every bit less common designations, like Business, Reference and Transportation. The Amazon ecosystem of apps numbers in the thousands.
One problem with the app store, however, is that information technology can be difficult to navigate. Some of this is due to an opaque browsing system that's broken up into dozens of categories. Y'all can find individual apps by searching for an exact proper noun, merely there is no way to browse all of the apps available, brusk of digging through the app store one category at a time.
Using Alexa, you tin search for content, adjust TV settings and control whatsoever Alexa-uniform smart home device.
Another trouble comes in the loading times. Scrolling through a menu of available apps tin can take quite some time, because not all app icons will load immediately, and you will often miss unabridged rows of apps because they weren't even on the folio when you tried browsing through the bachelor options. Search manages to be even slower.
Another issue is quality command. Many of the apps bachelor are of low quality, and yous'll find foreign listings in the app store. One entry in the Food & Drink category is simply titled, "Ilovemangoes," with the not-so-helpful app description reading, "mangoesmangoesmangoesmangoes." Information technology's far from the polished experience offered by the more than tightly controlled, proprietary app stores seen on other smart TVs.
Categorization is of varied quality as well. For example, the popular anime-streaming app Crunchyroll is filed under the Novelty category, alongside fart apps and repackaged YouTube channels. Finding a specific app is easier with a search rather than by browsing category by category.
You'll also take to bargain with some visitor politics. Amazon and Google have frequently butted heads, pulling each other's respective services from the listing of supported apps on their devices, meaning you tin can't become the YouTube app on your Amazon TV. Nevertheless, there is an app tile found on the home screen, which simply says YouTube.com — no YouTube logo, no familiar red branding, just obviously blueish tile with that URL.
Information technology's actually a redirect to a bookmark that lets y'all use YouTube through the Boob tube's built-in browser. It's an irritating actress hoop to jump through but to use an extremely popular app. If you want a dedicated app for YouTube, y'all can find some. I quickly discovered at to the lowest degree four in the Amazon app store, merely the official YouTube app is nowhere to be seen.
Editors' Note: (Updated April xviii, 2019) This issue has been fixed, with Amazon and Google publicly agreeing to work with each other again. This means Fire TVs will get an official YouTube app , forth with other YouTube apps and services, such as YouTube Kids, YouTube Music and (well-nigh-critical for cordcutters) YouTube Television receiver.
Functioning
The Toshiba uses direct LED backlighting with no local dimming, which results in some expected deficiencies. When displaying solid colors, such as blue sky or title cards, the panel has singled-out shadowing in the corners.
The television offers HDR support, with compatibility with HDR10 but not Dolby Vision. Oddly enough, the Tv set doesn't list HDR10 Plus as a supported format, even though Amazon Prime number Video is ane of the few sources of HDR10 Plus content. That said, the HDR support does provide excellent midtones, with plenty of subtle detail in shadowy and dimly lit scenes. While the HDR support is not perfect, it is yet a significant step up in quality from standard dynamic range.
The 55LF621U19 has some deficiencies in light blooming and backlight consistency, but it does offering rather fantabulous particular. Bright objects on screen are also a bit hazy, with indistinct edges, but that's a minor issue.
When I watched scenes from Bract Runner 2049, the unwanted blooming was axiomatic in scenes of an abandoned casino. A halo of unwanted calorie-free surrounded a brightly lit doorway at the terminate of a dark hallway. In another scene from Blade Runner, a cloud bank over a futuristic Los Angeles was striped with banding where there should accept been a smooth gradient.
The Toshiba has some deficiencies in light blooming and backlight consistency, but it does offer rather excellent particular.
I watched a scene from Spider-Human: Homecoming in which a gang armed with conflicting weapons shot up a bank branch, with glowing, imperial energy beams punctuating the action. While these elements popped on screen, a faint glow surrounded them, the result of the Toshiba'due south less precise backlighting.
Viewing angles also get out a lot to be desired. Horizontally, sitting off-center by as piffling every bit 30 degrees causes noticeable color shifting. It's actually worse when looking at vertical viewing angles. What looks good on the TV while sitting on the couch will have significant color problems once yous stand upwards, even with no other change in position.
Our instrumental testing bore out this mediocre performance in our anecdotal tests. Color reproduction is rich, just inaccurate, equally the Toshiba reproduced 98.2 percentage of the sRGB color gamut — slightly ameliorate than results from the Insignia (96.7 per centum) and last year's Westinghouse Amazon Fire TV (98.1 percentage) but slightly behind the TCL 55S405'due south showing (98.4 per centum).
Accuracy was another matter, with the Toshiba scoring a Delta-E rating of 5.05 under the best picture show manner available. Lower numbers are meliorate in this examination. Once more, the Toshiba scored slightly better than terminal year's Westinghouse Amazon Fire TV (5.5), simply it was significantly less accurate than either the 55-inch Insignia Roku Boob tube (ii.03) or the TCL 55S405 (2.16). This inaccuracy was especially noticeable in pink shades, which all skewed purple.
Brightness was more than in line with the competition, with maximum effulgence landing at 358.89 nits in our testing. With competitors' scores ranging from 314.14 on the TCL 55S405 to 385.13 on the Westinghouse, the Toshiba offers centre-of-the-road brightness; that's mutual for a upkeep-friendly set.
Audio
The Toshiba is outfitted with a pair of x-watt speakers with DTS sound. The overall sound quality isn't great, just the book gets quite loud. Information technology hands filled our testing lab, and it steers clear of the buzzing and distortion that often plagues less-expensive TVs. Regardless of the volume and clarity, you'll probably nonetheless want to get a soundbar, because overall sound quality is decidedly mediocre.
More: Smart Telly FAQ - The Pros and Cons of Smart Televisions
Listening to "They Can't Accept That Away from Me" past Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, the unmistakable vocals and distinctive trumpet tones came through quite clearly at most volumes. Nonetheless, when volume was turned up to 75 percent or higher, the sound quality got sparse and reedy, and there was some noticeable clipping at high volume.
With no born subwoofer on this Telly, bass is virtually nonexistent. When listening to "Resistance" by Knife Party, the lack of bass severely muted what should have been a thumping, driving bass line. What'due south worse, some of the treble sounded muffled and indistinct.
Remote control
The remote that comes with this Television is rather minimal in design, looking far more similar to Samsung's one remote than the button-festooned models that come up with Sony's TVs. The Toshiba remote feels rather low-cal and flimsy, merely no more and then than the Roku remotes that come with a TCL TV or like. The remote has a sleeky ring that functions as a four-manner directional pad, surrounded with defended buttons for home, back, menu and media playback controls.
Another push lets y'all switch to live Tv set, while an up and downwardly button lets you accommodate volume and another button lets you mute the sound. There are 4 app-specific buttons at the lesser of the remote. These are labeled Prime Video, Netflix, HBO and PlayStation Vue. Thankfully, the branded buttons are located at the bottom of the remote, where you lot tin can exist easily them.
Up at the top of the remote is a microphone push button used to speak to Alexa for voice command. This is especially handy when searching for content and apps, because it eliminates the need to enter text with the on-screen keyboard, and search is frequently a much faster method for finding a specific app or evidence.
Bottom Line
The smart Television set category is ripe for the appearance of another strong competitor to Google'southward authorisation and Roku'southward ubiquity amongst less-expensive sets, but the Toshiba 55-inch 4K Fire TV Edition (55LF621U19) won't be the model that turns the tide in Amazon's favor. The 55LF621U19 may offering a improve motion picture than last yr's Westinghouse Burn Edition Idiot box, but the improvements in picture quality — adding HDR back up and improved colour gamut and accuracy — don't do plenty to strongly recommend the Boob tube on its own merits.
As long equally Amazon sticks to upkeep-tier hardware and competes with Roku as a bargain-cost smart-Boob tube OS, it will proceed to seem second-rate compared to the proprietary platforms used by LG and Samsung, or Sony's Android Television offerings. As such, we recommend sticking to budget-friendly Roku sets in this price range, like the Insignia Roku Goggle box 4K Ultra Hard disk 55-Inch (NS-55DR620NA18) or the TCL Roku 55-inch 55S405.
Amazon Fire Telly platform isn't bad as smart TVs go, just it leaves me wondering when Amazon will put this platform on a decent TV.
Credit: Tom'due south Guide
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Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/toshiba-55-inch-4k-fire-tv,review-5671.html
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