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The two down-firing speakers fail to properly capture the thud of a bear’s paw hitting the ground, the higher-pitched smashing of glass or the sudden rush of a gun shot, with bass performance similarly disappointing. Having fallen on hard times of late, Toshiba’s TV brand is hoping for a resurgence with its latest set of TVs. The UL5A is one of the more affordable sets in its lineup and, undeterred by its budget leanings, offers Dolby Vision HDR and Alexa integration.
The Toshiba UK31 hasn’t taken a big enough step forward, with other TV brands in this budget space boasting a better feature set – the 65-inch Hisense Roku A7200G is available for the same price and is a better value-priced buy. Pairing is required before using the Bluetooth devices with the TV. You should do the following to pair your device: As long as there’s content to watch in Dolby Vision, that is. Netflix supports it and there are a few shows on Prime Video. If you have a Dolby Vision 4K player, the increase in performance and fidelity is welcome. The Toshiba UK31 is well served with streaming services. Freeview Play guarantees a full complement of mainstream catch-up players (BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, My5, UKTV Play and sundries), plus an extensive collection of box sets. The 50UK3163DB’s HDR efforts aren’t the only way it makes an unexpected mark on the affordable TV world, either. Its native 4K pictures also look remarkably sharp and detailed. So much so, in fact, that they make the efforts of even some recent LCD TVs we’ve seen from the usually dependable Samsung look soft and undefined by comparison. (Though its upscaled HD pictures, by comparison, look a little soft and noisy.)There’s also Alexa, built-in to the bezel of the TV, that can be used to navigate the TV or to ask questions and conjure up information, as you would with an Echo smart speaker.
To test the Toshiba UL21 we used Portrait Displays Calman colour calibration software. Toshiba UL21 review: Sound quality If multiple variations of your router appear in the network selection screen, select the one which does not have 5GHz at the end. The TV comes with a large and sturdy remote that still feels lightweight to hold. The majority of the buttons feature a decent amount of travel, but the plastic arrow keys can be prone to fingerprints. The remote also features shortcuts to Prime Video, Netflix and Freeview Play. The Toshiba smart platform also offers a good range of streaming apps, including Netflix, Prime Video, Britbox, YouTube, Twitch, BBC Sounds, Deezer and Chilli. Disney+ is notable by its absence though so other sets like theThe Toshiba UL21 supports three HDR formats: HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision, and you get the same selection of modes as you do when watching SDR content – Natural, Cinema, Game, Sports, Dynamic – plus Dolby Vision Bright and Dolby Vision Dark when watching compatible content.
Basically, there’s seldom anything in the 50UK3163DB’s sound profile that actively distracts you from what you’re watching, while there’s actually quite a bit that actively tries to involve you. Verdict TRU Resolution TRU Resolution upscales a wide variety of non 4K content, delivering a more refined image that feels fully immersive." If the TV is missing some channels, we would recommend carrying out an automatic channel scan to tune in these channels, and if necessary trying a First Time Installation or Factory Reset through the menu. The UK31 is one of several affordable 4K TVs from Toshiba’s 2021/22 range, the model tested here is its 65-inch guise.The Toshiba UL21 is inexpensive, reasonably bright, delivers colour accurate SDR images, and HDR performance is bolstered by Dolby Vision support. If you can find it for the right price, it’s a solid buy. HDR picture performance is about right for this calibre of set. I measured HDR peak brightness, using a standard 10 per cent window, at 400 nits. Toshiba has also recently introduced an Ambient Screen Mode called ‘Alexa Home Screen’ for its Alexa Built-In models. This acts as a customisable screensaver feature when the TV is in standby mode, displaying information such as the time, weather and calendar events.
A last word on the gaming latency, which is an improvement over other Toshiba TVs I’ve tested. Previously there was no difference when the game mode was switched on, but the UK31 offers a swift 10.3ms – fast enough for blink and you’ll miss it controller response. The picture quality could use more tuning as colours in Gran Turismo 7 are too vividly represented. Picture quality In fact, the 50UK3163DB HDR image management provides it with so much brightness/light control headroom that it’s able to still make peak highlights of full-screen bright images stand proud of their already punchy surroundings, rather than the brightness just ‘flattening off’ as we might expect with a TV that has less than 500 nits to play with. So, for instance, you become impressively aware of the light gleaming off individual drops of rain during HDR footage of torrential rainfall, or of sunlight catching the corners and curves of car bodywork. Between them, the intense sharpness and surprisingly potent handling of HDR leave almost all of the 50UK3163DB’s similarly priced rivals looking staid and dull by comparison. If you really want to get an impression of HDR’s strengths without having to spend big on a much higher end TV, the 50UK3163DB won’t let you down.
The TV measures at 732 x 78 x 439mm without the stand, or 732 x 189 x 472mm with it, weighing 7kg to make it slim and lightweight. If ‘Device connected’ message is displayed, then the pairing was successful. If the connection fails, retry.
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