A viable, cost-effective contender in the midsized HDTV market
Written: Nov 26 '07 (Updated Dec 10 '07)
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Pros: Clean, simple design; nice sound; good picture quality
Cons: The remote from hell.
The Bottom Line: Good, reliable entry level HDTV.
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| sundogg99's Full Review: Toshiba 32HL67 32 in. LCD TV |
This is one of those for-want-of-a-nail homeowner stories - it began when my daughter's TV suddenly stopped working. Who knows why? One day it worked, the next day it didn't. For all I know, some 25 cent part had rattled loose, but her old set might as well have had a hockey puck slapped through the screen for all of my ability to repair it.
In short order, the non-functional TV hit the "Free Stuff" section on Craigslist; my daughter inherited an old 19" Sony from our bedroom; and my wife and I found ourselves shopping for a new television for us. Trickle-down economics at its most pure and unfettered.
Full disclosure: we weren't looking to set up a home theater - no booming subwoofers, no giant screen, disco lights, etc... just a basic TV appropriate for a bedroom. And pronto, por favor - god forbid we should miss a single episode of "House". At the same time, we figured it was time to get on the HDTV bandwagon, and - what the heck - a bigger screen would be nice, wouldn't it?
We visited a local store specializing in video equipment and stared dutifully at the massive wall of flat screen sets - fortunately, we quickly recognized that anything larger than 36" or so would be overkill in our mid-sized bedroom. In the 28-36" range, we quickly narrowed our choices down to three: the Sony Bravia, the Hitachi somethingorother, and the Toshiba Regza. By the way, where do they get these names?
After comparing our own subjective impressions of the picture and sound quality, we decided that each of the sets was plenty good enough for our minimal requirements, so the decision pretty quickly came down to price. The Sony and Hitachi were both priced north of $1000, while the Toshiba was a relatively affordable $800. Sold.
I'd like to say that we did some intensive research and comparison shopping, but that simply wasn't the case. We headed out on a weekend afternoon, and two hours later we returned with our new set. However, despite our less-than-diligent approach, we're not at all unhappy with our purchase. The set has met all our expectations.
The Regza offers most of the features that competing sets offer: various video and sound modes, favorite channel selections, etc. For a basic TV viewer like me, it's feature overkill, frankly. I just want to flip the thing on and punch in a channel, for crying out loud. This excess of functionality is manifested not on the set itself, which is appealingly clean and simple, but on the accompanying remote, which boasts 46 buttons and a toggle switch. Sweet Jesus. What with my midlife presbyopia and crankiness, I'd really prefer a device that I can simply yell at when I want to change the channel, or (failing that) a remote with a handful of clearly identified, brightly lit, half-dollar-sized buttons, but geez... who needs a device with nearly fifty minibuttons, each the size of a grain of rice?
On the flip side, and as hinted at above, the set itself is a sleek, black, minimalist beauty. One nice feature contributing to the simple profile is Toshiba's SoundStrip speaker system, which delivers nice stereo-quality sound via a narrow band of speakers around the screen. We've certainly appreciated the set's "half mute" feature, which drops sound down to a whisper rather than completely muting things.
Of course, the big thing with HDTV is the image quality, and in this regard we've been very pleased with our set. I find myself watching National Geographic specials on formerly yawn-inducing topics like, I dunno, feral pigs, maybe, or the history of plywood, simply because the HD images look so damn good. I'm not sure that something which causes me to watch more TV is a good thing, necessarily, but it is undoubtedly the coolest feature since the introduction of color broadcasting back in the 1960s.
We've had our set for about 4 months now and it's been virtually trouble-free. We hooked a Wii system up to it a while back, and have the cable running through it - it's all pretty straightforward and easy... which is exactly what we wanted. I'm guessing you do too.
Recommended.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 749
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