I'm not sure why everyone complains about the sound on televisions. You shouldn't be using TV speakers anyways. They're horrible. I wish they'd just make all TV's without speakers, save us all the trouble. Yes, the speakers on this TV are horrible, but I'd expect that. The picture is solid. The 120Hz works well (on animated movies, live-action movies in 120Hz looks weird on any TV, looks unnatural), images are sharp, brightness is great, however the LED lighting is not uniform, at least on mine. When the screen is on, but black, you can see the un-uniform lighting of the screen. Most of the time, this is not noticeable, but you do notice it during very dark scenes in games and movies. Also, I have seen the problem another review saw, where the backlighting will change brightness. I had to turn a lot of stuff off in the picture settings in order to get it to stop. The User Guide isn't much help with the advanced image controls, so I just had to experiment. The Yahoo! apps are cool, as well as the Netflix app, but these are really just fluff features. While convenient sometimes, the novelty of looking at the weather on your TV wears off quickly. I'd rather have them spend the time on the backlighting issues. In all, it's a solid TV with a good picture except for the issues I noted above. I got it for $800 at Fry's on sale.
Toshiba 42SL417U 42-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED-LCD HDTV with Net TV, BlackProblem with both volume and brightness level. The volume has enormous swings on both programming and commercials. TV gets loud and then becomes almost silent. Surges in brightness as well. Checked cable and replaced cablebox-no problem there. Cable guy says problem is the TV. Seems to be a bad tv. Toshiba support could not resolve over the phone.
First of all...the manual included is terrible, for a MUCH better one, go to Toshiba's site...here --
Now...I haven't had too many issues w/ this TV and I've had it in our bedroom for about a week now. The speakers are terrible, which was expected, especially on a super-thin LED tv...not a problem since I expected it but you'd think with the amazing sound quality they get out of headphones, that they could do something similar with smaller speakers huh?
I have had no issues after turning off the dynamic volume option and the auto dimming sensor option (would dim every time someone walked in front of the tv or if the sun covered up the clouds since it shines through our windows...was very annoying).
My games look fantastic on it and movies are great and the streaming is a very nice touch since I have a media server in the house. One issue I noticed was the sound is actually worse on the speakers whenever you're streaming from a media server (as opposed to watching tv or gaming) as I streamed from my Ps3 and the sound from the video was fine even on the tiny speakers, but it was terrible when it was streaming straight to the tv from the media browser. I'm sure that I can remedy this once I hook up some 'real' speakers to it eventually.
All in all, it's a great tv..slightly heavier than I expected it to be (think it weighs in at 35lbs?). It's sleek, thin, picture is phenomenal. I have a 46" Samsung LN46A550 in the living room and I notice this one having a much bright picture than my sammy. Overall...I've very satisfied and I got a great deal on it even if it is slightly large for a bedroom setting. ^_^
I had it for a months now. Video is great - . Sound is 10 Watt but it more than enough for me for regular TV.
For movie, use my soound system.
Remote control is kind of confusing initially, but getting use it after learning curve. Had to call support -good response time.
Overall it is a beautiful TV for the money.
Got this TV 3 weeks back, after the intial learning curve TV working great.
Picture (5 star): great picture Bright and sharp, give a sony a run for its money
Net TV (4 star): After the intial learning curve, worked seamlessly after hooking up the wifi. Had to call Toshiba Customer service to learn how to use Net TV ( was not very intutive). They were paitent and gave good tips on using the NET TV functionality. Netflix is good, however missing Huluplus
Compatiblity: Hooked ATT Uverse and Sony Blu ray HTS and TV worked perfectly fine with the U-verse remote.
Sound (3 star): As good as any samsung or sony in this category. However home theatre system is required for decent sound, which is true for other TVs also.
Software Update: Didn't have much freezing of picture after s/w updates as said in other posts. Update was easy once wifi was installed. In the first hour of operating the TV once the TV froze and it was random clicks on buttons, probably part of intial anexity and learning curve. A call to customer service and could handle the remote better.
Overall, great picture, compatibility and feature for the price.
I posted this to Toshiba's website today, but I'm posting it here for others to benefit from.
Also, I FORGOT ABOUT THE BRIGHTNESS PROBLEM I had encountered when writing the Toshiba review, so I'll add it at the bottom.
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Just got this set from Amazon about 3 weeks ago after laboriously weeding out others because of size/features. I'm returning it to Amazon today for a replacement. (( Thanks for great service AMAZON! ))
I had fairly high expectations for the set, even though I'd seen online reviews that said the sound was lousy. When I first turned the set on, it was confirmed - the SOUND actually WAS LOUSY. What a surprise! The lack of analog RCA audio output jacks is a pain, but technology marches onward! With a purchased stereo adapter, we got our version of 4-ch simultaed stereo/quad.
So, we gave the set a run for it's money. Within a couple of weeks, we found that the set randomly CYCLES ITSELF OFF for 15-30 seconds, and then turns itself back on again. (This is NOT a result of accidentally hitting the SLEEP MODE button on the remote control, as one might think.) At other times, several times a day the PICTURE would FREEZE for 15-30 seconds, and then the set would turn itself off and cycle back on, again without touching anything on the remote or the TV. MAGIC! (...or not)
(Toshiba tech support documented the off/on cases and attempted to solve the problem, but finally indicated it was probably a power board problem - no at-home solution)
Also, during the initial wired LAN setup and for a couple of weeks afterward, the NET TV button on the remote worked fine, bringing up a small whirling circle in the upper right hand corner (while it was "thinking") and then eventually bringing in the NET TV functions. This last week, the NET TV button would not bring up any functions. Even when you would use the remote's MENU button to bring up NET TV, there was no response once NET TV was chosen. Maybe I'm doing something wrong...
Testing the network connection showed that the NETWORK CONNECTION WAS GOOD.
(Toshiba tech support was NOT CONTACTED about this since the OFF/ON PROBLEM was going to require a return anyway)
There was NO OWNER'S MANUAL in the original packaging - there's NONE BEING RETURNED. In the Easy Setup Guide it says to read the owner's manual before using the TV, but that manual was only available to us online, which prevented us from sitting in front of the TV while reading and learning about the features. It was a very large (many paged) manual, and now that this set is being returned, I'm glad that I didn't waste my ink/paper printing the manual up. PLEASE INCLUDE A MANUAL for the $1200 MFGR price tag TOSHIBA. Yes, some people use them. Don't want to print one up, Toshiba, then why not include an ONBOARD MANUAL in the TV's features??? Then, people without computers can learn how to use the set, even if they don't want to use all the NET TV functions. How is anyone supposed to see the manual that's only available online (without printing), unless they have a laptop??? Guess I'll need to get one of those, too...
Minor issues, but worthy of looking into:
In Netflix mode, if you try to adjust the picture size at all, all picture size modes go black (sound continues) until you exit the movie/program and then re-enter programming where you left off. This may be a Netflix issue, or it may be a TV issue... Not sure. An example would be watching an old TV series like X-Files where the television version was in 4:3, but I'd rather have the full sized theatre mode 1 or 2, thus eliminating the vertical black bars. Trying to adjust pic size, we'd lose the picture completely and have to exit the program, and then return to get the video picture back.
With the TV connected directly (wired) to our LAN, and piles of pictures in our MY PICTURES profile, it never seemed to find most of the photos that were in Media Player, and going out of the Media Player on the TV and then coming back in would bring up different folders oftentimes, losing ones that it previously had found. It DID seem to find most of my MP3's, but would only play them one at a time. I MIGHT NOT HAVE FOUND the settings to tell it to play all/shuffle-repeat, but it wasn't immediately obvious how to do that. Might need that owner's manual while sitting there working the problem... It was also NOTORIOUSLY SLOW at bringing up anything on Media Player.
Toshiba's biggest mistake on this set:
The TV's onboard speakers are PATHETIC, but I had it hooked up to our analog sound system anyway. HOWEVER, EVEN THEN, the AUX (audio) button on the remote could not be linked to the remote's TV mode so that my external amplified sound could be adjusted while the remote was in TV mode. This was just a pain to switch back and forth from TV mode to AUX mode when needing to adjust or mute the TV... The TV speaker sound was always turned down since it sounded terrible. The solution to this would have been a Variable Audio Output on the TV that would allow you to use the TV speakers and an external audio system with one single volume controlling both. In our case, our Brighthouse remote DID allow linking the AUX (audio) volume to the CABLE remote functions on the Brighthouse remote, so we could use the Brighthouse remote to adjust the amplified volume while in CABLE mode, eliminating having to switch that remote to AUX mode just to adjust or mute sound. This is a bit of a pain while in Netflix mode or any TV mode on the Toshiba remote, since you have to switch back/forth to adjust/mute sound since the onboard speakers are terrible.
Sorry Toshiba. I'm hoping the replacement doesn't have these same OFF/ON issues, but if it does, I'm returning that one, too, and switching to Samsung for awhile. I can live with lousy sound, since I can always buy a better sound system that uses the optical audio hookup, but still...
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OK, I forgot to mention to Toshiba that their AUTOVIEW function is also terrible. I believe its' purpose is to adjust picture brightness based on room ambient brightness. In our case, when watching late at night, when ambient room lighting was low, the TV was automatically adjusting itself to its' own screen brightness with no changes in the room lighting. This was a bit disconcerting since the picture would shoot up to FULL BRIGHTNESS and then cycle back downward to normal room brightness. You could see the TV doing this in stages as is wound its' way back down, but then seconds later, it would pop on to FULL BRIGHTNESS again, and cycle back down. Obviously, this is either a defect in the TV or a poorly configured feature that is reacting to itself. My suggestion would have been to have the electric eye (that's monitoring ambient room lighting) at the back of some sort of tube so that it actually reads the lighting 10-15' away from the TV, not immediately in front of the TV. I think that's what's causing the rapid auto-adjustments back/forth. YES, YOU CAN TURN AUTOVIEW OFF, but what's the sense of having a feature that you have to dum down every day or forever? Why bother having the feature if you don't have the technology worked out, yet?
BTW, I know everyone wants to know how the picture was (clarity, resolution, etc.) on this TV, and I liked the HD 1080i, but since NONE OF THE CABLE TV PROGRAMMING IS IN 1080p, I never got to see the TV (yet) in FULL 1080p Mode. My son is going to have to drag his gaming machine down to hookup to see how that works. Otherwise, I was happy with the picture, but these other issues seemed to overshadow my initial experience with this set.
UPDATE August 21, 2011 - Posted a couple videos to YouTube showing one of the most major problems with this set, after returning the first & second sets, only to get this one with similar problems.
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