9 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
Clearly not the best TV, but well worth the money!
Date of Review: Jun 9, 2006
The Bottom Line: If you can't spend alot, but you can't comprimise on picture, this is the way to go.
Let me caveat this review by saying, I am not an expert on TVs and monitors, but consider myself knowledgeable in electronics in general.
I tried to do a lot of research before picking a television, and it seems that there's two major categories of TVs these days: Old-style tube televisions, and new-style digital displays (i.e. LCD, Plasma, HD). This TV sits at the top most echelon of the old-style displays, along with a comparable Sony that I also considered.
The TV has a flat screen which, incidentally, is not a synonym for an LCD display, as I once thought. This is, by far, the best picture I've ever seen on a regular tube TV; to my eye, it's indistinguishable from some of the new-style TVs. The picture looks incredible when playing Gran Turismo 4 on my Playstation 2 with component output. I think you could spend a lot more for a low-tier, 27", LCD TV and not have as good a picture. Another thing that really swayed me towards the Toshiba was the fact that it's relatively small for a 27" tube television.
If picture is what you're after, and you're shopping in this price range, I think you'll be pleased with this TV. However, it's not without its problems.
The biggest problem, for me, is the built-in speakers; they sound absolutely rubbish. My step-mother has some tiny, no-name, 4" bookshelf speakers from the late 80s that sound 100 times better than the speakers on this TV. Maybe Toshiba assumed people would use this TV as part of a home theater set-up, since there is an RCA output in the back (cool!). Take this into consideration when buying.
The other thing that really bugs me is the fact that I had to spend a long time tweaking the display settings till it looked good. If you have an aversion to picture tweakery, you might want to steer clear of this TV. I did, however, find a useful guide to setting up a TV/Monitor on the internet, and now it looks great!
So basically, this TV is well worth the money. Unfortunately, these days $400 doesn't buy you a really nice TV, like it used to.
