Bush UT24SB review: Get smart with this very affordable 4K HDR TV

The name Bush is a blast from the past for those of us of a certain vintage, especially if, like me, you’re old enough to remember the days when TVs were so expensive people rented them.

In our disposable modern age, prices have dropped to the point where you can buy the 50in Bush UT24SB for a penny under £270. That relatively meagre outlay gets you a 4K TV that incorporates the TiVo and Freely media platforms and supports Dolby Vision HDR.

The Bush UT24SB is the first UK TV I’ve tested to run the TiVo platform, and if it delivers good picture and sound quality this budget TV might be a sleeper hit ahead of Christmas.

Bush UT24SB review: Key specifications

Bush UT24SB review: What you need to know

The Bush UT24SB is a 4K (3,840 x 2,160) HDR smart LED LCD TV available in 43in, 50in, 55in, 58in and 65in screen sizes. It uses a 60Hz VA panel with a direct LED backlight and runs the TiVo operating system. There’s also support for HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision, plus audio support for eARC, DTS and Dolby Atmos. There’s an excellent choice of streaming apps, a dedicated mode for low-latency gaming, and support for including Freely, which provides access to all the UK TV catch-up services.

Bush UT24SB review: Price and competition

At the time of writing, you can buy the 50in Bush UT24SB reviewed here for £270, which is a very competitive price for a TV with a screen this large and not one but two smart platforms.
The other screen sizes are priced as follows: 43in (£210), 55in (£300), 58in (£320) and 65in (£380).

The 50in TCL RC630K is a bit more expensive at £329 but for the extra money, you get a more advanced panel with quantum dot filters and support for every HDR format. In terms of other alternatives, there’s the equally well-specified Hisense E6N, which costs £279 for the 50in version, and the Samsung 50DU8000, which retails for £369 but doesn’t support Dolby Vision.

Bush UT24SB review: Design, connections and control

The Bush UT24SB has a design that’s as boring as its model number, though these days most TVs use a minimalist black chassis and simple border around the screen. The build quality is fairly flimsy, but that’s to be expected at this price, and it’s also quite deep for a modern display.

The Bush sits on a pair of dark grey plastic feet that provide good support but are also quite far apart, which means you’ll need a wider surface to install this 50in model on. If you’d rather wall mount there are 200 x 200 VESA fixings at the rear for a compatible bracket.

The connections point sideways and are to the left as you face the screen. Here you’ll find three HDMI 2.0 inputs, two USB ports, a Common Interface slot, an optical digital audio output, an Ethernet port and a headphone jack. There’s also Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for wireless connectivity.

The provided remote is a lightweight black plastic controller with a relatively standard layout for all the buttons. There are direct access keys for Netflix, Disney+ and YouTube, along with additional buttons for Freely and TikTok. The inclusion of the latter is a sign of the times.

Bush UT24SB review: Smart TV platform

The Bush UT24SB offers several smart features, but the most interesting is the inclusion of the TiVo operating system. The name is hardly new but its smart platform makes for an impressive addition to the growing number of implementations on the market.

TiVo OS has a clean, intuitive and well-organised user interface with dedicated pages designed to make accessing your favourite content easier. Whether it’s movies, TV shows or just ‘free stuff’, you can quickly and easily find whatever kind of content you’re looking for.

What impressed me most was its quick, responsive and bug-free operation – undoubtedly reflecting the company’s experience in this area. Too often cheap TVs skimp on processing power or shoehorn in an OS designed for a more powerful device, resulting in a painfully slow user experience.

There’s no shortage of content either thanks to the inclusion of Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and YouTube, along with all the UK TV catch-up services. The latter benefits from Freely, which integrates seamlessly with the TiVo platform to provide access to around 40 IPTV channels and their associated on-demand services. These are integrated into the TV’s electronic programme guide, allowing you to quickly access programmes you might have missed.

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Bush UT24SB review: Image quality

The Bush UT24SB is an impressive performer in certain respects, and less so in others. First the good news: the VA LCD panel produces a decent native black level, with a contrast ratio that measures a reasonable 2,000:1. The downside is that the optimal viewing angles are very narrow.

The use of a direct LED backlight is also good news, and while there’s no form of local dimming the screen uniformity is fairly good, with no obvious patchiness, clouding or dirty screen effect. As a result, this budget TV handles darker scenes better than many, even if blacks aren’t fully black.

Where the UT24SB falls down is picture accuracy. The TV ships in the Natural mode, however based on the blue skin tones it’s anything but. Unsurprisingly there’s a shed-load of blue in the greyscale, which results in average DeltaE scores of around 10 for the greyscale and colours.

Switching to the Movie mode improves things a bit, reducing the average errors in the greyscale and colours to around six. This still isn’t great, and the greyscale now has too much red instead of blue, but at least the gamma is tracking the industry standard target of 2.4 reasonably closely.

Unfortunately, the calibration controls are limited, so even a professionally trained calibrator like myself can’t get a more accurate image. However, I can recommend changing Picture Zoom from Auto to Full to eliminate unnecessary scaling and to reduce the Contrast from 100 to 83 to avoid SDR clipping in the highlights.

At this price point, there have to be certain compromises and image processing is one of them. It’s rudimentary at best, upscaling competently but failing to deal with more challenging material. As long as you feed the TV good images you’ll be fine, but try to avoid heavily compressed content.

Motion handling is another area where the UT24SB’s budget status reveals limitations, and the included processing is best left off to avoid artefacts. Otherwise, the 60Hz LCD panel is fine, aside from some blurring on fast motion, but 24p content is displayed without introducing judder.

Bush UT24SB review: HDR performance

The Bush UT24SB is a mixed bag when it comes to HDR, and the experience will largely depend on what you’re watching. Let’s kick off with the measurements, and here the UT24SB is fairly standard for a budget TV, with a peak brightness of 336cd/m2 and only 74% coverage of DCI-P3.

This is no better than an SDR TV, so the HDR performance is going to depend on the accuracy of the image and the tone mapping. Here the UT24SB struggles with the same errors in greyscale and colours as seen with SDR, and clipping of content graded in HDR10.

Interestingly the performance is completely different with Dolby Vision, and here we see images that are accurately rendered and tone-mapped. It just goes to show how much value the format’s dynamic metadata adds when applied to this kind of budget TV with limited HDR capabilities.

Of course, even Dolby Vision can’t change those underlying capabilities: the highlights lack the brightness to really pop, the colours don’t have the richness of full DCI-P3 and the lack of any local drumming means the black levels and contrast are often found wanting. However, when watching HDR content you should definitely choose the Dolby Vision version if it’s an option.

To test the Bush UT24SB we used Portrait Displays Calman colour calibration software.

Bush UT24SB review: Gaming

The Bush UT24SB makes for a solid gaming TV thanks to a dedicated game mode that delivers an input lag of just 10ms. There’s also a Dolby Vision game mode, which is handy if your games support that format, and since this is an LCD TV you don’t have to worry about screen burn.

In terms of other useful gaming features, there’s ALLM for automatic switching to game mode when a console or PC is detected, along with VRR for refresh rates up to the panel’s native 60Hz. The result is a responsive and enjoyable gaming experience, with pleasingly smooth motion.

Bush UT24SB review: Sound quality

The Bush UT24SB sports a fairly basic sound system that uses a pair of downward-firing speakers, each of which has 10W of built-in amplification. The sound quality is adequate for a budget TV, with little in the way of bass extension, and a lightly strained sound at higher volumes.

The Bush technically supports Dolby Atmos, but let’s be honest you really can’t expect to get any sense of immersion for a pair of small built-in speakers. This is a TV that would benefit from the addition of an equally inexpensive but effective soundbar and subwoofer combination.

Bush UT24SB review: Verdict

Anyone thinking of buying the Bush UT24SB needs to understand that it’s been made to hit a price point. While it offers several really useful features like TiVo and Freely, it is also very limited when it comes to its inherent picture and sound capabilities.

It certainly offers an extensive choice of content, delivered via an intuitive and responsive user interface, and its picture quality is fairly good with SDR. However, it struggles with HDR, unless it’s being helped out by Dolby Vision’s dynamic metadata, so be aware.

Ultimately the UT24SB is a very affordable budget TV that has plenty to recommend it, but if you’re prepared to spend just a little more some great alternatives from the likes of Hisense and TCL will add more in terms of their HDR performance.