Toshiba Regza 46WL863B review

We’ve not seen many Toshiba TVs this year, especially not high-end ones, so we were interested to see what the 46WL863B could offer. With an extensive feature list and a stunning thin bezel, it certainly looks like a range-topping TV. Three different screen sizes are available – if you don’t want the 46in model reviewed here, you can choose between a 42in (42WL863B, £820) and a 55in (55WL863B, £1,300) version.

As well as an integrated Freeview HD tuner, there’s a comprehensive internet TV service that lets you watch online videos from YouTube, catch up TV from BBC iPlayer and a whole host of social networking portals. The menu system is easily one of the slickest we’ve used all year – high resolution images and text, rapid response times and a straightforward layout make it a joy to use. With an Ethernet port and integrated Wi-Fi, you have the choice of how to connect the set to your home network. Once you do, you’ll also be able to access any multimedia content stored on your PCs, laptops and other DLNA-enabled devices.

There are plenty of other ports on the back of the set – four HDMI, aerial inputs for Freeview HD and Freesat HD, component, VGA, composite and SCART connections via included adaptors and a Common Interface slot should be enough for almost every setup. Finally, two USB ports are on hand for either local multimedia playback or recording TV programmes.

The 46WL863B handled our test video files exceptionally well, including videos encoded with DivX or XviD. It even displays a video preview before playing each file, loading exceptionally quickly. It works well as a rudimentary PVR when you plug in a flash drive – with only one tuner you can record one program at a time and can’t record one while watching another, but we had no problem with timer recording and pausing live TV. This function won’t replace a dedicated PVR, but if you don’t have one you’ll appreciate the extra feature.

Once we’d finished playing with the 46WL863B’s gadgets and started looking closely at picture quality, it was quickly obvious that high definition footage is where it excels. Standard definition playback was reasonable, but there were still noticeable noise artefacts and a lack of detail on the lower-bandwidth channels. However, Freeview HD looked great and Blu-ray movies were incredibly crisp – the LED backlight created a satisfyingly even picture, with no sign of light bleed.

We thought colours looked fairly accurate using the Hollywood image pre-set, but there’s a huge scope for picture calibration using the settings menu. If you aren’t confident about perfecting the picture yourself, Toshiba will soon sell an automatic calibration tool that can handle the process for you – the TPA-1, will be around £200. Toshiba sent us a unit which we used to adjust both colour and gamma, which did a great job of improving our test footage.

These adjustments carry over to 3D mode too, so you get the benefit of brighter, more accurate colours even when wearing a pair of Toshiba’s FPT-AG01 active shutter glasses (one pair is supplied, additional pairs are £69 from www.rgbdirect.co.uk). We still experienced a lack of brightness and some noticeable flicker from the surrounding lighting, but depth effects were still pronounced.

Unfortunately, sound quality wasn’t quite the match for picture quality – even at high volumes, there was hardly any variance between quiet speech and explosive action. Bass was definitely lacking, even though both the high-end and mid-range were fairly clean.

For £1,300, the 46WL863B is certainly priced like a high-end TV – thankfully it has the performance and features to match its price, but it also verges perilously close to superior plasma sets. If you watch a lot of films and demand the best image quality, a plasma such as the Panasonic Viera TX-P46GT30B would be a better choice, but considering how well it coped with everything we threw at it, the Toshiba should still be on your shortlist.