The Toshiba 42 XV 635 D TV is a Full HD 42-inch LCD TV released in summer 2009. Now, in early 2010, this superb all-rounder is selling for as little as 600 GBP online.

Reviewed by Florian Friedrich on February 16, 2010

Low power consumption.
Decent colour-adjustment options.

Poor contrast.
Weaknesses in 24p playback.
Some tricky operation.
Derisory built-in speakers.

The good news first: In day-lit rooms, the Toshiba delivers a generally natural picture and impresses with its many picture controls. Now for the bad news: The TV’s factory colour adjustment requires significant adjustment, and the contrast is far too low. What’s more, the operation can be downright awkward at times.

Most important connections:

4x  1x  2x  1x

Multimedia

Toshiba’s 42-incher has a media player that can play back music, photos, and video files via the USB input. The SD-card reader, on the other hand, only works with photos.

Other Features

Like all other Toshiba models, the 42 XV 635 D provides a subwoofer connection with an adjustable output level.

Along with the 100-hertz motion-enhancement technology, the three-way tuner also draws some attention. This receives analogue TV, DVB-T, and DVB-C — including HDTV broadcasts. What you don’t get, on the other hand, is CI+ support. Still, the clearly laid out menu offers plenty of controls that, for example, allow you to switch off red, green, or blue separately or to tweak the non-primary colours. There’s no resolution indicator for the HDMI input.

Operation

The Toshiba’s remote control isn’t the prettiest out there, but the layout is clear.

Overall, the ease-of-use could be better. A few example grievances: When the HDMI signal is interrupted, the Toshiba automatically readjusts the format (good so far...), but it also switches to “Wide” instead of “Native” and activates the overscan — put simply, this is really annoying.

What’s more, there are virtually no sort functions for digital cable channels — and there’s no way to quickly flick through the list. There’s also no back button on the remote control. Still, channel-changing is speedy and smooth — well, that’s something at least!

Picture Quality of Standard-Definition Signals

Two modes compete for the position as the best everyday preset: “AutoView” and “Movie”. The first uses the light sensor and is therefore a strong contender: The TV knows to deliver a relatively cool, bright, and radiant picture when in a bright environment. Nevertheless, we preferred “Movie”: After a few adjustments (see “Ideal Settings” below), this mode delivered subjectively authentic colours, crisp motion, and — with digital TV signals — a detailed picture.

The analogue tuner conjures up an honest picture, but suppresses many of the finest details, as we observed when comparing the TV to our reference model, the Pioneer KRP-500. The “Movie” mode’s 230 candelas per square metre are bright enough even for daytime viewing.

The video inputs provide excellent signal processing: Both Scart and HDMI give a sharp image with accurate de-interlacing. But, still, you should ideally feed the Toshiba up-scaled HDMI signals, since this improves the fine-detail reproduction.

Picture Quality of High-Definition Signals

The Toshiba’s drifting colour temperature is particularly problematic in black-and-white films.

The Toshiba impresses with its high level of detail from signals in all HD resolutions. But there’s one problem: 24p signals suffer from an irregular judder. It’s possible to bypass this problem, however, by inputting the signal at 60 hertz instead. The TV then converts it into authentic, error-free 24p video. In order for this to work, you have to leave the “Film Stabilization” setting on “Standard” in order to activate the so-called inverse telecine conversion.

In the James Bond adventure “Casino Royale”, bright scenes display with authentic colours. Black-and-white films such as “Casablanca”, on the other hand, suffer at the hands of the drifting colour temperature — this varies between 5,800 and 12,000 Kelvin: Dark areas of the picture look too bluish and cool; bright details look too warm and brownish. Fine-tuning the colour temperature improves this problem, but fails to eradicate it altogether. And don’t expect much depth in the Toshiba’s pictures — the 700:1 contrast ratio is far too low.

Sound Quality

The Toshiba’s sound is typical of flat-screen TVs: Although the developers have pointed the speakers directly at the viewers, music sounds strongly discoloured and quiet dialogue sounds mumbled.

Picture Mode: Movie

Contrast: 92

Brightness: 2

Colour: -2

Tint: -3

Sharpness: 0

Colour Temperature: 3

Active Backlight Control: On

Black/White Level: 1

Static Gamma: -5

Noise Reduction: Off

Active Vision M100: Off

Film Stabilization: Off

Picture Size: Native

These settings apply to realistic playback of HDTV/Blu-ray material through the HDMI interface in a darkened environment. Manufacturing and HDMI playback device deviations might necessitate slight adjustment.