Toshiba 55WX800To start, we have a panasonic 58 inch plasma (S2 series) in the house, this is the standard we are measuring against.
Once we unpacked the TV and installed the provided stand, we immediately noticed it was much more un-steady feeling than the panasonic, it would move/wobble when you would press the power button, (if you have a house that has much floor vibration when walking, you will notice it on the screen).
The appearance of the tv is sleek, modern and on par for meeting or beating competition.
The picture, first we must say it is highly recommended to see this tv in person, as it is a 3D tv with medium (at best) 2D picture quality (in our opinion). We viewed blue ray movies with motion/scenery etc…, played PS3 games and watched HDTV and non-HDTV channels. We have 5 in our family (3 in college plus mom and dad), it was a 100% decision to return the tv.
There was at times some digital disruption during the playing of Iron Man II, the move in 2D but with blue ray in HD, gave a feeling of a cheap movie set, as if everything was filmed in front of a blue screen that later on was inlaid into the movie. The white backgrounds were the worse by far. The colors are bright and can be adjusted, but the 2D viewing was not over-comable by us. We worked with the settings, followed the manual and search the website for best settings to affect the issue, in the end, the quality just wasn’t in the same league as the plasma.
The menus were friendly, easy to work with. The gaming was closest to the quality of our plasma of any testing we did, there was never a lag or issue when playing games, GT 5.0 and Demon Souls on PS3.
If you are a 3D person and plan to use this heavily for 3D, then I would recommend it as a strong contender, but in our house, 3D was going to the be exception, not the rule, so the 2D quaility was super important to us.
I imagine when we do go 3D next time, it will be with a plasma. We checked LEDs in the stores and they seem to be comparable with the plasma, but in our house they were not. The plasma won in both daylight and evening watching.
The clarity of the picture on the Toshiba is very strong, but the overall feel of the motion/background interaction in 2D left much to be desired in our opinion.
I have read other reviews on Amazon for the tv, and I will not argue their experience, it seems to be a very high end tv, but to us the 2D was the decision maker.
Rewviewed by : BigOnAmazon, Dec 16, 2010
TCL L40FHDF11TA