Toshiba REGZA 46RF350U Super Narrow 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV Reviews

Review by Network Engineer for Toshiba REGZA 46RF350U Super Narrow 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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I’ve watched this Toshiba thin bezel for over a month now and can now feel qualified to post this review. I orginally had my eye on a SONY KDL-46XBR4 with it’s attractive glass bezel, but the price stopped me. The better idea was to have no bezel and all picture. I compared this picture with the Sony, as well as, my last year’s model Toshiba 42″ plasma and this 46″ LCD is great.

The picture is so sharp that individual hairs on the Celtic Women DVD through my OPPO’s 1080p playback are easily recognizable. The hues shadow casted by blue backlighting from the Shane Castle walls is finally significantly noticable. Lisa’s very very light blue top on her gown is clearly identifiable from her pure white lower half of her dress. This was never very distiguishable on any other television before. Plaid lines on coats with the tightest weaves can be seen on Lester Holt’s NBC Today Show wardrobe. You can even attribute the out of focus side images on the screen to the actual focal length limitation of the studio cameras instead of your TV’s reproductions when they do tight-ins with food on embroidered tablecloths. Now, even Jay Leno’s makeup can’t hide all his blemishes and you can even identify all the birthmarks on his guests during their close-ups on their interviews. You start to really notice these things when you get a great HDTV and don’t get distracted by the picture frame bezel and screen reflections. Lastly, the sports coverage in HD is so clear, it’s like looking through a pair binoculars from my season ticket holder’s lower level seats at FedEx Field, without the noisy and obnoxious fans in the front seats standing up in front of me at the wrong times.

See the Toshiba Regza website to understand how they treat their picture to get such realism. At the latest commodity prices, you shouldn’t be without this model of HDTV. It’s much lighter than a plasma and was easy to wall mount, too.

Review by printer123 for Toshiba REGZA 46RF350U Super Narrow 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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The main strength of this TV is the thin-bezel design. This makes the TV’s overall width a few inches less than most 46″ LCD televisions, allowing you to get a 46″ TV into a space where you might otherwise only be able to fit a 42″ or smaller. The picture quality and sound are excellent as well. Unfortunately Toshiba does not publish the contrast ratio for this TV so I could not compare it to other models. The TV does produce excellent blacks and seems to have very good contrast so it is not a day-to-day issue with owning this TV.

Review by Will Banister for Toshiba REGZA 46RF350U Super Narrow 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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I must admit up front that I have a special affinity for Toshiba. My first stereo/cd component system, widescreen TV and personal laptop, all were from Toshiba.

With that in mind I still looked at multiple sets from Sony Bravia XBR KDL-46XBR4 46″ 1080p LCD HDTV, Samsung LNT4671F 46″ 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV and the HP SL4778N 47″ 1080p MediaSmart LCD HDTV. Putting cost aside for now, according to numerous forums all the sets have their pluses and minuses. The Sony produces a great picture and I love their remotes and the Samsung’s look incredible as well. I never got an in-person look at the HP’s, but I really like the Internet and multimedia features, however I can get most of these from my XBox and PS3. The 2 things that really solidified my decision to go with the Toshiba was the aesthetics, the thin bezel really looks like the picture is just hovering in mid-air. Also, my previous experience with other Toshiba electronics.

I’ve had the TV for over two weeks now and continue to play with all the settings. It has ample inputs, 3 HDMI, 2 components and the PC input(DB15), plus 2 or three composite and s-video connections. There is also the optical audio out to connect to your receiver. The one input missing that I would have liked and is on my 51HX93 is a 2nd coaxial input for connecting an antenna for over-the-air HD. You can connect an antenna or cable to the existing coaxial input but it is nice having a separate one just for the antenna. Also, there is no POP (a version of PIP) that is on my 51HX93 – they never claimed the set had it, I just hoped it was an undocumented feature. Granted I don’t use the POP a great deal, but it is also nice to have and is the only down side I have found so far with the set. You need to step up to the LX series to get the POP. As far as the HDMI inputs, I also bought the Onkyo TX-SR705 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black) the same day. The CEC link that HDMI allows works great between the Toshiba TV and the Onkyo. I can control my input selection from my TV for everything connected to the Onkyo. It shows up in a side or sub list of the HDMI port that the Onkyo is connected to.

I was surprised how great the picture looks straight out of the box. I just lowered the contrast and DynaLight some (get it out of torch mode) and didn’t really need to adjust anything else for the picture to be enjoyable. There are however an abundance of settings and color controls you can make to get the picture just the way you prefer. Each input will retain different settings so you don’t have to keep making adjustments every time you switch inputs. For some though the amount of adjustments and settings you can make may be overwhelming, but you don’t have to use most of them in order to get a great picture. But play around with them enough and you should be able to get a perfect picture or pretty close.

I did consider waiting for this years (2008) new line-up of sets to come out instead of getting a 2007 model, but I am glad I didn’t wait. The biggest concern or issue I was worried about was the 120hz functionality that is becoming standard in new LCD sets. However, I have not noticed any issues, no blurring or anything that the 120hz would help. I know there are mathematical reasons that the different frame rates effect the picture, but so far in real world use, I don’t miss it. Hopefully I won’t change my mind once NASCAR, MLB and college football get going again. So far watching the Australian Open and several fast paced action movies (on both a Toshiba HD-A35 1080p HD DVD Player and a Sony BDP-S300 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player), the set has performed beautifully.

I plan on buying the Toshiba REGZA 40RF350U Super Narrow 40″ 1080p LCD HDTV model for my Mom’s birthday to bring her into the digital and HD age and that’s the best compliment I can think to give this TV. I have no regrets with this purchase and what’s more adding the Onkyo either the TX-SR705 or the TX-SR605 or higher is a near perfect marriage of components. The CEC functionality is great – of course this may be the same for all HDMI CEC components, but the Onkyo manual mentions Toshiba and Panasonic TV’s specifically.

The 46″ comes with the stand attached and I set it up that way and don’t plan on wall-mounting it so I can’t speak to that, but the set is a bit thicker than others the same size, but that has no effect on me. The view from the front is what matters to me and the 46″ screen and thin bezel make the perfect picture. Just for reference I have connected via HDMI a Xbox 360 Elite, PlayStation 3 and a DVD recorder, all to the Onkyo and then the Onkyo to the TV. My HD cable DVR is connected via component to the Onkyo which sends all video over the HDMI to the TV. All the images look great and I have also tried connecting them directly to the TV’s HDMI but they looked just as good through the Onkyo.

Update: I’ve added/swapped an old cable box for a new one from Charter that has HDMI out. Of course the cable is not 1080p, but having one cable instead of several to get the video and audio is nice. Anyway the picture continues to look great. I still have no regrets or 2nd thoughts about this TV and plan on buying the 40″ version this next week as a gift.

Review by levrage for Toshiba REGZA 46RF350U Super Narrow 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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I am extremely pleased with this set. I just received it today and I can really tell the difference from my last LCD TV (which was 1080i). Currently, I have it setup with an HD DVR from Comcast through HDMI and looks great. I also have a Wii connected via component. I am looking forward to either investing in a PS3 or XBOX 360 + HD-DVD player to enjoy the true 1080p. I researched this set since shortly after it was released and the super thin bezel is definately an eye catcher. I would give this 3 thumbs up.

Review by kam57 for Toshiba REGZA 46RF350U Super Narrow 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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I purchased this TV in Nov’07. By April ’08 some of the ‘pixels’ were all one color. An approved shop came, couldn’t fix it at my house, and took it in to their shop.

Its been 17 days and I’m waiting on Toshiba to “approve” a new screen. After they approve it, it will take 7 to 10 days to ship it then another 2 or 3 days to install it and it has to ‘run’ for 3 days before it can be returned.

I’ve asked when a decision will be made by Toshiba regarding shipping the needed part – I cannot talk directly to the people who know that information. The guys on the phone are nice enough, but unwilling or unable to answer the question of when the techs will make a decision regarding how to proceed without an intermediary and a 2 or 3 day delay.

If they ship the part tomorrow (and I’m doubtful that’s going to happen), To get warranty repair I will have been without my TV for (currently estimated 30 days.)ON EDIT: It’s now been 30 days with the TV in the shop. The part needed has been approved but is apparently on back order and will be at least 30-45 more days before it’s available to ship. The best case scenario for a warranty repair is … TV out of my house for 2.5 MONTHS.

0N FURTHER EDIT: The end of the story. Toshiba agreed that the lag was too long to wait for replacement part so they decided to replace the TV I purchased with a newer model. It was shipped to my house. Unfortunately, the new TV straight out of the box would not power up. I refused delivery and Toshiba shipped out another replacement TV. This one is working. Total time to get warranty issue resolved – two months. May 17th to July 16th.

Buyer beware. My experience with reliability and customer service has not been good. I will not buy Toshiba again.