Toshiba Regza 37X3030D review

Toshiba plays the ace card with its Regza 37X3030D: it features support for a 1080p picture at a reasonable price.

The X series sits between the lower-end C series and the top end Z series. It will appeal to people who are keen to get the best quality from their AV systems, but don't need the extra features offered by the Z series, such as an extra HDMI socket, HDMI 1.3 support and M100 picture processing.

Design
The styling of the 37X3030D isn't radically different from the other Toshiba screens that have been available in the past couple of years. The claw stand design reminds us of the WLT68 range. When you get it out of the box, you'll have to attach the stand using four screws. Once fitted the whole thing feels pretty stable.

The screen is surrounded by a gloss-black frame, which is all the rage, but the reflectiveness can be slightly distracting when you're watching TV. The front of the set is fairly minimalist -- there are only two LEDs to indicate the status of the set. Controls are located to the right-hand side, along with the secondary composite and S-Video inputs.

The main inputs for the set can be found at the rear. There are two HDMI inputs, component, composite and two Scart inputs -- one of which is RGB enabled to get the best picture quality out of Sky and Freeview receivers. There is also a VGA PC input, which can accept WXGA signals.

Features
The 37X3030D has built-in Freeview and analogue receivers. Setting it up is straightforward, although if you lose the remote it's impossible to tune in Freeview channels using the buttons on the telly. This is annoying -- you can control most other things without the remote.

All Toshiba's new televisions, including this model, support material that uses the 24p standard, which means you can watch movies from Blu-ray or HD DVD at the rate they were intended. While this isn't the sort of feature many people will have missed in the past, it is good to have. The addition of this mode means films played on one of the high-definition players will look more cinematic and won't be speeded up by 4 per cent, so the audio won't be distorted.

The digital audio out on the television is useful if you want to feed a high-quality audio signal to a home cinema amplifier. The audio from Freeview isn't Dolby Digital encoded, but you might just find some pro-logic material if you're lucky. Even without surround sound, you'll have much more control over the audio if you connect the TV to an external amp.