Toshiba Regza 37XV505D review

Performance
Freeview is often the weakest link in the performance chain. Here, the Toshiba does a brilliant job, clearing up some of the horrible picture problems you so often see on large screen TVs. We watched some of the usual daytime nonsense and despite the abhorrent content, the picture actually looked pretty good. We did have to muck about with the picture settings for some time to get the best out of the TV, however. Once we'd done that, we were really happy with the picture.

This is, as you would expect, carried over into the HD viewing experience. We found the picture here to be incredibly sharp, detailed and colourful. Inserting Resident Evil: Apocalypse into our Sony Blu-ray player (sorry, Toshiba) told us two things. First, Resident Evil: Apocalypse is like the encyclopaedia of rubbish film making, abysmal writing and horrible acting; second -- and perhaps more importantly -- the Toshiba can do a grand job with 1080p/24 material. Colours were rich but not overdone and film grain was successfully reduced by the Toshiba's built-in picture processing.

Setting the TV up was dead simple, too. On the initial power-up, the TV sniffs the airwaves for digital and analogue channels, and stores them quickly and without significant fuss. Once that's done, the EPG is simple to use and will guide you though the next eight days of TV. The TV will even tell you what programmes are just starting on Freeview channels -- a nice little feature.

The only real disappointment was the sound. We spent time tweaking and trying to get it sounding rich and natural, but we never quite got the sound to be perfect. One of the problems is the lack of bass. The slim case on this TV doesn't really allow for great low frequency speakers, so everything is on the weak side. The good news is you can plug in a subwoofer; this is quite possibly worth doing so the TV can concentrate on dialogue and effects -- the two things it did do well.

Conclusion
The 37XV505 does a great job of pretty much everything. The weakest area is sound, which is thin. This is fine for most types of viewing, but adding an external speaker system would really make all the difference.

In terms of competitors, we'd pit against the incredible Panasonic Viera TH-37PX80B 37-inch plasma. Still, the Tosh holds its own, and is 1080p, which it can hold over the Panasonic.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday