Performance
Standard definition Freeview pictures looked decent to us. There was
minimal softening of the picture, but there wasn't excessive MPEG noise
either. If you're looking for a TV to serve your standard definition
viewing needs, the ZF355 won't let you down. We found that the picture
controls did need adjusting to get the best quality image, so don't be
too disappointed if the TV doesn't look immediately great out of the
box.
HD content looked superb. To test the 5:5 pulldown and smooth film motion, we dusted off a 1080/24p HD DVD player and put in our copy of Serenity. At the movie's beginning is a scene in space, with ships moving past the camera, and another on a terraformed planet, with a pan past a CGI city. On most TVs -- especially those without 100 or 120Hz panels -- this can look juddery. Most 100Hz TVs smooth the motion to some extent, but the ZF355 took it to a whole new level. In short, for movies, this TV can hold its own against some of the best TVs we've seen.
Black levels were also great, and even though there were times when we could see a hint of the backlight, the detail was still brilliant. In general, this TV manages to show a fantastically detailed picture. The opening title sequence of Casino Royale was bursting with colour, and the black and white 'two kills' pre-title sequence looked unbelievably sharp.
Sound on the Tosh is also impressive. The company's long-standing deal with Onkyo means that the sound is clear and, despite the diminutive proportions of the bezel, is deep and rich too. We'd always suggest that any home theatre worth its salt has a separate surround decoder, but you probably won't want to fire it up for Eastenders, and that's where the built-in sound comes in.
We played some Blu-ray discs from a Sony BDP-S500 into the TV via HDMI. The TV, which supports HDMI CEC, picked the Blu-ray player up and told us that HDMI was now 'Regza link' enabled. Of course, CEC doesn't always add that much, but we do like the facility to shutdown HDMI connected devices when the TV is placed into standby -- it's handy.
One quick grumble: Toshiba is still shipping its TVs with the backlight set to 100 per cent. You'll need to get into the menu system and reduce this substantially before you'll get a decent-looking picture.
Conclusion
This TV offers something that's fairly rare -- at least for the moment.
It has a compact case, which enables it to fit into a more compact
gap. Its thin bezel also make it jaw-droppingly pretty and it's sure to
impress everyone who sees it.
In terms of the competition, we'd say that the picture quality puts this TV in the same league as some of the Panasonic plasmas, although Freeview tends to look better on the plasma screens. If you need an LCD with the same visual impact, you'll need to wait for either the ultra-thin Hitachi TV to arrive, or take a look at the JVC LT-42DS9, which is available now.
Edited by Shannon Doubleday
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AsciiSmoke 22 October 2008
Good: Great contrast, Sharper than sharp HD picture
Bad: Poor out-of-the-box settings, some colour issues, settings aren't per-input
Comment: Long story, short - great tv with shockingly bad out-of-the-box settings. Be prepared to spend a couple of hours setting this one up. But it will be worth it, I promise.
Oh yeah, and that long story was...
I've had the svelt and pretty Toshiba 40ZF355DB sat in my living room for around 10 days now and an interesting 10 days it's been.
I ordered from Dixons.co.uk to take advantage of a really quite special price of £860 plus the convenient option of having my old tube carted off and disposed of 'responsibly'.
The smaller than expected cardboard box of wonder arrived a couple of Sunday's ago and the anticipation was electric. The delivery guy hefted it out of the box and on to the floor for me then buggered off leaving me and the wife to lift the considerably proportioned box onto it's stand and in place on the corner unit. After a quick rest and a box of ibuprofen for a worn out back I got to switching the beast on.
Bathed in a cool blue glow my grin spread at the shear size of this thing up close. My old 28" Panasonic already a distant memory. Performing acrobatics worthy of the Moscow state circus I got the thing hooked up and eagerly switched to 'HDMI 1'.
What a crash. Here I was expecting a picture to blind me with punch and clarity and all I got was a blurry faded mulch. Ouch, suddenly the cries of abuse could be heard emmenating from the wallet hanging in my coat in the hall.
Ok, so not a good start. But hey, I'm a techy, I can fix this surely. Once I switched the Sky box to an HD channel and disposed of half an hour of my life fiddling with the brightness, contrast, etc controls I got a pretty sharp and acurate picture going on the feisty channel Rush HD. Really watching pimpled teenagers riding their BMXs has never been so mesmerizing.
OK, now that the swelling's gone down from the inital hurt. Time to switch back to standard-def. Sky channel 101 - BBC's flagship channel suddenly looked like one of those poor channels that fall of the end of the line-up, y'know the ones that sell plastic shoe horns, and fake watches in job lots.
So here was my first taste of the dilema I faced. I could get the HD to look good but at the cost of inacceptible SD. Well, after more than a week of fiddling, googling, fiddling some more I found it was this mysterious xvYCC setting that made the HD channels look so clean. Turn that bugger off and suddenly standard definition is bathed in a world of colour!
So, word from the experienced, if you expect to get anything out of this box you must be prepared to get friendly with the settings menu.
Next test was with the Xbox360. Following the intrepid footsteps of CNets reviewers I chucked Burnout Paradise in first. Wow! Up to now I've been playing on a cheapy 26" Philips first gen HDTV. The step up was like the difference between the 360 and the old xbox.
The 40ZF355DB was more than capable of keeping up with the breakneck speed of Burnout and every detail of a wrong move at 200mph was played out beautifully.
So, great tv, pain in the arse to configure.
The points you should know:
1) The settings aren't input specific so if you like your games with more contrast you'll have to manually change settings when you switch between tv and your console.
2) Don't use the following settings they'll only degrade the picture or slow down the 100Hz processing: xvYCC, Black Stretch, DNR (digital noise reduction)
3) The sound is really quite flat, consider factoring in the cost of an amp or you'll constantly be turning the set up to hear what people are saying then turning it back down when the action heats up.
4) Don't use Sky HDs built in resolution switcher (just use 1080i or 720p). The colours are presented differently (especially yellows), which makes it impossible to set the tv up to look good on both SD and HD.
5) Also consider getting an upscaling DVD player, I've got a really, really cheap Goodmans and the picture quality is fantastic even fro
John Roberts 12 June 2008
Good: Spectacular presence
Bad: Clunky user menus
Comment: I have not been able to find a user review of this panel so here goes my experience, I bought the Tosh zf on a gut feeling really and the way it looks, it really is a spectacular sight & you get a 40inch panel for the size of a normal 37 inch, I heard a few bad reviews about the zf's sister panel the xf {light bleed etc] I'm no expert but I can see no such problem here, I have found no dead pixels & the sound is good via ONKYO speakers though the volume is only 10 watts pc but that is more than enough for me, contrast ratio is 10000-1, I know you can get higher but it is more than adequate here, colour depth & brightness is superb, there is no smearing or jerkiness when watching action movies or sport, the zf is 1080p full hd and has all the latest features for getting the best out of high def and blue ray, reception is amazing I use a portable aerial would you believe and get all the channels perfectly.
The only cons with the zf are the somewhat clunky menus but once you get used to them it's no problem it's also a bit light on some menu features like picture in picture etc, so to sum up if you want a screen that looks astonishing has a great picture with no discernable cons, has brilliant reception, has all up to date features, has very good if not massively loud sound, and do not mind spending a little time learning the fiddly menus and don't mind the price [best price £1090 12/06/08] then this panel is for you, highly recommended.
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