Toshiba Regza 46SV675

At last it's time for us to test a Toshiba TV--and not just any Toshiba TV, because today we're looking at the SV675D with LED backlighting.

Build Quality and Design: Local-dimming LEDs

More accurately, the backlighting system in question uses local-dimming LEDs, a network of LEDs behind the display that should produce a more even light and more accurate dynamic backlighting.  The downside of this system is that the television itself has to be a lot thicker, with the frame measuring 9.4 cm from front to back on the 46'' version.  The last thing to note about the 1080p Full HD display is that it sits underneath a glossy layer that suffers from reflections.

The connectivity options around the edges and at the back are very diverse and should cover most situations; a USB port and SD Card reader are included, whereas most TVs choose one or the other.  However, the SD Card reader can only access JPEG photos.

Thanks to the Ethernet port, you can access content stored on a DLNA compatible server, but the only video format that's supported is DivX; all of other test files wouldn't play at all, which doesn't make for a very rounded multimedia player.

The remote is decent and well-organised, but it's a shame that it's not backlit, especially given that it comes with a TV close to the top of Toshiba's range.

Image Quality: Factory Settings: Room for improvement
This section does not count towares the final score

With the default settings, the contrast is very good thanks to the dynamic backlighting produced by the local-dimming LEDs.  On the other hand, the gamma curve, which describes how evenly different shades of different brightness are displayed, is awful: lighter shades all look white and darker shades black.  In general, the colours are all too cool.  It's a rather disappointing result, but matches what we find on the vast majority of TVs.

Image Quality: Cinema Mode: Narrow viewing angles and problematic colours

Switching to Cinema mode improves the problematic curve, producing a much more natural image.  The blacks are however a little too light at 0.12 cd/m², compared to some of Toshiba's competitors which are below 0.05 cd/m².  The colours are also more accurate, but still far from perfect: the deltaE 94 hangs at 5.1 when it should really be under 3.0.  When we took the same measurements at a 45° angle from the centre line in every direction the results were pretty bad: deltaE shot up to between 8 and 10 and whites became far too bright.  Wide viewing angles are certainly not a boast the SV675 can make!  HD content still looks good if you're looking straight at the screen, and SD content benefits from decent upscaling, even if dedicated players do it better.


The Active Vision M200HD filter does a good job of improving the fluidity of movements, but the price you pay is a reduced quality image overall with too much ghosting. 

Overall, the picture might seem gloomy, but don't forget that the Regza 46SV675 is one of the first televisions to undergo our updated 2010 test procedure, which is more demanding in several areas, including viewing angles.  The image quality it provides is perfectly decent, and the majority of viewers will be happy, but if you need particularly wide viewing angles, you should avoid it at all costs.

Sound Quality: A rare success story

We've often noticed that larger TVs often offer the best quality sound, partly because of the extra room that's available for the speakers. The SV675 confirms this trend, with very decent audio, compared to the majority of its competitors at least.  It's still a long way from being able to rival decent dedicated Home Cinema sound system.

Energy Consumption: Greedy!

The SV675 had a nasty surprise in store for us at the end of the test: when it's switched on, it uses around 216 W, not much less than a comparable plasma.  Or, to put it another way, that's one of the worse results we've seen on an LCD TV for a long time.  If you use the default settings, you can get that down to 143 W by turning off the LEDs in the darkest areas, but that has a negative impact on the display quality.

Fortunately things on standby are better, with a consumption of around 0.15 W.