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The UL5A sports a surprising number of HDMI inputs (four). Other connections include an optical out, LAN, satellite and aerial antenna, two USBs and, interestingly, VGA and component connections. While it makes sense to include the latter for those who wish to connect a PC or other legacy equipment, it does feel antiquated.
While you won’t be blown away by the audio that the UK31 can produce, the sound quality of its 20W speaker system is more than enough to get the job done for those on a tight budget. The Toshiba WK3C isn’t the most eye-catching TV, but it isn’t designed to be that. It is a simple and clean-looking display that would look great in spaces like bedrooms or smaller apartments. A watch of His Dark Materials on iPlayer in the Smart mode showed that, while the audio will do a job for casual TV watchers, it could be improved upon. There’s little weight to speak of and no real dynamism either, no matter what audio preferences you use, but that’s difficult to find in a budget TV. For that, we’d usually recommend a soundbar.The 50UK3163DB’s HDR efforts aren’t the only way it makes an unexpected mark on the affordable TV world, either. Its native 4K pictures also look remarkably sharp and detailed. So much so, in fact, that they make the efforts of even some recent LCD TVs we’ve seen from the usually dependable Samsung look soft and undefined by comparison. (Though its upscaled HD pictures, by comparison, look a little soft and noisy.) This is a cheap 4K TV, but one that does manage to upscale lower-res content admirably, while Toshiba's TRU Flow technology ensures smooth, judder-free images for fast-paced sports matches and the like. The Home tab contains the apps and the app store, as well as Alexa, which is built in. Search lets you find specific content from Freeview and YouTube, as well as other apps and settings. The only problems with the smart system, really, are that it can be a bit sluggish to load when you hit the Home button, and that it doesn’t currently carry either the Disney+ or Apple TV apps. We drop down further to some standard-def daytime TV with Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators. The blurring is still present and the detail is understandably wanting, but that’s what we’d expect at this price.
Hold down the manual button on the unit for 30 seconds (if unsure of location please refer to the user manual). Additionally, the base isn't particularly tall. Generally, this won't be an issue but if you plan to use a soundbar you might find it will get in the way of the screen unless you can elevate your TV a little more – or simply wall-mount it.
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But we do have some issues with noise in the picture. This is not an easy film to upscale. It has a purposefully grainy look to evoke a 1960s aesthetic and it takes a fair amount of work to stop that grain from dancing about. With out-of-the-box settings, the effect is quite unbearable. The noise filters do a reasonable job of smoothing it out, but the trade-off is that they make the smudging effect worse. For one, it supports Dolby Vision HDR, to compensate for the miserly HDR10 performance of sets at this price. There’s broadcast HLG, which will aid HDR performance in the BBC iPlayer app, but there’s no Wide Colour Gamut (WCG), which is a shame.
Toshiba has pinpointed its picture performance as an area of growth, developing the TRU Picture Engine. It breaks down the TV’s picture performance into three parts: micro dimming, motion control and upscaling. Finally in the negative column, motion handling is only solid rather than great, even with the Tru Motion feature active.
Toshiba hasn’t gone for the full HDR sweep by also including support for the HDR10+ system that Samsung TVs favour over Dolby Vision. Providing Dolby Vision on top of the more routine HDR10 and HLG HDR formats is still a compelling proposition, though. The best soundbars for small TVs can bring you big sound from a compact unit and make speech clearer It’s the upscaling that poses a few issues. The colour performance in SDR (standard definition range) displays natural colours, consistent with other Toshiba TVs I’ve tested, with a nice punch to colours in Pacific Rim on Blu-ray. However, edges are softly described, and every now and then there appears to be what looks like noise visible in the characters’ faces. Turning Noise Reduction on didn’t rectify this. While Toshiba has spent money on this TV’s features, it feels like the core investments have gone missing. We’d guess that this is a cheap panel with a cheap processor and the result is a picture that struggles to keep up with the source material at full resolution.
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