Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
While we did eventually learn to ignore it, the light is bright and more eye-catching than we would like during use, especially if you like to turn down other lights in the room to enhance the impact of your TV screen. The user interface is occasionally a little slow to load, particularly when using the EPG, and stutters a fair bit when browsing the menus. Previously there was no difference when the game mode was switched on, but the UK31 offers a swift 10. That’s further affected by the UK31’s lack of luminance – 343 nits is the most it can muster in its Natural picture mode. The micro-dimming tech is also curiously applied, with Medium the best choice; nudging it up to High makes it look a tad worse.
During the stand-off inside Maria Rambeau’s low lit Louisiana home, there's little to no detail to Talos’s purple jacket. The really startling thing about the 50UK3163DB’s HDR performance is that as well as delivering bright HDR shots with an impressively high level of baseline brightness, it still has enough brightness headroom to shift up another gear for the sort of ultra-intense highlights that really make HDR shine. The main gripe we have with the TV's design, though, is the green power light at the base of the screen. Mercifully, the sound quality and its ability with lower res content lift this set into the realms of just about acceptable. Toshiba has pinpointed its picture performance as an area of growth, developing the TRU Picture Engine.
However, that highlights the feeling the UK31 isn’t a notable step forward in the picture department. Asking Alexa to change the channel created an awkward period of silence, and trying to open Netflix led to her to telling me facts about Netflix. If wall-mounting is not a consideration (or feasible) there’s the stand to deal, which while easy to screw in, is surprisingly heavy and brings the TV’s profile down low. So, for instance, you become impressively aware of the light gleaming off individual drops of rain during HDR footage of torrential rainfall, or of sunlight catching the corners and curves of car bodywork. Or that you’ll be able to enjoy variable refresh rate gaming, or the eARC HDMI loopthrough system that might have let you pass Dolby Atmos soundtracks losslessly through to a compatible soundbar or AV receiver.
These rather attractive, premium design features are undermined, though, by a pretty plasticky glossy black finish to the main screen frame. It won’t make you duck down in your seat and you’ll never feel a rumble with the on-screen explosions, but we’re pleased with what Toshiba and Onkyo have done here. Alexa is built-in – although annoyingly, a notification pops up asking if you want to activate it every time the TV is powered on and can’t be turned off unless you log in to Alexa. It’s more expensive and picks HDR10+ over Dolby Vision, but the picture quality is more composed and the upscaling is better – as is the audio.It’s fairly substantial round the back too - though since this is likely associated with its need to accommodate both a direct (rather than edge-based) LED lighting system and a Dolby Atmos-capable sound system, we’re not going to complain about it. With a Blu-ray of The Matrix playing, motion is better resolved suggesting the Toshiba’s motion isn’t as slick with streaming. The UL5A63DB doesn’t look any different from the 55U7763DB tested by Trusted Reviews a few years back.
Great Deal 
New Comment