Customer Reviews

Toshiba 26HF84A 26" Widescreen HD-Ready TV with FST Pure Flat Screen

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This TV is an incremental upgrade to the 26HF84 and the main improvements are that it has more video inputs, "3:2 pulldown", and "black-level expansion." If it had been up to me I'd have improved the remote, either by making it programmable or by adding support for more non-Toshiba devices, in particular the HDTV receiver that Comcast supplies. Without this ability I end up juggling remotes: one for changing channels and another for changing video inputs between TV, DVD, and video camera.

A couple of other things to note about this TV:

First, it uses a picture tube rather than an LCD or plasma display. So while the screen is flat, it's not thin. You can't tell by looking at the pictures, but this TV is 19" thick.

Second, although it's pretty thick, at 27.5" wide it's unusually narrow for a 26" HDTV. The narrowness comes from having the speakers below the picture, rather than on each side. This is very handy if you want to put the TV in a cabinet that's short on width. The Syntax Olevia TVs are handy this way as well because the side speakers are removeable.

The bottom line in terms of picture quality is that the picture is gorgeous. When displaying HDTV programs the quality is everthing you could hope for.

Before you get too excited though you should check with your local cable company, or your satellite provider, to see how many programs are actually available in HD format. This has nothing to do with the TV itself, but I've found that less than 5% of the programs I actually want to watch are available in HD. When the TV reverts to displaying standard TV broadcasts it's no longer stunning and becomes just a nice TV. HD availability will undoubtedly improve over time but you might want to check what's available to you right now.

I looked hard and long for a HD(ready)TV with widescreen specs at around the 26" mark. This is the ONE. I have it connected to a PC with an ATI Radeon 7000 DVI digital output as the source driving it. (I bought a cheap DVI to HDMI cable for ~$10 on eBay. BestBuy has cables for going over ~$100) By having a chunky PC as the video source (whether it be for DVD or DivX/Xvid), one can do a lot of postprocessing to clean up the video as well get progressive scanning. Love it.

I had my TV fail just under a year after I bought it (luckily I think I'm under warranty). Went to turn it on and snap, crackle pop it's not working at all except for a high pitched buzzing sound. Beware.

I purchased a Toshiba HDTV and had it fail just after the 2 year warranty expired. Toshiba explained there was nothing they would do back up their product. No TV should fail after 2 years. I recommend selecting another brand, you can get the same performance and price, and end up with a more reliable product.