Customer Reviews

Toshiba 37AV500U 37-Inch 720p LCD HDTV

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

No tv out there can match the Toshiba for the price and quality of this unit. I went around to the various stores, CC, Best Buy, Etc. and for the 720p/1080i 37 inch lcd's , this was far the best. The color ratio is outstanding with a 12,000:1. I was thinking of going with a 1080P, but for tv under 37 inches i was repeatedly told the human eye wouldnt be a able to tell much difference. You cant go wrong with this LCD!

I recently purchased this TV from Amazon. I bought it because I wanted the largest TV that would fit into the space I had (forty inch TVs were too big, 32 inch too small, but 37, just right) and the Toshiba was within my budget. I did no comparison shopping, per se, in that I did not look at any TVs in a show room, nor have I watched any other large screen HDTV for comparison purposes. However, I read a lot about various brands and talked to work colleagues--each of whom after extensive comparison shopping and armed with a larger HDTV budget than I, purchased a Sony. (Oh, I might have paid more for a Sony, but only the 37 inch Toshiba and smaller HDTVs had Amazon Prime shipping with UPS, which seems much simpler than the white glove shipping offered on the other 37 inch TVs I considered--I notice that the Toshiba now gets the white glove treatment. Ha! Ha! Lucky break for me, I say.) Since I have a 5.1 surround sound system, I don't use the TV's built-in amp and speakers. I have an Apple TV as a source and rent iTunes HD movies (which are 720p quality). With these caveats in mind, I am quite happy with the quality of the viewing experience. The auto brightness feature coupled with a non-glossy screen somehow manages to eliminate the glare from my reading lamp that is right next to my chair and only slightly off perpendicular to the TV screen. The TV's anti-glare capability continues to impress. As for actually viewing a HD movie, we have. For example, we rented August Rush from iTunes last weekend, and, with the TV's "movie" option selected, the images were bright, detailed, and smooth and the colors were lifelike and not overly vivid (if you like vivid, the "sports" option supplies it or you can fiddle with the settings). When the first HD images appeared on screen, I made an exclamation, "Oooo, I like it!" and thought, "this was worth the money!" I'm very satisfied, but perhaps my expectations were low--my only viewing comparison is against our old 26 inch standard definition Sony. Caveat emptor?

Purchased this TV after much research. I do mean much research. The picture quality is excellent. It was easy to set up and is attractive. The sound is very good also. I looked at many TV's side by side and this one had as good a picture as the higher priced ones and better than the tvs in the same price range. Don't even think of getting a 1080p. I was told by experts and I saw for myself that with this size screen you cannot see the difference, besides 1080p programs are not even broadcast yet and will be years before they are.

I am so pleased I made this purchase. There are so many to pick from but I believe I got one of the best. Another runner up was the Panasonic 37".

Some software problems:

Remote control makes mistake occasionally
Once, it turned on only the audio but the video was not running. I had to switch off/on the TV to get the video back.


Quality:
good video and audio quality. channel change over the ATSC tuner is ok. Not too fast but ok (I've seen very slow tuners).
HD is very good. To be a 720p I'm impressed.
A little bit heavy but the gloss frame is cool.

Overall, very good HD Tv for $840 bucks !!

Thanks Amazon

I actually was planning on getting a 1080 tv for our newly remodeled den. However, after spending so much on our renovation on the house, I decided to go "cheap." Trust me, the pic is amazing. I may one day get the 1080 40 inch 120hz, but I couldn't be happier with this purchase.

Oh....and in our area, the pic with an antenna is MUCH better than what we get on our cable HD channels. Go figure! (keep that in mind for football games). Regarding that, the auto channel select for Antenna works better than any tv I have ever had. Selects both the analog and digita channels.

The first 2 months with my new tv were awesome. Great picture, great sound, lots of connections. However after just under 3 months the LCD panel went out. Luckily the warranty covers this. Unfortunately however, Toshiba's customer service sucks and its been almost 1 month since i first called them and its still not even being worked on. Do no buy this tv because if it breaks, you're screwed!!!

I press the power button; the power light changes from red to green, but no audio or video.
I press the power button again; the power light turns to red.
I press the power button; this time I have audio, but no video.
I press the power button again.
I press the power button again; this time I have both audio and video.
This happens almost every day, sometimes twice a day.

I've had this TV for over a year and I'm not happy with it. Out of the box the picture and sound were both good, just what you would expect for the money. After some time however you discover a particular problem. What I've learned from tech forums since purchasing mine is that many owners of this model are experiencing the same problem. Often when you turn the TV on after it's been off for a while you will get sound but no picture. So you turn it off, count to three, then turn it on and hope you get a picture this time. I usually don't have repeat this routine more than twice. Usually, anyway. Many people on the tech forums for Toshiba reported having to do this many times. Worse yet they have gone through the whole song and dance routine with Toshiba's support and the long and short of it is this: Toshiba is aware of the problem, Toshiba doesn't have a solution for the problem, Toshiba doesn't care. It would help if this TV did what a lot of others do and made a beeping sound when turned on. It takes a few seconds for every flat screen to get the video going. For this Toshiba that would be a particularly convenient feature since you don't know once you turn it on if you are going to get a picture at all. But you at least don't want to second guess yourself as to whether or not you turned the thing on successfully while you wait. Secondly when you feed video to the TV from a PC through the PC-in connector, the upper right hand corner of the screen is frequently distorted - a problem I've since been able to attribute solely to the TV and not any PC. So now I just wonder when I'll switch this on and never get a picture again, while I wish I could go back in time and buy the Sony Bravia. You pay more for Sony but you can seldom go wrong with one.

It was a great TV until the screen failed 18 months after we bought it. Just a big black blob in the middle of the screen, with the picture brightening slightly toward the edges. Why do TVs have such short lifetimes these days?

My wife and I are extremely satisfied with out new Toshiba 37 inch HDTV. We have it placed in our bedroom and have DirecTV's DVR playing through it. We are extremely pleased with the bright, sharp and clear picture. We only wish that we had found this type of LCD TV before buying the 52 inch Mitsubishi rear projection TV that we have in our living room. It is 3 years old now and we live in dread that the $300 bulb sill burn out every time we turn it on.