Customer Reviews

Toshiba REGZA 40RF350U Super Narrow 40-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

This TV is absolutely gorgeous. For HD inputs, I'm using an Toshiba HD-A35 1080p HD DVD Player, a Panasonic HDC-SD5 Hi-Definition Palmcorder Camcorder BUNDLE, as well as an HTPC driving the TV at full resolution 1920x1080x60. Videos, HD DVD's, normal DVD's, PC games, web browsing, digital photo slideshows: all look completely stunning.

In addition to showing beautiful video, the physical design of the display is also excellent. The matte screen surface does not cause distracting reflections from lights in the room, and the very thin bezel makes for a very tasteful frame and allows the TV to fit in the middle of a wall where any other 40" display would be too big. One thing that really bothers me about other HDTV's is how much space is made for built-in speakers. This is part of a home theater, and I've got a 7.1 speaker system. I don't need cheap speakers on the TV and I definitely don't want to be reminded of them every time I look at the TV. This display does have some speakers, and they sound okay (as good as two closely spaced 10W speakers can sound, I suppose). As you can see from the images, the speakers are out of sight. Perfect for my needs, they're behind the screen on the bottom left and right, so they don't mess up the look of the unit. Overall, very appealing.

I expected that since the display is optimized as a TV, it wouldn't be that great as a computer display (computer LCD's normally have more of a screen door effect than LCD TV's so that the pixel boundaries are more square and precise when displaying text and other fine pitch imagery). I was wrong. It makes for a fantastic computer monitor that I can comfortably use for web browsing or gaming from about 6-8 feet. Games look wonderful, Netflix media player looks beautiful, it's all good.

Because I'm also using a Toshiba HD DVD player, they can talk to each other over HDMI (Toshiba calls it CE-Link). While this seems like a good idea, in reality, it's utterly and completely useless and is more of an annoyance than anything else. The only thing that seems to work about it is that if I turn the TV off, the next device in the HDMI network will shut off too. Absolutely nothing else happens. As a result, I've disabled it. I advise you to get a universal remote and program a few macros so that things turn on and off together.

I've mounted the TV on a Sanus VMAA18 Articulating Mount for 30"-50" Flat Panel TVs - Black which is a little overbuilt for this TV, but I wanted it to be *really* secure. Cable routing is also a little difficult since the mount structure interferes with easy access to most of the input ports. You can still get to the inputs, but small hands help quite a bit. Not a deal-breaker, and certainly not the fault of the TV, just an annoyance to be aware of.

When I entered the market, I throughly researched the LCD options in a 40 inch model. I became sold on the latest Samsung until i measured the actual width of the unit on the shelf of my cabinets. it would have stuck out over the end making it unappealing from a decor sense. In further researching my options, I learned of the thin bezel feature of the Toshiba. My measurements showed that it would fit perfectly on my shelf.

Please understand that I am no technophile, but I do appreciate good visuals and sound. While I don't know if the Toshiba is as good as the Samsung, I do know that I am completely satisfied with my purchase. The picture is great, especially in HD although I have no complaints about non HD sources. We regularly watch old Andy Griffiths' and Bonanzas' and they look really good as well. The highest praise that I can give is that viewing all programming from nature, to football, to Andy Griffith is more involving, thus more enjoyable than ever before.

One last consideration, I initially bought the unit from Amazon for about $400 less than it was priced at Circuit City. I carefully monitored the Amazon price during the 30 day price guarantee and saved another $106 on three separate price drops with no problems obtaining them. Don't ignore this price saving feature from Amazon.

Picture is outstanding in both HDTV 1080I and Digital 420P.Great looks and super thin.The 1080P on XBOX 360 and HD DVD was amazing.It's the perfect size,Not to big and not to small.Onscreen menu was very easy to use and it came with a quality remote.

crutchfield sent my new 40" Regza TV, which amazingly fit into my entertainment system with an inch to spare; price, shipping,packaging, and the picture quality (1080p) were terrific...even had a device to sense if the container had been dropped! Completely satisfied!

We purchased the 40 inch Toshiba Regza through Beach Camera. Because our new entertainment center only had a limited amount of space for a new t.v., we were disappointed to think we would have to settle for a 37 inch t.v. What a wonderful surprise to learn that the Toshiba 40inch t.v. fit right in perfectly. The picture quality is outstanding in 480p and 1080p. We also purchased a Pioneer DV-400V-K player to team with the television and we couldn't be happier with the performance on both items. The remote control and the menus given are extremely easy to use. The 3 HDMI inputs have proven to be extremely handy.
Beach Camera did a great job of safely packaging and shipping the set to us less than a week's time.

I purchased the Toshiba REGZA 40RF350U Super Narrow 40" LCD HDTV because it was the largest 1080p flat panel that would fit in our entertainment center. I have purchased several Toshiba black stripe sets in the past and have always been happy with Toshiba so I had no fear that this purchase would also meet my expectations. The REGZA was very easy to set-up and the remote control is simple and works with all of my components. The picture quality is fantastic - likely as good as all the major competitors. For me, with limited space, this was the perfect choice. And the panel looks great! My only problem, the buttons on the TV are situated on the right side of the panel. Since it just fits I can't get to them. However with the remote I doubt this will cause much of a inconvenience. Perhaps if the buttons were on the bottom .....

A great choice for overall looks, quality of picture, ease of operation, simple remote control and price.

I bought this LCD TV back in January and within 9 months I started getting a rainbow colored band of stripes on the left third of the screen which covered that portion of the program. Once the TV warmed, the full picture would sometimes return. It's now been in the shop for about 5 weeks with an "Authorized Toshiba Repair shop" What a joke -- they have no idea of how to fix it. They claim that the part they need is in back order with no estimate of when the part will come in. So basically I threw away $1400 on this piece of junk. My next stop is calling Toshiba directly and either demanding a full refund or a new TV. Wish me luck.

Within 17 months of purchase, my Toshiba Regza (a $1,500 television set) is unusable. About 1/3 of the screen is covered with multicolored vertical lines. The authorized repair center wants $2,000 in total to fix the TV set (it requires an $1,800 part). Toshiba customer service tells me I am out of luck because the product is out of warranty. They were not particularly nice, helpful, understanding, or at all interested in learning more about what is an obvious design defect in an allegedly high-end product. It is within Toshiba's discretion to service out of warranty products which have such profound failures within such a short period of time. I will never buy another Toshiba product and will share my negative experience with as broad an audience as is possible.

If you absolutely must have the largest screen possible (like I did) to fit inside a 37" wide cabinet space, then this is it. Otherwise you will find better black levels, light uniformity, color balance and video processing in a 40" Sony or Samsung for about the same price. It's not a bad TV and most people won't know the difference, but why not do better if the width doesn't matter?

Same issue as described by other reviews. Unit had great picture but after 24 months rainbow of colors covered left half of screen, rendering it useless. Have had decent success w/ Toshiba in past but this is last Toshiba purchase for us.