Toshiba takes another crack at OLED TVs, remembers the HDR this time
Toshiba has announced its 2018 range of televisions, and there are a couple of things to be excited about in here.
First up is the fact that its X98 OLED TV (first teased at IFA 2017) will actually support HDR this time around – a really unfortunate omission last year. Impressively this HDR support descends down the entire Ultra HD range, the U78 and T68 series.
More impressive still is that this is the premium Dolby Vision flavour of HDR rather than the bog-standard HDR10.
In addition to Dolby Vision, Toshiba is also promising that ‘most’ of its UHD and Full HD lineup will also support voice control thanks to Amazon Alexa integration.
Finally, Toshiba (or rather Vestel, a licencee of the Toshiba brand) has worked with audio brand Onkyo to design the speakers of its lineup of TVs, which should hopefully offer a nice boost to sound, even if the sets are using ‘XSound’ processing rather than a more mainstream offering from DTS or Dolby.
Related: Best 4K TVs
Making good on budget promises
The big question mark at the moment surrounds the pricing of the range. Toshiba has historically been more of a budget brand than its rivals, and if it can maintain this price point while offering the more advanced features outlined above then it could be on to a winner.
Unfortunately, our experience with its 2017 models wasn’t exception. The Toshiba U67 suffered due to its lack of HDR, poor black levels, and sluggish Smart TV interface, while the step-up U77 didn’t fare much better despite the addition of support for wide colour gamuts.
The addition of HDR will go some way to solving the picture quality issues of last year’s models, but as with all HDR TVs the overall picture quality rests on how well it’s implemented. In other words, it all relies on how good Toshiba’s local dimming technology is.
We’ll update this page when we hear about prices for specific models, and of course we’ll be reviewing the TVs themselves.
How much do you look to spend on a television these days? Let us know @TrustedReviews
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
