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Review: Toshiba 37RL853B

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The Toshiba 37RL853B offers a little bit of everything - it's a contemporary looking LCD TV with an LED edge-lit Full HD panel, decent connectivity, Freeview HD, plenty of user-adjustable tweaks and smattering of multi-media features including access to iPlayer and YouTube. Not bad really for what is after all, a budget TV.</div>
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The 37RL853 sits slap bang in the middle of Toshiba's RL series, with the 32-inch 32RL853 and 42-inch 42RL853 offering the same specification for around £50 less and £100 more respectively.</div>
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The RL series itself is more or less in the middle of Toshiba's 2011 range of flatscreens, adding a terrestrial HD tuner to the basic standard definition Freeview tuner found on the HL series (which only comes in 32-inch and 42-inch sizes).</div>
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Above the RL series is the step-up SL series, comprising the 32SL853, 37SL853 and 42SL853. These add Toshiba's ActiveVision image processing engine and an eco-friendly panel to the mix, plus Toshiba Places, which is a platform designed for people who like to conduct social relationships through online means.</div>
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Want more? Looking for USB recording? Head for the UL series. 3D you say? That will be the VL and WL designer models (but neither of the latter two come in 37-inch size. At this end of the scale were talking big bucks of course.</div>
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As for rivals, consider Panasonic's TX-L37E30B with excellent networking or the Samsung UE37D5000, which lacks a Freeview HD tuner but if you're a Sky HD or Virgin Media customer could be considered an irrelevance.</div>
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As previously mentioned the Toshiba 37RL853B has a Full HD panel with a Freeview HD tuner. It also has a generous four HDMI inputs (including one with an audio return channel), which should satisfy most users' HD habits (say for a games console, PVR and Blu-ray deck or home cinema system) and Resolution+, which upscales standard definition sources to 1920 x 1080 resolution.</div>
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There are also a broad set of tools that give you every chance possible of optimising the picture. You get the regular picture modes – Standard, Autoview, Dynamic, Game, PC and a brace of movie modes, which are called Hollywood 1 and Hollywood 2. It's quite likely that none of these will suit your tastes, even Autoview, which automatically adjusts the picture depending on ambient light conditions.</div>
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Naturally, it's a simple process to tinker with the contrast, brightness, colour, sharpness and backlight for each mode and any changes you make are saved for each mode. Further than that though is a surprisingly diverse range of adjustments.</div>
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But delving in to the Advanced Picture Settings menu to find such options as Colour Master, Base Colour, Colour Temperature, Backlight Adjustment Pro, White Balance, Black/White Level and Static Gamma, to name but seven, can all seem rather daunting.</div>
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And when you get down to the nitty gritty of tweaking the hue, saturation and brightness of red, green, blue, yellow, magenta and cyan you start to wonder if it's ever possible to find the right combination of settings that are just right for your preference. Even more so, when you consider that different sources need different settings, as do different times of day when the ambient light changes.</div>
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And just to complicate matters even further there's an 'Expert' sub-menu that has an RGB filter for adjusting each colour in isolation, plus a white balance tool and a test pattern to aid image adjustment. There's also a Control Visualisation graph which puts a brightness histogram and control curve up on screen and makes you feel as if you're wearing a white lab coat doing GCSE physics experiments.</div>
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And with no way of saving settings to different presets it makes you wonder how often any of these parameters will be used by the vast majority of owners. It's not as if Toshiba offers a cheaper model of the same size that includes a Freeview HD tuner and some multimedia capability but excludes the calibration toolset.</div>
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Talking of multimedia, Toshiba has not exactly blazed the trail when it comes to internet-based TV entertainment and the 37RL853 doesn't do a lot to change that perception. Other brands, such as Sony and Samsung, are offering a much broader selection of IPTV portals on their budget TVs than just YouTube, BBC iPlayer and Flickr, which you get here once you've hooked up to a router using Ethernet (or an optional extra wi-fi dongle). On the plus side though, at least iPlayer allows access to HD shows (and is a cinch to use).</div>
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If you're not using the USB socket for a Wi-Fi dongle you can enjoy multi-media playback from a flash drive. The ethernet socket can also be used for hooking up to a Windows 7 computer for the purposes of DLNA networking.</div>
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Other socketry includes a Scart, component video and composite video for any legacy analogue kit, plus a 15-pin PC input and a digital optical audio output. Finally, a CI slot will accept a CAM module if you want access to ESPN using TopUp TV's subscription service.</div>
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The 37RL853 can also act as a giant photo frame. Choose one of your favourite snaps from a USB drive or networked computer and copy it to the TV's own flash memory. It can be displayed with or without the date and time.</div>
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Some of last year's Toshiba screens suffered badly from excessive MPEG noise but the 37RL853B is significantly better in this respect.</div>
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Hitchcock's <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">To Catch A Thief</span> stored on our Sky+ HD box in standard definition features a scene where Cary Grant chases a thief across some rooftops at night. The pitch black skies are a great test of a how solid a picture a panel can muster. The results are not perfect, as part of the picture can clearly be seen to break up, but it's not the overwhelmingly disastrous distraction we've seen before. And the same scene in HD is completely solid.</div>
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The same HD recording also shows the 37RL853's talent for serving up finely detailed static images. A shot of the watching crowd in their fancy dress features some interesting characters and you can clearly see every detail and nuance of their sun-withered faces. Their costumes also show how well the screen renders a diverse colour palette with accurate well-contained hues.</div>
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When watching a movie it pays to experiment with the various modes. In a bright room it's better to stick with the Standard mode than either of the Hollywood modes, which reduce the backlight and contrast such that the picture seems limp and dull.</div>
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The Autoview mode is worth trying but can't be relied upon, for example when watching cricket the green grass is far too bright.</div>
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Blu-rays serve to reiterate the panel's strengths and weaknesses.<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">No Country For Old Men</span> has some vast desert skies that are served up with a high level of noise and DNR seems to have little effect. There are also plenty of dark scenes that show that shadow detail is not the best but at least the detail in well-lit scenes is very good.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">Avatar</span> looks superb: the level of detail in Sully's face at the first Pandora briefing is astonishing. Overall there's very little motion judder and colours remain true.</div>
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The Freeview picture is generally very good, especially the three HD channels. The standard definition picture is about par for the course and engaging Resolution+ certainly sharpens things up. Finally, viewing angles are very good.</div>
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Don't expect to get calls from angry neighbours complaining about the sound coming from the 37RL853's speakers. They're ok for regular daytime telly but are seriously underpowered for watching more involving material such as TV dramas and movies.</div>
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The presence of Surround settings in the menu should be taken with a rock of salt; according to the manual "Stereo Extension and Voice Enhancement help to create an enhanced surround sound experience. Your TV's audio will sound fuller, richer, and wider." Voice Enhancement does give dialogue a small lift but it's bordering on egregious to claim the 37RL853 can generate a surround soundfield.</div>
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Value</h4>
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Priced at only £50 more than its 32-inch 32RL853 stablemate the 37-inch 37RL853 looks like something of a bargain.</div>
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It may lack a few niceties such as USB recording, 100Hz processing and a broader Smart TV selection but it gives other 37-inch screens a good run for their money. Samsung's UE37D5000 for example doesn't have a Freeview HD tuner.</div>
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Ease of use</h4>
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Setting up the screen is no more taxing than making tea and toast. The operating system is substance over style, the latter of which it really doesn't have a lot of. But it is easy and uncomplicated to navigate the menus and the remote control has the right number of important command buttons on it.</div>
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The Quick button is especially useful for accessing features such as Picture mode, Picture size, connected TV and channel options (adding to favourites, locking, etc). Some of the buttons on the remote are fiddly, which seems odd when there's a fair bit of unused real estate that would have allowed for a more user-friendly layout. But overall it's a decent effort.</div>
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It's annoying that the full instruction manual is only available as a PDF that you have to download, and a bit cheeky of Toshiba to shift the printing cost to its customers. And surprising as it may seem, not everyone has access to a computer.</div>
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The Freeview EPG is one of the best around in that it displays 13 channels over 2.5 or 1.25 hours and uses black text on a white background. It also has a handy genre guide and search facility but it can be slow to load sometimes.</div>
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The networking and online features are mercifully simple to set-up but the file handling is clunky and laboured. Loading photos and videos on a Toshiba netbook took ages and the folders are displayed in a boring grid structure with no visual information. Unsurprisingly, file compatibility is far from comprehensive and certainly not consistent.</div>
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The 37RL853 is a solid middle-of-the-range Freeview HD screen with few frills and not many thrills either. What it lacks in built-in picture enhancements it makes up for with a surprising degree of user adjustment features. It dabbles its toes in the Smart TV waters with a trio of online services and is prepared to have a go at home networking, albeit with mixed results.</div>
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We liked</h4>
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Greater than average panel noise can't hide the fact that the 37RL853's pictures are generally very good, especially with HD sources.</div>
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The pre-set picture modes are easily tweakable to find the optimum setting and Resolution+ is one of the finest built-in upscalers around. Access to iPlayer is certainly welcome as is the ability to show multimedia files from a flash drive or computer.</div>
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We disliked</h4>
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The 37RL853's sound is just about acceptable for daytime TV watching but is seriously underpowered for more involving soundtracks.</div>
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The graphics and font used for the onscreen menus are rather uninspiring, the Smart TV offering is teasingly small and the networking is rather hit and miss.</div>
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Final verdict</h4>
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The remote control, user interface, networking features and even the ability to make so many picture adjustments give you the feeling that the 37RL853 feels more like an engineering sample rather than the polished article.</div>
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Overall though, such versatility should be welcomed in a TV that is capable of delivering good-quality pictures, and for the money looks like a fairly solid proposition.</div>
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Review: Toshiba 37RL853B

The Toshiba 37RL853B offers a little bit of everything - it's a contemporary looking LCD TV with an LED edge-lit Full HD panel, de...

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Google TV gets Android voice control app

<img src="http://cdn.mos.techradar.com//classifications/computing/internet-and-broadband/images/google-crop-200-200.jpg"> <br /><P>Google has made a number of improvements to its Google TV service this week, with improved voice control via an Android handset and improved movie search.</P><br /><P><a href="">Google TV</A> was launched back in October earlier this year.</P><br /><P><STRONG>What's new with Google TV? </STRONG></P><br /><P>"It's been two months since the first Google TV device went on sale," blogs Larry Yang, Google TV Product Manager. "Since then, we have been hard at work thinking about how we can make the platform even better for our users. </P><br /><P>"In fact, one of the greatest things about Google TV is that it comes with free, automatic "over-the-air" software updates that give you the newest features and content as we release them. It's as if Google TV goes up in value over time."</P><br /><P>As such, this week sees the first Google TV software update, which fixes a number of bugs and introduces four significant improvements to the platform, which are as follows:</P><br /><P><STRONG>1.Netflix</STRONG></P><br /><P>The Netflix app has been upgraded "so that you can search, browse and watch <EM>any movie or show</EM> that is in the Netflix streaming catalog…. [and] add<BR>these titles to your DVD queue if you want them mailed to you."</P><br /><P><STRONG>2.Dual View</STRONG></P><br /><P>Google TV's latest feature lets you "do things like watch Conan while tweeting about him on Twitter at the same time" with lots of new customization options now added so, for example, you can now "re-size and move the window however you'd like."</P><br /><P><STRONG>3.Remote Control App for Android Phones</STRONG></P><br /><P>"What if you could control your TV with the power of your voice? Starting today you can download the Google TV Remote app in Android Market." You can see a short YouTube preview of these features below. </P><br /><P><STRONG>4.Movies</STRONG></P><br /><P>"Say you're searching for a movie like 'Harry Potter'. Google TV now has a movie results page that shows you all films associated with the title so you can quickly watch what you want, wherever it's available -- ranging from sources like live TV, Netflix, and Amazon Video on Demand."</P><br /><P>Google TV users with Android phones can grab The Google TV Remote app now by simply <a href="http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.tvremote">clicking here from an Android device</A></P>

Google TV gets Android voice control app

Google has made a number of improvements to its Google TV service this week, with improved voice control via an Android handset and improve...

Google Voice app now supports iPad and iPod touch, brings Click2Call

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So, how exactly does a voice app work on devices without any cellular ties? Glad you asked! Google has just updated the iOS Google Voice app to include support for the iPod touch and iPad, but neither of them can make cellular calls directly. Instead, you can use the app to initiate GVoice calls with a nearby phone. The process is known as Click2Call -- users simply click any 'Call' button within the app and then choose which of their phones they want to ring.<br>
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Google Voice app now supports iPad and iPod touch, brings Click2Call

So, how exactly does a voice app work on devices without any cellular ties? Glad you asked! Google has just updated the iOS Google Voice ap...

Google Voice Search update helps you personalize your results, helps Google build another database to take over the world

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Google Voice Actions was the first step towards our Star Trek dreams of lassoing the world with naught but vocal cords, and today Google's taken a second hop towards that inevitable future by letting Android devices record our every utterance. Yes, if you've got a handset running Froyo or better, you can download an update for Google Voice Search right now, which will let your phone dynamically personalize its speech-to-text engine to better recognize your voice most every time you use it.<br>
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Google Voice Search update helps you personalize your results, helps Google build another database to take over the world

Google Voice Actions was the first step towards our Star Trek dreams of lassoing the world with naught but vocal cords, and today Google...

Next On The Menu: Phish and Spam Over Voice

<P>Last January 04, we submitted an article entitled "The Top Seven Threats To Your Computer in 2007" and we listed Voice over IP (VoIP) as the number four threat. Two weeks later, the Computerworld website came out with an article entitled "VoIP Soon To Be A Target Of...Hackers". For those of you who are unfamiliar with Computerworld, it is a website targeted more towards advanced computer users ("geeks" is the industry-standard appellation).</P><br /><P>VoIP is not an entirely new technology, in fact it has been around since the mid-1990's. At that time, home internet users mostly connected through dial-up and the maximum speed was 56Kbps. High speed connections were limited mostly to big businesses who paid, what by today's standards are, ridiculously high fees for dedicated connections. High speed connection was a prerequisite for good quality connections, otherwise the connections would be choppy when done through dial-up.</P><br /><P>Nowadays, with broadband internet affordable for households and businesses around the world, VoIP has become a common internet staple. Internet providers and telecommunications companies are falling over each other offering competitive pricing for VoIP. Basically, the use of VoIP has become widespread enough that spammers and cyber criminals want in on the action.</P><br /><P>The weaknesses of VoIP is in its very infrastructure and the protocol it uses in order to transport the voice data. It comes as no surprise that hackers are savvy enough to exploit these. Without getting into technical details, VoIP's weakness figure prominently in its inability to adapt with some older and existing firewalls. For those of you who are not familiar with firewalls, they can either be hardware or software applications that secure your personal computers and/or your networks from unwanted traffic.</P><br /><P>Needless to say, without a straightforward way to secure your voice data, they can easily be exposed to any form of intrusion. The Computerworld article mentions that it is extremely easy to listen in on a call. And on the other end, it is also not at all difficult to inject noise or spam into a conversation. This practice of injecting spam is already being practiced enough to earn it the term "spit".</P><br /><P>This practice of "spit" has attracted not just the spammers' attention, but the scammers as well. The same article identifies hackers using a particular phishing exploit to imitate the interactive voice response system of actual companies. Imagine yourself using VoIP to call your bank's automated voice response system to carry out some transactions but in reality, you are interacting with a scammer's system. Can you say identity theft fast enough?</P><br /><P>Security appliances and applications on the providers' level is available, but implementing them correctly is the challenge that they face. There are many corporations these days who forbid their personnel from conducting sensitive conversations via VoIP, Hewlett-Packard for one. As a home user, you can take a cue from this type of corporate policy. Most banks and other financial institutions provide toll free numbers, so it is still safer to use the old conventional way of picking up the phone and doing your phone transactions this way.</P><br /><P>There is nothing more convenient and fun to talk to relatives and friends in faraway places over the computer, but it is another thing to have your finances wiped clean by cyber criminals. And the threat is certainly real.</P>

Next On The Menu: Phish and Spam Over Voice

Last January 04, we submitted an article entitled "The Top Seven Threats To Your Computer in 2007" and we listed Voice over IP (Vo...

How to Add a New Phone to Google Voice

How to Add a New Phone to Google Voice

Log in to your Google Voice account using your Gmail address and password. Click on the drop-down arrow by the "Settings" button ...

Common Voice Over IP Issues and Possible Solutions

<br />		<p>While VoIP today is considered a stable and reliable technology for personal and business communications, there are still a few kinks here and there. Like all new and evolving technologies, there are still pitfalls that VoIP converts may experience at one time or another. Ranging from minor inconveniences such as compatibility issues to major ones such as misrouted calls, users of VoIP have to occasionally deal with problems that are just as if not more disruptive than the problems associated with a regular 'legacy' phone system.</p><p><b>Deployment problems</b></p><p>Even before shifting to Internet telephony, a user must check the speed and bandwidth of the current broadband connection to see whether it can handle the added load of a VoIP. Typical business connections pose problems in particular, as the added burden of voice calls (increased data transmissions) may adversely affect operations in the long run. Adding bandwidth and speed with Quality of Service guarantees will likely suffice for most businesses.</p><p>But for businesses with extensive calling requirements like telemarketing companies, a more exhaustive analysis of traffic volume, peak call usage, maximum concurrent calls and other information is necessary. These are required by the service provider to enable it to anticipate and roll out and/or recommend the bandwidth and speed needed at any given time.</p><p><b>Porting PSTN numbers </b></p><p>Individuals and businesses often find it necessary to migrate the number that they're using to their new VoIP service. The porting of numbers, called Local Number Portability (LNP), results in seamless transitions to VoIP. The downsides, however, are the complicated process, varying time frame for porting the number, and possibility of rejection due to technicalities. The good thing is that it takes only patience, goodwill and lots of grace to navigate the complicated steps in the migration of numbers, and resolve any rejected request.</p><p><b>Security issues</b></p><p>One stumbling block that keeps many from switching to VoIP is the often unsubstantiated fear of worms, viruses, denial-of-service (DOS) attacks and Internet-related problems. Others are concerned too on how secure VoIP calls are and if these are not prone to hacking.</p><p>While it's true that voice calls in VoIP are sent as data packets, the possibility of these being corrupted while on transit is quite distant: it has identifiers (headers) that the sending and receiving ends must check, the packets are usually encrypted, and both ends of the call are likely to have first level firewall.</p><p>More worrisome would be the possibility of voice interception that may result in wiretapping and toll fraud, and data interception that may cause confidential information such as passwords and personal info to fall into malevolent hands. <br /><br>Physical security policies, stricter authentication mechanisms and more stringent security measures like disabling remote access to the graphical are just some of the ways administrators can address security concerns.</p><p>With the increasing rate in VoIP adoption, issues with broadband telephony will likely taper off as fierce competition fuels research and development in this emerging technology. Eventually, the hesitant attitude that some people have towards VoIP will become a thing of the past.</p>	<br />	<br />		<br />			<br />				<br />					<br /><br />						<p>Saiju George is an IP communications and business software expert. He specializes in <a href="http://www.onsip.com/hosted-pbx" target="_new">hosted SIP PBX</a> implementations and <a href="http://www.onsip.com" target="_new">small business VoIP</a>.</p>					<br />

Common Voice Over IP Issues and Possible Solutions

While VoIP today is considered a stable and reliable technology for personal and business communications, there are still a few kinks her...

Voice Over Internet Protocol - A Few Things You Need To Know First

<br />		<p>Unless you have had your head in the sand lately you will have heard of VOIP. Everyone seems to be talking about VOIP, but you can be forgiven for probably not knowing much about it. VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol and if you believe the media hype this new phone service is about to revolutionise the telecommunications market. As with a lot of new technological developments there are a few causes for concerns that you probably will not hear the marketing campaigns talk about.</p><p>What is it?</p><p>Just to give you a bit of background lets take a look at how VOIP works for those of you that are unsure. You will need to have a broadband Internet connection and to then open an account with one of the many new VOIP providers. By having an account with a VOIP provider you will be able to make a telephone call through your computer and its Internet connection. Many VOIP providers will allow you to call another user on their system for free or phone a standard telephone number for a low cost. Without getting too technical, VOIP works by converting your voice into lots of small packets of data. These data packets are then routed through the Internet to your VOIP provider's servers, and then onto the person you are calling. The reason people are raving about this new service is the cost. It is much cheaper than a standard fixed line telephone and you will also get all the same services.</p><p>Is there a downside?</p><p>Now we do not want to put you off setting up a VOIP service, but we think you should know a couple of things before you do. Obviously low cost telephone calls is a very attractive offer, but there are drawbacks to VOIP. One a major issue you need to be aware of is that a VOIP service requires you to have a power supply, as it requires your computer to be on. This means should your electricity be out you will not be able to use your phone. In some circumstances this could just be a minor inconvenience, but in an emergency situation it may be much more serious. In heavy storms and natural disasters electricity power is often lost first. Would you really want to be without a phone?</p><p>Should your PC decide to stop working for whatever reason, you'll be left without a phone. Computers are prone to crashing and should this happen, you will not be able to make any phone calls. A concern of a different issue, is one of security. Because your phone calls will be transported as data via the Internet, you will be opening up the possibility of having your phone system hacked into. A scary thought, especially for business users.</p><p>As we said previously, it is not our intention to put you off VOIP. We actually think it is a great service with so much going for it. It is something that you should look into setting up, and you can find out the most current developments from our website (link below). We just want to give you the full picture though so you can make an informed choice.</p><p>Take a look at VOIP Basics top ten things you need to know.</p><p>VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol.</p><p>VOIP or Voice Over Internet Protocol is a new way for you to make a telephone call.</p><p>You will need to get yourself a broadband internet connection in order to set up a VOIP service.</p><p>There are more and more companies setting up VOIP services. Skype is probably the most known.</p><p>VOIP works by converting the sound of your voice into tiny packets of data and then transmitting these via the internet.</p><p>Your PC needs to be on in order to use a VOIP service, which could be a drawback should your electricity be off.</p><p>VOIP services provide extremely cheap calls.</p><p>Think about the possible security issues as your internet connection could be hacked.</p><p>Should your PC get a virus this could stop you using the phone if you are on a VOIP service.</p><p>Many VOIP providers will allow you to call another of there users for free anywhere in the world.</p>	<br />	<br />		<br />			<br />				<br />					<br /><br />						<p>Seymour Brown writes articles for <a href="http://www.voip-basics.com" rel="nofollow" target="_new">http://www.voip-basics.com</a></p>					<br />

Voice Over Internet Protocol - A Few Things You Need To Know First

Unless you have had your head in the sand lately you will have heard of VOIP. Everyone seems to be talking about VOIP, but you can be for...