Review: Toshiba 42HL833

There's something refreshingly straightforward about the Toshiba 42HL833. The £700 set might be devoid of online features or streaming services and its Freeview tuner is strictly standard-def, but you won't find a cheaper full HD, edge LED set of its size in Toshiba's current lineup.

Affordable TVs that eschew fancy features in favour of decent pictures should find an audience in these economically straitened times and the 42HL833 sits just above the HD ready EL833 series in the manufacturer's expansive, budged-conscious new range.

If the 42HL833's 42-inch screen size doesn't suit you, the 32-inch 32HL833 is also available, while anyone after a Freeview HD tuner will have to step up to the RL833 series, which also add a few online features to the mix.

The 42HL833 is all about value: there's no 3D, no online connectivity or DLNA PC compatibility and the build quality is rather plasticky. You won't find much in the way of video processing, either and the panel is only 50Hz with a conventional (non-scanning) backlight.

The 42HL833 is not entirely devoid of useful features, however: its USB port can handle music, photo and video files and the container formats the set can parse include MPEG, MPEG2-TS, H.264, MPEG2-PS, AVI (XviD), MP4 and MKV (H.264, MPEG1, 2, 4).

A D-Sub PC port enhances multimedia options further, while other connections include an acceptable two HDMIs, a digital audio output and a single Scart.

If you are thinking of hanging a 42HL833 on a wall, be aware that many of its connections – including one of the HDMIs, the component video input and the tuner jack – face straight out of the TV's rear, rather than being positioned for side access.

Trawling the 42HL833's menus for features uncovers more adjustments than you might expect to find on such an affordable TV. There's a separate backlight control alongside the usual contrast and brightness adjustments, a trio of settings for black/white level balance and an adjustable static gamma level, as well as separate DNR and MPEG NR processing options.

Most startlingly, a 3D Colour Management system enables you to adjust – via a superbly simple interface – the hue, saturation and brightness of the red, green, blue, yellow, magenta and cyan colour components.

The only other things of interest are a bass boost function and a pseudo-surround audio processing option, both of which need to be treated with extreme care, as they can make the set sound worse, rather than better.

The 42HL833 performs best with bright HD feeds. Hi-def coverage of the Wimbledon tennis tournament was amazingly detailed and sharp, with individual blades of grass or beads of perspiration clearly discernible.

Even better, the clarity remains more or less unchecked during play, with balls and players moving around with little interference from motion trailing or resolution loss. This is surprising for a 50Hz TV and suggests an impressive native panel response for a budget set.

The colour performance, meanwhile, is dynamic and engaging but also subtle when required; skin tones and the green of the courts are totally convincing, with smoothly blended tones and no striping or blotching to speak of and black level response is solid.

Shifting down the gears to standard-definition feeds from the digital tuner, the 42HL833 still exceeds expectations - albeit by not quite as much. Most pleasing is the way the set retains its natural palette during the upscaling process, avoiding the unnatural sheen that tends to mar standard-def material on screens at the more affordable end of the market. Motion also remains decently smooth, though a little resolution loss is evident.

Standard-def images are upscaled with respectable sharpness, though the 42HL833 doesn't entirely get a handle on source noise. The MPEG NR system can help tame some of the blockiness and shimmering that troubles standard-definition pictures, but it also creates a slightly processed, laggy look.

The 42HL833 struggles with black levels when pushed hard by a high-contrast Blu-ray film.

It is perfectly capable of combining bright image elements with dark ones within a single frame during normal footage, but frequently fails to extract enough light from really dark scenes, leaving them looking milky and short of shadow detail.

A second problem concerns that classic edge LED woe of inconsistent backlight brightness. During dark scenes a slender ring of anomalous brightness runs around the edge of the screen, bulging sufficiently in places to become distracting.

This problem is only problematic during the darkest scenes and its impact can be reduced by reining in the backlight and brightness settings, but it doesn't seem possible to remove the inconsistencies entirely and the issue increases dramatically at viewing angles wider than 30°.

Sound

The 42HL833's speakers go a bit louder than those of most budget LCD TVs and can produce a soundstage on a scale appropriate to the 42-inch pictures. However, there's precious little audio finesse, with bass in short supply, a thin and echoey mid-range and harsh, poorly defined trebles.

Value

The 42HL833 is good value for a 42-inch LCD TV with edge LED lighting and will make a solid everyday set.

However, its lack of any sort of online features or 3D options together with its backlight issues compromise its overall value.

Ease of use

The 42HL833's onscreen menus are logically organised and very cleanly presented and kick off with an attractive icon-based opening screen that provides a much more inviting starting point than Toshiba's usual boring, text-heavy system. The menu navigation system is intuitive and requires minimal brain engagement.

The remote control is small, plasticky, and plain, but turns out to be a handy companion to the clear, uncomplicated menus, with responsive buttons and most of the main navigation buttons falling within easy reach.

For the electronic programme guide, Toshiba has sensibly shifted away from its previous system that would change channel whenever you moved the cursor to a different station, slowing navigation down horrendously.

The information presented in the EPG is also clearly legible displaying programme names in full.

The 42HL833 does takes an age to switch display modes when you move from a standard-def to an HD channel (or vice versa), though and the automatic aspect ratio system doesn't always seem to work properly with some Sky broadcasts.



The 42HL833 is Toshiba's cheapest 42-inch full HD TV with an edge LED backlight. Neither the lack of online services nor the absence of 3D should stop the TV appealing to anyone after a decent, low-cost TV, while the flimsy build and average connectivity are about par for the price. It even has a few unexpected features, including playback of photo, music and video files from USB and a surprisingly comprehensive colour management facility.

In many ways the 42HL833's picture performance is a winner. With HD sources in particular its combination of natural, warm colours, good detailing and surprisingly little motion noise make it a very enjoyable TV to watch with predominantly bright footage.

It's a well above-average standard-definition performer, too, but does suffer from uninspiring black levels and obvious backlight consistency issues with more demanding material.

We liked

It's affordably priced for a 42-inch TV with edge LED lighting and its performance with bright pictures is enjoyable, thanks to natural colours, good sharpness and surprisingly little motion blur or resolution loss. The set's USB-driven multimedia abilities are a pleasing bonus, too.

We disliked

It's a pity, if hardly a surprise, that the 42HL833 doesn't offer 3D, online capability or a Freeview HD tuner and its mostly good picture quality breaks down during dark scenes, thanks to a lack of deep black colours, missing shadow details and a conspicuously inconsistent backlight.

Final Verdict

Casual viewers after a TV predominantly for watching standard-def broadcasts will be more than happy with the 42HL833.

The 42HL833's backlight and black level issues probably rule it out as a serious movie machine, though.