When we ask you to name us a high-end television manufacturer, Toshiba probably isn’t the first name that comes into your head. It seems, however, the company is trying to change that with its new range of OLED HDR TVs announced at IFA 2017 in Berlin.
According to Toshiba, this is the range that will make OLED and HDR affordable and that’s something we’re certainly not averse to hearing.
The new OLED range will come in 55 and 65-inch models, both of which will feature Ultra HD 4K resolution with a built-in upscaler to enhance any non-4K content you might deign to watch.
Cost effective
Unlike the affordable Toshiba OLEDs we saw earlier this year, this range will also support HDR, an increasingly essential feature in most televisions these days and therefore particularly important in a range that wants to distinguish itself more as a high-end value offering and less as a grudging compromise.
Both HDR10 and Dolby Vision are supported here and the sets will show 99% of the DCI-P3 colour space which means you should see depth, color and realism to rival even the high-end TV brands.
The broadcaster standard of HDR, Hybrid Log Gamma, is also supported here so you won’t be stopped from enjoying HDR content when it comes to broadcast television in the future.
The TV will run Toshiba’s own Smart Portal which is says will give access to apps such as Netflix, YouTube and the Opera TV Store. If you run through all the 4K content on your streaming services, there are also 4 HDMI ports to plug in your Ultra HD Blu-ray player or 4K games console.
This is all very well and good, but we imagine you want to know the pricing of these supposedly affordable OLEDs. We’ve been told that pricing will start at €1699 (around £1560) for the 55-inch model when it launches in Q4 2017. UK pricing and the price for the 65-inch model has still to be confirmed but we will update here as soon as it becomes available.
For reference, LG's cheapest 2017 OLED, its 55-inch B7, is currently retailing for £1,985 on Amazon UK although we did receive confirmation that these are the 2016 LG OLED panels rather than the new 2017 ones.
When a TV costs over a grand it still feels wrong to be calling it 'affordable', but with a premium technology like OLED we're willing to take any price decreases we can get. We look forward to testing out Toshiba's OLED in person when it releases later this year.
- IFA 2017 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new phones, watches and other tech as they're announced
