Toshiba 32DL933B review

Usability

What bugs us most about living with the Toshiba 32DL933B - which we did for about a week - is the remote control. It's not just a design thing, but as well as being scarred by buttons that are simply too small, the remote is among the most unresponsive we've come across.

Operating the Toshiba 32DL933B's on-screen menus is like wading through glue, with double presses - often in frustration - leading to wrong choices and stored-up mistakes, thanks to the delay in commands being recognised.

Although it too is hampered by the remote, the DVD-specific side is easily controlled; up to 32x speed scanning is possible, as is skipping between chapters and returning to the core disc menus.

The Toshiba 32DL933B's main operating system is bare bones, too, with low resolution and rather plain black-backed graphics with grey, blue and yellow lettering.

Press the Menu button and six icons appear along the bottom of the screen; Picture, Sound, Settings, Install/retune, Channel list and Media browser.

The Picture menus include presets for Cinema/Game/Natural/Dynamic alongside some basic image parameters, though the promising Advanced Picture Settings menu just comprises options for colour temperature, picture zoom and colour shift (a sliding scale from red to green). Nor can the level of the backlight be altered - it's stuck on Auto mode across all sources.

Although the entry-level Toshiba 32DL933B lacks the kind of smart TV dimension that's quickly becoming standard on mid-range TV sets, it can handle some digital media files.

Not over a network - there's no wired LAN or Wi-Fi - but via the Toshiba 32DL933B's USB slot. Accessed via the Media Browser option on the home screen, in our test we managed to play AVI, MPEG and MP4 video - the latter in both its SD and HD incarnations - as well as JPEG and BMP pictures, and MP3 and WMA music.

For a budget TV, that's impressive, although it was a near miss with MKV video - the TV recognised such files, but refused to play them.

Sound

The good news here is that the Toshiba 32DL933B supplies enough bass certainly for dialogue-heavy movies. Demanding, high-octate film soundtracks aren't going to blow you away and will likely cause a treble-heavy, crowded soundstage, but we've heard a lot worse on flatscreen TVs of this ilk.

The trouble is, as an all in one TV and DVD player, the stakes are higher, and the sound quality really should be better. Still, at least there's a headphones jack and a digital-out to hook up a soundbar or home cinema sound system.

Value

Just over £300 (around $500) for an HD-ready screen once sounded like a bargain, and although prices have come down considerably in the last few years, this still represents a major outlay for most of us.

It's a good-looking television - we've got no arguments about that - and it's well positioned to attract anyone that wants to cut down on cable clutter, but on pure quality terms, there's really nothing to get excited about. The DVD player strapped to its back is basic, and doesn't upscale to any great extent; those not bothered about extra cables could get a better separate DVD player for £50 (about $80).