Toshiba 65L9363DB review

Toshiba ditches its usual value focus to pursue a slice of the suddenly exploding 4K TV market

Toshiba 65L9363DB
Toshiba wades into the 4K fray

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The 65L9363DB has some really helpful tricks up its sleeve. Particularly thoughtful is the MediaGuide app (for iOS and Android) you can use for surfing broadcast listings on your portable device so you don't have to interrupt your TV viewing while you browse.

There are some quite extensive and nicely presented search tools for finding content across the 65L9363DB's many sources too, and the multi-hub approach of the smart TV menus is effective, if left looking a bit repetitious at the moment by Toshiba's lack of online content.

Also effective is the use of four onscreen avatars with different 'interests' to recommend content from the upcoming channel listings. This is a less confusing and more friendly approach than Samsung's Recommendations engine - though Samsung's system is more sophisticated.

The Toshiba Smart TV menus are a bit bland and old-fashioned looking, though. And worst of all, both the smart and main menus are hamstrung by some painful sluggishness in their reaction times, leading to numerous accidental multiple button presses and wrong selections.

Sound quality

While not managing to reach the giddy audio heights of the magnetic fluid speakers found inside Sony's X9005A UHD/4K TVs, the 65L9363DB is certainly one of the better-sounding TVs in town.

Its speakers are sufficiently powerful to pump out a soundstage big enough and aggressive enough to do the huge scale of the 65-inch images proud, especially as the soundstage is also propelled a handy distance from the TV's sides without starting to sound incoherent.

There's even a decent amount of bass in the mix despite the set not sporting a dedicated subwoofer speaker.

Value

The 65L9353DB's £5,500 price is perhaps its single biggest problem. For it's £500 higher than the current prices of the Samsung UE65F9000 and Sony KD-65X9005A - two 65-inch UHD rivals which both slightly outgun the Toshiba when it comes to getting the most from their ultra-high picture resolutions.

UPDATE: The price has now been reduced to £4,499 (Amazon UK).

John Archer
AV Technology Contributor

John has been writing about home entertainment technology for more than two decades - an especially impressive feat considering he still claims to only be 35 years old (yeah, right). In that time he’s reviewed hundreds if not thousands of TVs, projectors and speakers, and spent frankly far too long sitting by himself in a dark room.