Toshiba Regza 46WL863B review

We thought colours looked fairly accurate using the Hollywood image pre-set, but there’s a huge scope for picture calibration using the settings menu. If you aren’t confident about perfecting the picture yourself, Toshiba will soon sell an automatic calibration tool that can handle the process for you – the TPA-1, will be around £200. Toshiba sent us a unit which we used to adjust both colour and gamma, which did a great job of improving our test footage.

These adjustments carry over to 3D mode too, so you get the benefit of brighter, more accurate colours even when wearing a pair of Toshiba’s FPT-AG01 active shutter glasses (one pair is supplied, additional pairs are £69 from www.rgbdirect.co.uk). We still experienced a lack of brightness and some noticeable flicker from the surrounding lighting, but depth effects were still pronounced.

Unfortunately, sound quality wasn’t quite the match for picture quality – even at high volumes, there was hardly any variance between quiet speech and explosive action. Bass was definitely lacking, even though both the high-end and mid-range were fairly clean.

For £1,300, the 46WL863B is certainly priced like a high-end TV – thankfully it has the performance and features to match its price, but it also verges perilously close to superior plasma sets. If you watch a lot of films and demand the best image quality, a plasma such as the Panasonic Viera TX-P46GT30B would be a better choice, but considering how well it coped with everything we threw at it, the Toshiba should still be on your shortlist.