Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
There’s little weight to speak of and no real dynamism either, no matter what audio preferences you use, but that’s difficult to find in a budget TV. For that, we’d usually recommend a soundbar. While the Toshiba UK31 doesn’t have a flotilla of apps, it is not without smarts. Alexa is built-in – although annoyingly, a notification pops up asking if you want to activate it every time the TV is powered on and can’t be turned off unless you log in to Alexa. Toshiba’s reasoning being that you’ve bought an Alexa compatible TV… because you wanted Alexa. I’m not necessarily sure that will be the case for everyone that eyes this set.
The 50UK3163DB isn’t just unexpectedly bold with HDR, either. It also gets impressive value from its native 4K resolution. Good-quality native 4K sources, especially 4K Blu-rays, look much richer in texture, clarity and depth than HD images do, despite the 50-inch screen being fairly small by today’s 4K standards. The two down-firing speakers fail to properly capture the thud of a bear’s paw hitting the ground, the higher-pitched smashing of glass or the sudden rush of a gun shot, with bass performance similarly disappointing.Given that these are some of the most popular services out there offering great shows like The Mandolarian and Ted Lasso, it’s not just disappointing but surprising that you can’t access them natively through this TV. While you won’t be blown away by the audio that the UK31 can produce, the sound quality of its 20W speaker system is more than enough to get the job done for those on a tight budget. The Toshiba UK31 comes with the full-set of Toshiba’s Tru Picture Engine features that cover motion (Tru Flow), upscaling (Tru Resolution) and contrast (Tru Micro Dimming). Fortunately, this TV is not as shabby for sound. Toshiba has used Onkyo to tune its speaker system of two down-firing drivers plus a sub, powered by a total of 42W of amplification. It supports both Dolby and DTS audio codecs and there are plenty of options in the sound menus to tailor the audio to your tastes. It works well, but it isn’t without some niggles. The far-field microphone on the device recognised prompts to increase or decrease the volume, but wouldn’t respond to muting the audio. Asking Alexa to change the channel created an awkward period of silence, and trying to open Netflix led to her to telling me facts about Netflix. Perhaps I just didn’t make myself clear, but there do appear to be limitations to how much you can ask of the digital assistant.
Between them, the intense sharpness and surprisingly potent handling of HDR leave almost all of the 50UK3163DB’s similarly priced rivals looking staid and dull by comparison. If you really want to get an impression of HDR’s strengths without having to spend big on a much higher end TV, the 50UK3163DB won’t let you down. Our TRU picture technology provides smooth, upscaled and more detailed viewing whatever you’re watching. High Dynamic Range offers better contrast, greater brightness levels and a wider colour palette. With its advanced capabilities, Dolby Vision HDR provides a captivating cinema viewing experience. Combined with Dolby Atmos®, be transported from the ordinary into the extraordinary with breath-taking, moving audio that fills your room and flows around you. What Hi-Fi?, founded in 1976, is the world's leading independent guide to buying and owning hi-fi and home entertainment products. Our comprehensive tests help you buy the very best for your money, with our advice sections giving you step-by-step information on how to get even more from your music and movies. Everything is tested by our dedicated team of in-house reviewers in our custom-built test rooms in London, Reading and Bath. Our coveted five-star rating and Awards are recognised all over the world as the ultimate seal of approval, so you can buy with absolute confidence.Lastly, the remote is a big, old-fashioned hunk of plastic – and it isn’t the most responsive either. There’s a smaller remote, but that comes with the more expensive UL7A model.
But we do have some issues with noise in the picture. This is not an easy film to upscale. It has a purposefully grainy look to evoke a 1960s aesthetic and it takes a fair amount of work to stop that grain from dancing about. With out-of-the-box settings, the effect is quite unbearable. The noise filters do a reasonable job of smoothing it out, but the trade-off is that they make the smudging effect worse.The Home tab contains the apps and the app store, as well as Alexa, which is built in. Search lets you find specific content from Freeview and YouTube, as well as other apps and settings. Rather than just ‘buying in’ a third-party smart system from the likes of Google, Roku or LG, the 50UK3163DB unexpectedly deploys a smart system of Toshiba’s own design. Even more surprisingly, this system really isn’t bad. Its presentation is compact but effective, for the most part tidily fitting its content links and apps into a couple of ‘shelves’ superimposed over the bottom few inches of the picture. The shiny finish on the bezel makes it look a little cheap and it’s prone to fingerprints, but it isn’t overly chunky allowing much of the real estate to be taken up by the DLED screen. The flashiest part of the design is the stand in its metallic silver shade. You also have the option to mount the TV on a wall. The ability to play audio/video files from the network is unreliable: the "audio video sharing" option often disappears from the list of sources, even though it is enabled in settings.
This is a cheap 4K TV, but one that does manage to upscale lower-res content admirably, while Toshiba's TRU Flow technology ensures smooth, judder-free images for fast-paced sports matches and the like.The use of direct LED lighting, where the LEDs sit right behind the screen rather than around the edges, joins the extensive HDR support in boding well for the 50UK3163DB’s picture quality, as this approach typically yields better contrast than lighting systems that use LEDs ranged around the picture’s edges. Some Toshiba TVs support Bluetooth technology – please refer to the specification section of the model you are interested in.
Great Deal 
New Comment