Toshiba Televisions

Toshiba, a world class electronics manufacturer and a respected name in the electronics world

Toshiba started life with the merger of Shibaura Seisakusho (Shibaura Engineering Works), Japans first telegraph company, and Tokyo Electric (Tokyo Denki). The merger occurred in 1939, creating Tokyo Shibaura Denki. The company was nicknamed Toshiba but it wasnt until 1978 that the company officially renamed itself Toshiba Corporation. Toshiba has a proud history of production and technological firsts for Japan including radar, TAC digital computer, transistor television, microwave oven, color video phone, Japanese word processor, MRI, laptop, NAND EEPROM, DVD. The Japanese manufacturer is also responsible for recent developments like HD DVD, co-developed with NEC, and the 8-gigabit NAND Flash Memory chip with 70nm process technology with SanDisk.
Toshiba makes a full range of televisions and front projectors and their quality by comparison to other manufacturers should be considered second to none. While they dont have the strong reputation of Hitachi or Sony, their product line is comparable. They have put a lot of effort into research and development and represent no significant step down from any other manufacturers gear. From their product line of display technologies youll find plasma, CRT and LCD based television sets. Youll also find fixed pixel rear projectors that use Texas Instruments DLP technology. Many of Toshibas front projectors also use DLP chips to produce high definition images. The TDP-MT800 is Toshibas finest front projector to date. With a 1280x720 resolution it uses the HD2 DLP chip from TI and it features high-end Carl Ziess lens system.

Toshibas flagship rear projector sets are on the cutting edge of display technology with their 1080P DLP from the Cinema Series line. Toshiba uses the Talen X DLP processor to achieve 1080P at a variety of sizes in rear projectors from the 72 giant screen at the top of the line down to the 56 at the bottom. These rear projector sets include Toshibas proprietary Pixel Pure adaptive technology. Normally you might be leery of proprietary technologies as they sound a lot like window dressing with little substance. But every TV manufacturer has their own way of dealing with the shortcomings inherent in the display technology they use as they try to improve image quality. Toshibas Pixel Pure is a motion enhancement that tries to smooth out high contrast images that move quickly across the screen. Its something you should look for in any set DLP by Toshiba. The same DLP processors may be available to any manufacturer but the true beauty lies in their implementation and this is Toshibas strength.

Toshiba does a good all around job of producing many TVs. They have high-end sets that can compete with anything available but they also make low to medium priced sets that should make respectable forays into their respective markets. Many people find they save a bit of money on some of Toshibas lower end sets and this shouldnt be considered a severe compromise because there is no clear step down from manufacturers who charge slightly more, like Hitachi, Mitsubishi and Sony for whom Toshiba provides competition.