Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Toshiba 65L9300U: A 4K HDTV With HDMI 2.0 Support

Toshiba 65L9300U: A 4K HDTV With HDMI 2.0 Support
By

With Ultra HD monitors becoming more prolific, we thought it was time to check out a 4K HDTV. Toshiba sent us its 65-inch L9300U LED panel. This TV offers 3D and cloud features in addition to a high pixel count. We put it through its paces in this review.

After publishing Asus PQ321Q 4K Monitor Review: Top-Shelf Ultra HD For £2800 and Dell UltraSharp 32 Ultra HD Monitor Review: UP3214Q At £2000, I was personally anxious to get my hands on a 4K HDTV. Toshiba obliged by sending its new 65L9300U.

When Sony introduced its first Ultra HD TV in 2012, it was only available in an 84-inch screen size and cost in excess of twenty grand. Today, Sony and its competition offer smaller screens at more down-to-earth prices. Selling for a similar price point (in the U.S. at least), Toshiba’s 65L9300U represents a relatively good value in the 4K space.

Of course, Ultra HD means 3840x2160 pixels. Although that's not quite a true 4K (4096x2160), it comes close. At the very least, it's four times the resolution of Full HD’s 1920x1080. While the first generation of Ultra HD screens had specific bandwidth limitations, this is the first display we’ve seen with HDMI 2.0 support. You do need the very latest firmware from Toshiba's website. But once you're equipped with that, the TV accepts UHD signals at 60 Hz. Currently, the only way to generate such a signal is either through a computer or a streaming device like a Redray player.

The bandwidth issue really isn't as big of a deal with film-based content, since it’s delivered at 24 FPS. And pretty much everyone who buys this HDTV will be connecting a standard Blu-ray player that outputs good old 1920x1080. So, the real test for this generation is the quality of its upconversion.

Brand
Toshiba
Model
65L9300U
Panel Type
IPS
Backlight
W-LED, edge array
Screen Size
65"
Max Resolution
3840x2160
Max Refresh Rate
240 Hz
3D
Passive, pattern retarder
Aspect Ratio
16:9
Response Time (GTG)
Not specified
Brightness (cd/m2)
Not specified
Speakers
2 x 10 W
HDMI
4
VGA
1
Component Video
1
Composite Video
2
Audio In
1 x 3.5 mm, 1 x RCA
Audio Out
1 x 3.5 mm, 1 x optical
USB
2 (v2.0)
IR Control
1 out
SD Card
1
Ethernet
1
Panel Dimensions
W x H x D w/base
57.6 x 37 x 14.7 in
1463 x 940 x 374 mm
Panel Thickness
2.8 in / 71 mm
Weight
108 lbs / 49 kg
Warranty
One year

Feature-wise, this HDTV is packed. Besides its Ultra HD resolution, there’s passive 3D and the same Cloud TV software we reported on in Toshiba 50L7300U Review: A 50-Inch LED HDTV With Wi-Fi. Wireless networking is of course built-in, or you can connect an Ethernet cable to the TV's LAN port. Plus, there’s a built-in WiDi receiver that lets you stream content from compatible laptops and portable devices.

3D is less of a marketing tool today than it was in the past. However, all mid- to high-priced HDTVs still include it. The 65L9300U offers passive 3D through pattern retarder technology. Unlike active 3D, where the glasses contain LCD shutters that must be synced to the display, passive 3D uses fixed polarizers in both the glasses and screen to achieve a stereo effect. Light output is much higher on passive sets, but the effective resolution is halved. Each frame shows every other horizontal line, and your eye/brain has to stitch them together. Fortunately, a 4K TV gives you plenty of extra pixels to get the resolution back up. So, for fans of stereoscopic content, an Ultra HD screen with passive 3D may be the best option you can buy.

The video technology here is not revolutionary, though. Backlighting is provided by a white-LED edge array. Contrast performance can be enhanced through a local-dimming feature called DynaLight, which modulates the backlight depending on content. There are also several other picture enhancement features that we’ll explore in-depth.

Toshiba addresses video processing with its quad-core CEVO 4K engine. Since nearly all of the content delivered to an Ultra HD TV will be 1080p for the foreseeable future, scaling quality is super-important. We’ll take a close look at some 2D and 3D Blu-rays on page four. And we’ll thoroughly test the video processing on page 11. We also get to check out some native 4K video courtesy of a laptop Toshiba included in our press package.

Ask a Category Expert

Create a new thread in the UK Article comments forum about this subject

Example: Notebook, Android, SSD hard drive

There are 0 comments.
This thread is closed for comments