Toshiba 46L5200U Review

46" Edge Lit LED-LCD TV, 1080p, 120Hz

by Robert Wiley, Senior Editor

Toshiba 46L5200U The 46L5200 is a fairly upgraded model from Toshiba with the new thin framed Aero Design in their top units. The framing bezel is a mere .3" in width and gives the TV a nice "window" effect like many of the better LED Televisions on the market. The screen is edge lit by powerful LED backlighting.

Picture Quality

The Clear Scan 240 feature on this TV works very well to reduce judder and jerky motion. I would say the reduction is around half of what you would see in a 60Hz television. We didnt note too many unwanted ill effects from this feature and its great with sports. Black levels and contrast are not as high as strong as some of the higher end TVs in the market, but they are decently saturated for an LED. Keep the backlight at a moderate setting to avoid running into screen uniformity imbalance especially at the left and right corners of the screen.

The DynaLight feature for dynamic backlight control is also included in the 46L5200. This feature moinitors the brightness of each frame on screen and automatically adjusts the pictures backlight intensity according to what it deems is best. It actually works pretty well, but you do notice an occasional flicker when the TV makes adjustments. For purists this will likely be a problem, but you can easily turn the feature off in the menu.

This shot shots off the good color peformance and detail on the L5200

Side angle viewing quality is much improved on this TV with contrast starting to degrade a little at about 20 degrees off center. Blacks become slightly hazier. This is not a bad result compared to many LED Televisions over the last few years.

Overall we felt the picture quality was good. We like the color rendition a lot in the Toshiba, black levels are decent and a few of the features like Clear Scan 240 help out.

Appearance

The new Aero Design gives you that super thin bezel window effect that we really like. People will one day refer to it as Oh So 2012, but the modern look is great. The bottom of the frame is a little larger in the toshiba than the new Lgs with the same look.

Features

New Speaker System

Toshiba has not neglected the speaker system on this TV and include the outsourced Audessey Premium Suite speakers system which delivers much better sound than normal one way speakers. This is a welcome change from our reviews of 2011 Toshiba LED Televisions – where sound quality was sorely lacking. These speakers actually shoot the sound out in two directions. On the L5200 it does not have day and night mode – just one mode but it does give you dynamic volume control.

Gaming Mode

There is a special gaming picture mode on the L5200 which allows faster processing for gaming to help eliminate blur.

Remote Control and Menu Functionality

Occasionally the L5200 is a little stubborn and slow to respond to commands. Once calibrated though, access is not needed much except adjust the backlight as needed (if you have the Dynalight feature off). The remote has a Quick key to adjust picture settings which is easy to use rather than sifting through the normal picture setting adjustments every time you want to adjust the backlight.

Picture mode options are complete with the aforementioned Autoview, Sports, PC, Game, Standard, Movie 1, and Movie 2.

^{Having reviewed and written about Television Technology for over 10 years, Wiley never tires of researching the newest qualitative trends related to the technology. Most people do not get excited about possibilities behind the latest video engine...Wiley does. Read more about Robert}