Toshiba 84L9300U Review (84L9300)

84 inch Cloud TV 4K LED UHD TV

by , Senior Editor

This 84 inch monster of a 4K TV is the top tier model from Toshiba in 2013/2014. The 84L9300U is an impressive TV with the features to match the size. The picture quality features are the most important and it seems like Toshiba put a lot of effort into them. In addition to those the Advanced Cloud TV is Toshiba's new smart TV platform. This allows a lot of flexibility to accessing the platform with your mobile devices. In the end the most important feature is the 4K UHD resolution that shows impressive detail.

Toshiba 84L9300U 4K UHD TV
This shot from the L9300 really shows off the amount of detail it can display. Depth is also another strong suit with the foreground, focused areas, and background are all clearly separated

Picture Quality Features

Aside from the 4K UHD resolution Toshiba loaded the 84L9300 with a ton of features to really ramp up the picture quality. This is an important point with the lack of 4K content available. These features are a big help for up converting 1080p content past its native resolution. The Clear Scan 240Hz refresh rate processing is a feature worth mentioning. This feature is used to further reduce motion blur. The result is smooth fast action playback with greater clarity. Some other additions are the Color Gamut Enhancer and the Surface Brilliance Enhancement. These settings bump up color intensity and brightness for a more lifelike image.

Color and Depth Adaptive Resolution+

The Color and Depth Adaptive Resolution+ feature is one that really caught our attention. Color and depth are two big factors that go into our picture quality rating, so we were interested to see how it affected the picture. It really comes into play when upconverting content to play on the big 4K screen. When enabled color saturation level appear very lifelike, which is one of the highest goals our calibration settings. Picture depth also benefits slightly from this feature too. A TV that displays good depth makes all the difference in good picture versus a bad picture.

Toshiba 84L9300U 4K UHD TV
Here we still see a great sense of depth in the L9300 series. Notice the brightness issues in both the bright and dark areas of the screen.

CQ Engine

The CQ Engine on the 84L9300 is really just a long list of very specific picuture settings and options. It is there to allow viewers to obtain the best possible picture quality for any viewing situation and content. Picture settings tweakers will rejoice upon seeing this menu. Options include: Edge Enhancer, Dynamic Gamma, Color Master and Expert Mode Calibration Capability, and a new UltraClear Dynamic Noise Reduction feature. The inclusion lets us know that Toshiba wants viewers to play with their picture settings since we all have personal preferences on what looks best. This menu should make calibration a much easier process.

3D Performance

3D playback on the 84L9300 is strong on the 4K resolution screen. 2D to 3D functionality is available as well. In the past year we have noticed a lot of improvement in conversion features. By all means, 2D content does not have the same results as original 3D content, but this is a great way to refresh movies and shows you are familiar with.

Toshiba 84L9300U 4K UHD TV
The L9300 displays bright colors that come off a bit over saturated. This picture highlights the screen uniformity issues seen in some LCD/LED TVs.

Advanced Cloud TV

The move to take Smart TV to the cloud is a smart one on Toshiba's part. The Cloud TV functionality on the L9300 makes it easier to achieve a more personalized experience. Since it has been dubbed 'Cloud TV' there must be a way to access it from anywhere right? Right you are. Toshiba plans to release mobile companion apps for all the major smartphone and tablet operating systems. That is iOS, Android, and Windows 8. The move is a step in the right direction for Smart TV integration and interaction. Here is a short list of all the features available:

  • Family Calendar is a simple feature that lets family members schedule events in a centralized location.
  • Personal Messaging is kind of like e-mail for the TV
  • Photo Album allows photo storing and sharing.
  • Streaming News lets you customize where your live news is coming from
  • MediaGuide is a TV programming guide with advanced search capabilities and program recommendations
  • Miracast and WiDi  makes it possible to share screens from smarthphones, tablets, and laptops. With both router and peer-to-peer wireless capabilities

Built-in Wifi and Dual Core Processor

The 84L9300 has built-in wifi so you can connect to your home network with ease. This immediately grants you access to the Cloud TV features and the included web browser. All of this is powered by Toshiba's CEVO 4K Quad+Dual Core Processor. It may be a mouthful, but it gets the job done. Smart TVs, especially 4K TVs, need a lot of power under the hood to run applications and process images with lots of detail and information. Everything works very well in this realm.

Appearance

Toshiba 84L9300U 4K UHD TV Appearance and Design

The L9300 series features a gun metal trim with a stand to match. The thin black bezels are less than an inch but much wider than most of the ultra thin bezels found on other top tier models. The display is supported by two pillars coming up from each side of the hollowed out square stand. It ends up being very pleasing to the eye. Other top tier LCD/LED models from Samsung, Panasonic, and LG really have the upper hand when it comes to design though. Toshiba's design is a good one, but modest.



Robert Wiley 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
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