Pros:
– Good picture quality with close-to-natural colours
– Compliant with Dolby Vision and HDR10+
– Good connectivity options including newer HDMI 2.1 ports
– Loud and punchy sound output
– Vidaa OS is easy to use and with better app support now
– Access to picture and sound settings on the fly
– Affordable
Cons:
– Refresh rate limited to 60Hz
– Slight backlight bleeding near the edges
– Ports placement could have been better
Price: Rs 39,999
Overall Rating: 4/5
Four years ago, we reviewed a Toshiba TV with Vidaa OS. While the platform showed glimpses of promise, it was still pretty much a work in progress. Cut to the present, we have one of the new budget QLED TVs from the company running the same OS. The feature list looks quite impressive in terms of the price it is asking for. But would its proprietary software platform hold it back or prove to be a great addition? Let’s find out.
Toshiba 55C450ME QLED TV – Design and connectivity: 8/10
Like most TV these days, this one sports a near bezel-less design on three sides. The bottom bezel is relatively thicker, but not too thick, and has a small chin that holds the power LED and some other circuitry. The metallic strip along the bottom bezel lends the design a dash of elegance. The TV can be wall-mounted or placed on a desk using the bundled plastic stands. They hold the TV in place without a wobble. A wall-mounting kit hasn’t been included and might be provided during installation if needed.
You get a voice-enabled remote in the package. The remote is quite big like those of yesteryear with a lot of buttons and the most number of hotkeys I have ever seen. The necessary screws and a pair of AA batteries are present in the package. While it has all the necessary functions, it may take some time to locate them initially in the clutter. The remote operates over Bluetooth and comes pre-paired with the TV (at least in our review unit).
In the connectivity department, you have a great spread. You get two HDMI 2.0 ports and one newer HDMI 2.1 port which supports eARC, which is great to see on a budget TV. In addition, you have two USB 2.0 ports, Optical audio out, A/V input, 3.5 mm headphone out and a LAN port. Wireless connectivity options include Bluetooth 4.2 and dual-band WiFi with support for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks.
While all the key bases are covered, the placement of ports could have been smarter. They are placed closer to the centre of the TV rather than near the edge, making them hard to access if you wall-mount it. The placement would have been fine for a smaller screen size, up to 43 inches, but the ports need to be closer to the edge for a TV this big.
Toshiba 55C450ME QLED TV – Features and specifications: 8/10
This Toshiba QLED TV has a 55-inch VA panel with an Ultra HD resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels and a 60Hz refresh rate. The refresh rate is one area where the company has cut corners to keep the cost down. We are so used to seeing 120Hz or higher on newer TVs these days, including models from Toshiba. So one can expect a bit of motion blur in console gaming on this TV. It won’t matter as much when watching stuff on OTT platforms.
The normal brightness is rated at 350 nits with no mention of peak values. It has a 3800:1 native contrast ratio which is pretty decent for the segment. It supports HDR10/10+ as well as Dolby Vision, which covers all popular HDR bases. It can display close to a billion colour shades with 8-bit + FRC colour depth. This TV is powered by a quad-core MediaTek MT9602 processor. RAM and internal storage figures aren’t provided.
Sound output is rated at 24 Watts RMS with support for Dolby Atmos and DTS X among others. Since this is not a Google/Android TV, you do not get integrated Chromecast to cast content, but you can mirror your phone or tablet’s screen on this TV. We have already touched upon the remote, but I would like to add that it supports a couple of voice assistants – the home-grown Vidaa Voice and Amazon’s Alexa. The latter can be used to control smart devices from the Amazon ecosystem if you have any.
Toshiba 55C450ME QLED TV – OS and User Interface: 7.5/10
This TV runs Toshiba’s Vidaa U6 OS. It’s been four years since I tested a TV with that platform, and I could immediately see some improvements – cosmetic as well as functional. For starters, the app support looks a lot richer now. Though it is nowhere close to being as comprehensive as Android/Google TVs or that offered by Amazon’s Fire OS, you at least have apps for all popular OTT streaming services in India including Prime Video, Netflix, Sony LIV, Disney+ Hotstar, Jio Cinema and more.
It is fairly easy to operate even for a novice thanks to a simple icon-based user interface and uncomplicated menus. You can browse through the UI using the D-pad on the remote and select an option using the OK button. The UI is simple, smooth, and lag-free and it is easy to locate the desired menu option. There is a media player to play content from USB drives if you are still into it.
There are a good amount of audio and video settings to tinker with that are easily accessible on the fly from any app or input mode and tweak the picture or sound in real-time, irrespective of whether you are watching something on an app like Netflix or through an HDMI source like DTH. Unfortunately, the TV doesn’t boot in less than 15 seconds as it used to in the older version of the OS. It gets there in 30 seconds now, which is acceptable and still faster than most Android/Google TVs. Post that, the TV comes back on in just a couple of seconds from standby mode.
While things are generally smooth and stable, a couple of minor snags continue to exist, but they aren’t deal-breakers. For instance, the TV asks you to choose the input source everytime after booting up even if there’s none, instead of heading straight to the Home screen automatically. It happens even when you wake the TV from standby mode. If you can look past these minor quirks, Vidaa OS is simple, effective and a good alternative to Google’s TV platforms as long as the developers can continue to build on the app support.
Toshiba 55C450ME QLED TV – Picture quality: 8/10
I was quite impressed with the picture quality of this TV, and especially the colour reproduction. A lot of budget QLED TVs that I have tested tend to be a little harsh on the eyes due to boosted colours, but not this Toshiba. The colours feel lively yet natural for most parts right out of the box. Yes, you can tweak them further for even better accuracy. You get a good amount of picture adjustments like the usual brightness, contrast, sharpness to colour temperature, adaptive contrast and more to fine-tune the picture to your liking.
The 4K panel is fairly bright with good contrast, and details in dark areas in high-contrast scenes in our test videos were clearly visible. There was no flickering either. The black levels, though not great, can be termed as above average, but they are par for the course for the segment. The same can be said about the viewing angles on this VA panel; reasonably broad but you can see some colour shift from sharper angles.
This TV supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision and 4K HDR content encoded in those formats look sharp and vibrant on this screen. The TV doesn’t flash an HDR10 or Dolby Vision logo when playing the corresponding content, but the picture presets get the respective prefix when playing HDR content. While the TV does support these HDR formats, and there are no real complaints about the picture quality, don’t expect performance (especially contrast) similar to more expensive TVs given its modest brightness level.
4K SDR content looks sharp on this TV too with accurate colours and ample detail. 1080p Full HD content is upscaled really well and actually looks as good as 4K in certain cases. 720p videos were perfectly watchable too, but obviously not as sharp. Anything lower than 720p looks a bit too soft, which is the case with most 4K TVs this size. One complaint I have about this unit is a bit of backlight bleeding along the edges. While it doesn’t impact the viewing experience much, it shouldn’t be there.
Toshiba 55C450ME QLED TV – Audio quality: 7.5/10
A pair of speakers rated at 24 Watts RMS delivers loud and punchy sound output. Of course, it cannot be compared to that of a decent soundbar, but the dialogue clarity is good and there’s a fair degree of warmth that makes it sound pleasant. You get multiple audio presets here of which the Music preset offers the best results. You have a few sound tweaks to play around with too. As I mentioned earlier, the TV speakers are compliant with Dolby Atmos and DTS X, but it’s best to keep your expectations in check.
The output is more than adequate when watching news or sports or other dialogue-heavy content. It does a decent job with music and movies/ web series too. The audio is generally loud enough even around 25 per cent volume level. If you seek more loudness or better sound quality, you can always connect a soundbar or a speaker system, given the number of audio outputs available here like Bluetooth, optical, HDMI etc.
Toshiba 55C450ME QLED TV – Price and verdict
The Toshiba 55C450ME QLED TV is priced at Rs 39,999 and you get a 2-year warranty on the product. You can get it for a couple of thousands lower using certain payment methods or during online sales from time to time. That makes it one of the more affordable QLED TVs around with a good all-round feature set. It doesn’t offer anything fancy but its impressive picture quality with good HDR support, punchy sound output, broad connectivity options and improved app ecosystem on Vidaa OS justify the price tag and earn our recommendations.