Toshiba 20WLT56

Not impressed at all as both of my TV's had to be replaced after 1 year. I would not buy Toshiba again. The screen stopped showing pictures after 1 year. This was really bad luck because I bought a toshiba 27WLT56 at the same time as the 20inch one (i.e. just over 1 year ago) and the same thing happened to that at the same time. I had to replace both of the televisions after just over 1 years use. So, be aware that they do not live upto their expectations and are very disappointing.

The Picture, Sound, Quality and the Look are all great, the only disadvantage i think is that to turn it totally off, you have to unplug it. I bought mine 1 Year ago and still fascinated by it. The only thing I don't like is the unplug issue.

I bought my Toshiba last week from Empire Direct at Romford Warehouse.

The price was an impressive £388.

Got the set home - plugged it in and a red standby light appeared.

Switched on the TV - via the controls on the top of the set and the red light turned green.

But no picture.

Tried everything else - but to no avail.

Phoned Toshiba - and with the help of their technician went through everything - but all I got was either the red or green lights and no picture.

He gave me a reference number and advised me to take it back to the store.

I thought it best to ring the store before returning the set, as I live 20 miles away.

Good job I did, as they had no other Toshibas in stock.

Should be getting some in tomorrow.

Now you may realise why I gave these ratings.

The Toshiba 20WLT56's manual does not explain how to get cover off back to access plugs. There are two points that say press which you can only see once you have forced cover off. All connections are vertical which means you have to lay it face down to connect. Took three days to tune it to analogue because it did not do what the manual said.

Stopped working after four days and after a long winded phone call was told to take it back to a Dixons shop of which there are none. Argos do a Wharfedale T.V. which is similar and £100 cheaper.

Firstly, I would like to say that when I bought the Toshiba 20WLT56 LCD TV set, I had a real bargain, so my lower score on the value is based on the Retail price of £599. You can purchase it if you shop around for about £450 delivered. I got mine for £380 as a sweetener because of a mix up, but that's another story. SO... back to the set itself.

I had a set criteria as to what I wanted from a TV, and this one was for my bedroom and I needed Freeview and picture in picture, and this one in fact has PIP, PAP, and picture and Text. There are more than enough sockets on the back as it has 2 scart (1 RGB) and a connection for a computer and sound. On the front, behind a pull-down flap, are connections for S Video and phono. There's also a headphone socket just to the side of the TV casing.

Having opened the box I connected the aerial and DVD player I have, and switched the set on. I had the Toshiba Welcome screen greet me. I pressed the one button (OK) which tuned into all the Freeview channels available in my area, and put them in order. Nice one that! No more shuffling them around. You can also tune into the analogue stations. This can be tricky to do, but the picture was equally as nice for analogue.

There's not much in the way of buttons to press for gizmo's and unnecessary things you don't need; after all, you buy a TV to watch a good picture and hear good sound, and this set excels in that department. The picture is crisp and clean with no over bleed of colours; even bright blues and reds are held together solidly, and the blacks are black and whites white, unlike some LCD TV's I've looked at. There's certainly no wash out of here. The picture quality running my Sony DVD player through it was equally as impressive, and I could not fault it there. Just in case you were wondering, it also has several picture format settings, and by adjusting them you can even get rid of those annoying black bars at the top and bottom without too much distortion; something Toshiba call 'Super live', and it works very well too. All in all you have Auto, Wide, 4:3, Cinema, subtitle and Super live, which is more than enough.

The sound is equally as good, offering more then enough umph with 10 watts RMS on offer, and a selection of preset music parameters, including pop and jazz etc, or you can play around yourself. It also has a spatial button which offers a pseudo surround sound. It's OK, but the novelty soon wears off. One nice touch though is the AVL (auto volume level) setting which keeps the volume at the level set, even when those loud annoying adverts come on, which seem to think that people need hearing aids. Another nice touch that.

Like I said earlier, it also has PIP and PAP. This is great! The PIP has a default setting in the top right hand corner, but you can put it into 6 other positions around the edge of the screen. You can even adjust the size of the PIP screen 3 times, giving you a choice so as not to interfere too much with your viewing. The PAP is also useful. This gives you 2 x 10" pictures side by side, and you can swap the sound from one to the other with one press of a button, but you can also listen to either through the headphone socket. This can be useful at times when two people want to watch different programs. The only argument you can have now would be who gets to wear the phones?

Navigating the remote is a doddle as there are only the most wanted buttons on there, and that's all you need.

Up to now there have been only plus points, and there are a few negatives also, which I must point out...

The casing on the set and the remote have a plastic feel, and they do not feel as though they would stand up to much of a knock, BUT as long as you treat this TV with respect and don't throw it around, you should have no problems. I'm not sure if this would classify as a minus point, but the set runs from a power pack, and it is quite large at 8 x 3 x 2, and it can run quite warm when the TV is on, so hiding this box may be a problem for some. It wasn't for me, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

The set itself performs beautifully, and it's slim silver finish would compliment any room, and it does look smart. Up until now I have no complaints.

Shop around and get a good deal, and compare it with other sets, but I doubt you will find a better set for the money.