Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
As part of this mission, whenever we review a product we send the company a series of questions to help us gauge and make transparent the impact the device has on the environment. The picture is solid at all levels. For detail, for scaling, for contrast and largely for colour too, it performs well for its low price. The only real reason not to buy this TV is that there are bigger and better ones available for similar money.
The 50UK3163DB’s taste for spectacle is let down somewhat by its colour handling. The screen just doesn’t seem able to support a wide enough colour gamut to ‘keep up’ with its intense brightness, leading to some bright tones looking a bit thin and washed out versus some rivals. Similarly, the picture can clip subtle shading out of bright HDR and even SDR highlights quite noticeably thanks, presumably, to its preference for presenting HDR as brightly as possible rather than tempering it to the screen’s specific brightness capabilities with serious HDR tone mapping.We test every TV we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product. While the Toshiba 50UK4D63DB can’t fully escape its budget nature, there’s simply no 50-inch TV that currently offers a better all-round combination of performance and features available for such a low price.
You can improve things marginally – and we do mean marginally – by tinkering with the Adaptive Luma and Local Contrast controls. But even with the 55QA5D63DB’s contrast optimised as much as possible, very dark scenes in beloved films are honestly difficult to watch.The 50UK4D63DB gets off to a strong start by using a native 4K VA panel with direct LED lighting – a combination that usually delivers better contrast than IPS/edge-lit rivals. Though it’s worth saying right away that the VA panel does limit viewing angles. Try not to watch from more than around 30 degrees off axis if you don’t want to see a significant reduction in contrast and colour saturation. Inevitably for a 50-inch TV costing this little, the 50UK4D63DB features a 60Hz panel. This, together with the limited bandwidth of its trio of HDMI ports, denies it any support for today’s 120Hz gaming graphics, at either 4K or HD resolutions.
A play of Aquaman in 4K HDR highlights the set’s deficiencies; contrast is hot, detail is missing in the brightest areas. However, a switch to the Dolby Vision version helps for a more refined and controlled HDR performance. The available picture modes include Cinema, Natural, Dynamic, Sports and Game alongside their HDR versions. Cinema, Natural and Dynamic are your best bets, but they come with caveats.There are, to be fair, one or two more picture areas where the 55QA5D63DB does pretty well. Its native 4K pictures are crisp and sharp (a touch too much in its Vivid and Standard picture presets, perhaps), and the sharpness doesn’t break down badly when there’s motion in the frame. Nor is there any of the overt smearing or excessive judder we still often see on budget TVs, even with 24p movie sources.
Great Deal 
New Comment