The Toshiba 23RL933B is one if the few small-screen TVs to boast a full set of smart features, including BBC iPlayer – and for that, it's to be commended. Given that a likely place for these TVs is in the bedroom, and that the BBC has reported large spikes in iPlayer use around bedtime, it’s a no-brainer to include it on a small-sized telly.
Aside from the BBC's ubiquitous catch-up app, the Toshiba Places hub also includes the Acetrax movie-streaming service, Aupeo! online radio, news apps, Facebook, Twitter… the list goes on. It's a class act.
Of course, a TV must also display broadcast footage, so that's how we begin our test. After initial set up with a THX Optimizer Blu-ray (the Toshiba's controls offer quite fine adjustment, but it did take us rather a long time to dial-in the settings), we start things off with old favourite Homes Under the Hammer on BBC One in standard-def.
Toshiba 23RL933B: Picture quality
Colours are slightly shifted to the yellow end of the spectrum, which can make whites look a little off, and can have a knock-on effect when it comes to skin-tones.
Likewise, there’s an art to balancing the backlight control with the brightness: too much of either and white areas lose all their detail (and there isn’t an awful lot to begin with).
On to DVD, and the news is far better. There's more detail here, in fact, than with the Philips 22PFL3517T/12, and skin-tones are more accurate. Check out the remaster of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and the starry backdrop is vivid and stable, while textures are rendered nicely.
Time to rev up a Blu-ray, and it’s off to the Isle of Man with TT: Closer To The Edge. Here, again, the picture is slightly off in white tone, but there's plenty of detail to dark areas.
It's not the strongest performer when it comes to overall contrast. But the Toshiba makes up for it with its easy-to-watch picture. It’s not as smooth as we'd like, but that's a minor quibble.
Toshiba 23RL933B: Connectivity
It's pretty well-sorted for connections, too: round the back are two HDMIs, composite inputs, component in, SCART, a PC input and an optical digital audio output, while round the side is another HDMI input, a headphone socket and a USB port.
We like the Toshiba. It has a fantastic set of smart features – and with a bit more attention paid to that all-important colour palette and white-handling, it would be a shoo-in for five stars.
