Helping its HDR performance out is the way the TV retains better black levels despite its brightness than we customarily find on budget TVs. The 50UK4D63DB’s remote control is well-built and features prominent, well-spaced and well-labelled buttons that helpfully include direct access options to the Prime Video, Netflix, Freeview Play, Twitch and Rakuten TV streaming services. This is especially true, unexpectedly, with Toshiba’s Cinema preset, which for various other reasons, as we’ll see, is definitely your best all-round option ahead of the default Natural preset. This is pretty quickly explained, though, by the set’s support for relatively high-end features such as Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos sound.

Toshiba 50UK4D63DB review - What Hi-Fi?

As a result it’s going to have to do at least one special thing if it’s going to stand out from the crowd. As the UK bit of its name suggests, the Toshiba 50UK4D63DB is only available in the UK, with no similar variants to be found in other territories. There’s no support for the Samsung-designed HDR10+ platform, but if you had to pick between Dolby Vision and HDR10+ (there are some more expensive TVs that support both), there’s much more content out there that uses Dolby Vision. Pay in 3 is a form of credit, may not be suitable for everyone and use may affect your credit score.The mid-range is quite open and expressive, and escalates decently well to meet the challenge of big action movie moments.

Toshiba UK4D 50 inch 4K HDR Smart TV with Alexa - Laptops

With this in mind, it was pretty much impossible to predict what we were going to get out of the new 50-inch 50UK3163DB when it landed on our test benches. Our TRU picture technology provides smooth, upscaled and more detailed viewing whatever you’re watching.There are numerous mid-range and even lower-mid LCD models out there that can go brighter still, too. The 50UK4D63DB also follows its 50UK3163DB predecessor in achieving a genuine 4K feeling with the sharpness and detail density of its pictures. There’s no sign of cabinet rattle or speaker drop out/crackle, however, and the openness of the mid-range hides the lack of bass to some extent. There’s also enough power to push to high volumes before anything sounds uncomfortable or the speakers start to crackle, drop out or buzz.

Toshiba 50UK3163DB 50-inch TV review | What Hi-Fi?

Its entirely healthy obsession with trying to give you the maximum 4K and HDR bang for your buck may well win it plenty of fans, though.

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. So much so, in fact, that they make the efforts of even some recent LCD TVs we’ve seen from the usually dependable Samsung look soft and undefined by comparison. It’s hard to think of any TV brand that better fits Forrest Gump’s “life is like a box of chocolate” mantra than Toshiba. Finally in the negative column, motion handling is only solid rather than great, even with the Tru Motion feature active.

Toshiba UK4D 50 inch 4K HDR Smart TV with Alexa 50UK4D63DB

Dark scenes are invariably affected by the familiar low-contrast blue-grey mist effect, immediately denying them the natural, cinematic look they enjoy on the very best TVs. We don’t find that the screen needs help often from its motion processor, even with action-packed 24fps movies, but if you do find the screen’s native judder a touch too much, the Tru Flo processing’s Low setting does a decent job of taking the edge off without creating the dreaded soap opera effect (or too many unwanted digital side effects). But by budget standards, the 50UK4D63DB produces comfortably more light with both full-screen bright HDR images and small HDR highlights than expected. Finally, it’s worth coming back to the fact that the 50UK3163DB uses a direct LED lighting array (where the lights sit directly behind the screen rather than around its edges) and a VA panel to create its pictures.

The two blade-style feet you get with the TV are solid, easy to attach, leave the TV feeling stable, and become almost invisible when you’re watching the TV head-on. The former enables the TV to take advantage of extra scene-by-scene data delivered by Dolby Vision sources, while the latter sees the TV taking on the challenge of creating a soundstage capable of delivering at least a sense of Dolby Atmos’s object-based approach to sound. The 50UK4D63DB even enjoys a bit of promoted video processing courtesy of Toshiba’s TRU Picture Engine. There’s no faded or wan look to skin tones, while heavily saturated hues don’t tip over into gaudiness or unnaturalness despite looking more vibrant than might have been expected.