An excellent present indeed! (Toshiba 22DV555DB)

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	Toshiba 22DV555DB
Date:	08/01/09 (987 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent picture quality and sound

Disadvantages: I haven't found any yet!

During the credit crunch Dave and I are buying one another presents for the house that we can both enjoy rather than more frivolous things such as my present from a couple of years ago of feeding tigers by hand! For example for our Christmas present to one another we bought a mirror for over the mantelpiece in the lounge at our cottage.

For my birthday last November Dave was initially going to buy a DVD player for the bedroom but what we eventually decided was to get rid of the huge old TV in the spare bedroom, move the flat screen TV from our room to the spare room and get a slightly larger combined TV and DVD player for our room.

We did a lot of research on style, price, specifications and reliability and eventually decided to buy the Toshiba 22DV555DB LCD TV/DVD Combi. At the time the cheapest deal was at www.laskys.com and we paid £333.94 receiving £4.17 cash back via Cashinco.

I have just checked to see what the current prices are and have got a bit of a shock as it is now just £278 - I wonder if they'd send us a refund? LOL! I also noticed that the price at Amazon is £277.98 although it is still over £300 on other sites so it is worth shopping around.

The TV arrived in a smart strong cardboard box complete with carrying handle so it was very easy to carry to the room where it was to be set up. Inside it was well packed in polystyrene so it arrived in perfect condition.

The contents of the box are the TV, a stand and the remote control.

The TV unit itself looks very smart in black although I understand that it is available in white as well and at 22" is just the right size to sit in the corner of the bedroom.

Setting up the TV is very easy as most of them seem to be these days. How many of you remember spending ages trying to tune in your new TV to find all the channels? Well not now - this one does it automatically. It has both analogue and digital tuners so it accesses all the digital channels which is just as well - our analogue signal will be switched off here in Wales within the next year.

There is a comprehensive 61 page instruction book with the TV but there is also a single page Quick Set Up Guide. This tells you how to connect your aerial, put the batteries in the remote control, automatically set up the channels, use the TV and use the DVD. To be honest I would say that the best way to go is to use the quick guide to get started and then dip into the more detailed instructions to find out how to do other things as you go along.

I have no intention of telling you all the various specifications here as it would just be a matter of my copying them from a website or from the instruction book. In either case I feel that it would be better for me to tell you how the TV performs in use and any other information that you need can be gleaned from the Toshiba website at www.toshiba.co.uk

When the television is switched on, the stations all load immediately. You may think that it's a strange thing to tell you but with our previous one there was a delay of about a minute before most of the channels loaded and about 5 minutes before the final few arrived!

The picture is sharp and clear and the set itself is HD ready. The NICAM stereo sound again is very clear and crisp so the viewing experience is excellent.

As I move from channel to channel a display appears on the screen to inform me of the channel in view and the programme playing. This is a great help particularly if I am 'channel hopping'. It means that I don't have to watch each channel trying to work out what the programme is!

The DVD player is simple to use. The DVD is just inserted in the slot to the top left of the television and it immediately sets itself correctly and you are ready to begin to watch. It is then removed by the pressing of a button below the DVD slot.

The remote control is fairly large and initially appears to have far too many buttons! Having said that upon closer inspection it is simply laid out and it is very easy to use.

So there you are we now have a lovely 22" television in the bedroom complete with a DVD player - what decadence!

Summary: A great TV for the bedroom

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Installation:
Sound quality:
Features: