Toshiba 47L7200U

Toshiba 47L7200U review

If you crave having the latest gadgetry built into your television, 2012 is a pretty good year. No, Toshiba's flagship L7200U LED doesn't have the gesture-controlled futurism of Samsung or the voice-activated fun of LG, but it does boast a couple of unique features of its own: a built-in program guide, the ability to control a cable box, and an included nearly-full-size QWERTY keyboard. Of the three only the keyboard proved useful in practice, but when paired with a capable Web browser it ups the L7200U's appeal for gizmo-inclined buyers. For the rest of us, however, the L7200U is just not a very good value. Despite a promising spec sheet that includes local dimming, the L7200U exhibited subpar overall picture quality. Couple that with a flagship price and you end up paying way too much for features of questionable worth on a TV. I performed a hands-on evaluation of the 55-inch Toshiba 55L7200U, but this review also applies to the other screen size in the series. The two have identical specs and according to the manufacturer should provide very similar picture quality.