Reviews: TOSHIBA 43LF711U20 43 inch Ultra Smart

Another customer arev said Initially good but suddenly washed out/ defective display.

Initially we were happy with the product especially since we got it a very good price last Amazon Prime Day sale on July 16, 2018. We liked how we can watch and stream shows easily thru various apps like Netflix, Amazon video, Dramafever, Rakuten etc. Very lighrweight tv and just right for our needs. However to our surprise just awhile ago August 22, 2018, while streaming a drama series, the on screen display turned washed out/white screen. Turned on and off the tv several times to see if it will reboot/restart properly. Unfortunately nothing remedied it. Either you get back to that washed out screen or a totally black screen no apps at all. I have just submitted a replacement request thru Amazon customer service so we will see what happens and how fast they will address our complaint.

Just an update, so we ended up being told by Amazon, to contact Best Buy and we did that by email at the same time indicating in the letter we want a replacement. Best Buy replied to us that it is outside of the return period if we want contact Toshiba directly. So, we did just that..with sheer frustration of course being tossed around. Toshiba nicely told me that they will send the techinician and I asked which company handle this techinician is it Toshiba or a third party. Ironically, they are coordinating with who else. The Geek Squad. Oh dear..back to Best Buy then. The Geek Squad guy came on the appointment date, just a few minutes late, but was nice enough. His assessment as discussed with whoever was on the other end of the line came down to an approval for a replacement. So we were asked to bring the tv over to our local Best Buy, gave us the confirmation and work numbers. Even gave us his business card and that of his manager if in case we encounter problems. For some reason it seems it is not common for them to service products sold by Best Buy throught the Amazon website.

So we went to our local Best Buy. The lady was nice enough, and honest enough to say she was not familiar with an Amazon sale of a Best Buy product. So I had to tell her again the long story of how we got the tv etc etc. Finally someone helped her encode the return correctly and we had a store credit for the complete amount we paid for. However when we got the replacement tv, the price in store is slightly higher so we had to shoulder now the difference. Well, we just paid for it. So in short losing the advantage of that Prime deal sale price which did not work at all with a defective product. We do wish these three companies, Amazon, Best Buy and Toshiba iron out the way they handle requests for replacements and returns....seems initially both Amazon and Best Buy did not want to shoulder the return. If we had not insisted on availing the limited manufacturer's warranty, we would just have been left with a useless crap of a tv.

So we are now watching on this 2nd toshiba tv we got in store at our local Best Buy. Will see if this one will work much better.

So beware fellow buyers, was it a good buy now?? Not really after all that ordeal to get a defective product replaced. So buyer beware!!

While sixerb Talk Flickering issues 1st day & Amazon wouldn't replace it-Prime Day deal was too good apparently.

We bought this 50 inch TV on Prime Day. The picture is a screen shot of a video I took and not very good representation. Upon setting it up the TV had flickering lines and squares in random places on the screen. This occurred no matter what app was being used. I contacted Amazon, Best Buy, and Toshiba via phone to attempt to replace the TV with the same model. Amazon stated that I could only return the TV. Best Buy stated that they would replace it, but I had to go through Amazon, and Amazon refused to replace it. I went to Best Buy locally, and they stated that they could not override Amazon's return policy for Prime Day electronics. I contacted Toshiba to attempt to utilize the warranty, but they stated that since it was new they would not replace it and that I needed to return it to Amazon. So I had to take it apart (no biggie) and place it back inside of the box. Luckily I had the box and styrofoam inserts still. Then I had to lug it to a UPS store to send it back to Amazon for a refund. I will never buy electronics on Prime Day again. The great price was the reason that Amazon and Best Buy stated that the TV would not be replaced. Now I have to wait for either Labor Day sales or Black Friday sales to get a good deal on a TV locally. Thanks a lot Amazon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As MICHAEL P EDWARDS Talk 5 Stars, great TV.

Firstly, YOU *CAN* CHANGE THE SETTINGS SO THE TV DOES NOT ALWAYS START AT THE HOME SCREEN when it turns on. I almost did not buy this TV because of all the negative reviewers who said it sucks so bad because there's nothing you can do about it......... that is simply not true. The TV does factory default to start/turn on at the Amazon Fire home screen, but THERE *IS* A DISPLAY SETTING for you to set the TV to turn on/start at the last input/channel you were on when you turned the TV off last. (See picture).

Now that being said, this really is a great TV; I am entirely happy with my purchase (and I have never really been that excited about buying a new TV). I remodeled my bedroom and I was looking to replace my 20-year-old tube TV for relatively cheap. This TV fit my budget, it sits great on my dresser, and because of the angle of my roof/ceiling I really could not fit a bigger TV even if I wanted.

At the same time I also "cut the cord" and got rid of cable in my house. I wanted a smart tv so I could use my streaming apps (DirectTV Now, Netflix) and I already had a Fire stick in my living room, so having the "Fire" platform built into the TV is a great option. There are certain things I don't like about Amazon Fire but having used other platforms (Roku, GooBang Doo/ MXII & XB-III/Android Box), Fire is the best option for my bedroom. And I didn't want to have additional hardware/boxes & separate remote controls to deal with in my room, so I love that it is all integrated into the TV and I only have 1 remote to deal with.

I have a fairly large master bedroom, and I have my desk at the other side of the room with a PC/router and a separate amp/speakers for the PC. Before setting up the TV I ran some wiring (3 wires) along the baseboards from my desk to the TV -- a Cat5 (wired network for TV), HDMI (video from computer to TV), and a RG6 coax (digital sound FROM the tv back to my amp). The TV itself doesn't have a digital coax output (it does have SPDIF out); a 50-foot fiber optic cable would have been way too expensive, so I bought a $20 SPDIF to coax converter for the back of the TV. I like that the TV has a wired ethernet connection, because I'm not a fan of streaming over wireless, especially when there are like 20 other wireless devices already on the network.

With my cabling in place, I was ready to rock-n-roll. Opened the box, plugged the tv & wires in, turned it on. We had lift off. There was a first-time setup video that played; I skipped past it but for the novice user it might be informative. On screen programming was fairly simple and straight-forward. The biggest decision was whether to set the TV to "Full" or "Basic" mode (which was probably explained in the video but I skipped past it). BASIC mode is just native OTA channels, inputs, and 6 built-in apps (NetFlix, PSVue, HBO, etc). FULL mode gives you access to the entire Fire application and app store, but you will need to already have or create a new Fire account. Obviously I chose Full mode.

From there, I was determined to show all the reviewers wrong by finding the setting that controls start up behavior. I knew it had to be there. It is. Settings > Display & Sounds > Power On > Last Input. GOOD, because I am one of those people that likes the TV to turn onto the last channel/input I was watching. So there we have it, my only real reservation to initially buying the TV was found and fixed. I went through all the other settings and set them to my preferences. Then I went to the App store and downloaded the apps I use. I also deleted the pre-installed apps that I will never use.

I also bought an OTA digital antenna. Since I've had cable for the last 20 years, I never dealt with that analog-to-digital conversion that happened 10+ years ago, and I never experienced all the new .2 and .3 digital channels there are now. Wow. After scanning stations, I had 84 OTA channels available. Honestly, there's enough on regular TV for me to watch that I don't really use the streaming apps. Why didn't I get rid of cable 10 years ago???

THE ONLY CON I have with this TV, is the way it displays OTA channels in the guide and in the quick-view bar.
1) The guide sorts by channel ID (alpha). I wish it sorted by channel number, or gave me the option to sort by channel #. In fact, it doesn't even show the channel # until you select a channel. I know in the modern era we are getting away from #'s. But I still like my channel #'s. If I want channel 9, I want to go scroll to channel 9, but instead I have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find WGN.
2) I miss having channel up and channel down buttons. Everything is through the "guide" now. You can press the down button, and you get a quick-select menu, which I find more convenient that the "guide." I would still rather flip from one channel to the next with 1 click and not have to go through menus.
3) YOu can set stations as your "favorite" and then show only favorites. But that only applies to the guide. The quick-select menu still shows every single station available. Since the quick select menu shows recently viewed stations first, my solution was just to go view each of my favorites, and then they show up first before all the other channels.

Given the few "cons" which are negligible, I would still buy this TV again, and I may end up buying a larger version of it for my living room the next time my projector lamp goes out. Definitely 5 stars for value received to cost.

This a word from Jeff Stepan tell us wifi and ethenet malfunctioning -- unusable.

The first month or so I had this TV - worked very well and was integrated with Fire TV. It was very easy to use until my ethernet port stopped detecting my cable and the TV only intermittently detects my WIFI despite being next to my router.

Unable to use for its intended purpose of streaming with these issues.

Another customer Matt K Review tell us Best Toshiba Smart 4K TV.

I bought this 50-inch Toshiba on 2018 Prime Day for $289.99 and I had to buy it for that price. I have two other Toshiba TVs. One isn't a Smart TV and the other has Google Chromecast built in. This Toshiba with the Amazon Fire Stick built-in is much better. The menu is very easy to navigate and you don't have to use an app from your phone to operate the smart functions. Setup was super easy and fairly quick, but needed some software update time. Most importantly, the picture and sound are great. I have a soundbar, but the speakers on the TV alone are loud enough and have a quality sound. I definitely think this Toshiba deserves 5 Stars for the price and yes I'm a grown man that watches cartoons if you saw the pictures.

Update: I've had this TV for several months and it is still going strong. The picture is still crisp and it is continuously on for hours throughout the day. I've seen many reviews about losing internet connection, but I had a simple remedy to my internet issue. I did lose connection once when I moved my TV and had to disconnect the ethernet wire. I could not get the TV to connect to the internet after I plugged the ethernet cable back in and the wireless internet could not connect. The internet didn't connect until I did a factory reset and never had anymore issues. Even with that small issue that I had, I continue to love my Toshiba!

Another customer supermario tell us Buyer Beware.

 I normally don't write product reviews, but the quality of this Amazon-branded item is so poor that a review is needed. The issue with this system began about 3 months after purchase. At first, I thought the issue was with our cable service; however, after closer inspection, the issue stems from the product manufacturer, Toshiba. I purchased the system during my first ever Prime Day purchase, direct from Amazon. The screen just glitches out and then goes solidly black. Unplugging the television only reproduces the same glitches. Now, someone from Geek Squad is headed to my home to look at shoddy, defective, equipment. While I am hopeful that this Amazon-branded product will be replaced, I will not hold my breath.

This a word from jamie said Doesn't stay connected to the internet.

At first, the TV worked great; easy to navigate, great picture. After 4 days, it wouldn't stay connected to the internet which left me with no access to the homepage or any apps. Then, one day, it started randomly working again. But only for about a week. It is now down, yet again. I have contacted Amazon, Best Buy, and Toshiba. No luck. The issue is NOT the internet because every other device in the house is fully connected without issues. At this point, I need to just buy a different TV all together. I will not be purchasing another Tobisha Amazon Fire TV. I would think twice about purchasing this.

While Alyssa tell us Extremely Faulty TV.

Thank goodness for that 30-day return policy because we got two of these TV's and both stopped working within a week of receiving. The first TV worked for a few days and then lost functionality of most of the buttons on the remote. For a smart TV, it's important that you can use the limited amount of buttons that are on the remote. We thought it was the remote so we had Toshiba send us a brand new remote. After we got the new remote we tried using that and had the same exact issues. I tried using the fire TV remote on my iPhone and had the same issues - we had to assume it was the TV at this point and sent it back for an exchange. When we got the new TV everything worked well.... for 2 days. On day 3 the screen went completely black and never came back on. We could hear what the TV was playing but could not see anything. The screen was completely shot. We packed it back up and sent it back to amazon (again) and just ordered a different brand. Too bad this TV was so faulty, because we really liked it when it worked for those few short days. I didn't want to order another and have it crap out on me after the 30-day return policy.

Review corinne coker said Terrible quality, do not buy!.

Do not buy this TV! We bought this TV on Prime Day and we’re excited to upgrade our bedroom tv. It is a piece of crap!! The TV picture turns off and goes to only audio when you change the channel. You have to unplug the TV to get the picture back on. The sound quality is also poor. We are in the process of returning this

As Amazon Customer tell us You get what you pay for.

During Prime Day I purchased a 50” Toshiba Fire TV, sold by Best Buy. At the same time, I had an Xfinity XR15 box replacement sent so I could take advantage of the TVs 4K Ultra.

Trying to pair the XR15 remote creates a conflict between the XR15 remote and the TVs remote. Each remote will only fully work about 20% of the time. Each remotes buttons will periodically lose functionality. The volume buttons on the XR15 remote rarely work. The power button on each remote almost never work.

Initially, I believed this was a hardware problem with the television. I contacted Amazon, who in turn contacted Best Buy, who in turn sent a Geek Squad tech to my place. The tech and I worked at this for about an hour (I’ve worked in QA for the past ten years), and we determined that there seems to be a conflict caused because the TVs remote is Bluetooth, but the XR15 remote appears to be IR. Something’s going wrong and it seems like there needs to be a software update to address this. I’ve tried every available Toshiba code, but none eliminate this problem. I’ve also tried using. Logitech Harmony universal remote, but the same problem occurs.

The TVs remote works with no issue, until the XR15 remote gets paired to control the television. Once the XR15 remote is paired and it starts receiving user input, the problems begin. It’s like the two remotes are fighting for dominance, then they get tired and stop working altogether.

Furthermore, I don’t know why this is considered to have 4K Ultra resolution. The picture quality, crispness and color brightness is far inferior to the Samsung 1080 tv I replaced with this one.