Toshiba C350 Series 2021 TV Review

The Toshiba C350 has a redesigned style compared to the Toshiba Fire TV 2020, as it looks sleeker. The bezels aren't as intrusive, and the bottom bezel is now silver. Even the feet are metallic instead of plastic. It doesn't seem like a cheap TV and should look nice in any setup.

After two months on the longevity test the peak brightness of this TV has dropped a bit. It's still unclear if this is just a temporary drop or if it'll continue to drop long-term.

The Fire TV 2021 comes with new metal feet that don't support it all that well because there's noticeable wobble front to back. It also doesn't raise the screen off the table very much, so placing a soundbar in front might block the screen.

Footprint of the 55-inch TV: 37" W x 9.25" D x 2.5" H

The back of the Toshiba C350 actually looks a lot like a Hisense TV, like the Hisense H6570G. The top part holding the panel is textured metal, and the parts at the bottom and on the inputs are both plastic. Sadly, there's nothing for cable management. There are hook-like objects on the back of the legs, but they don't do anything for the cables.

The bezels aren't as obvious as on the Toshiba Fire TV 2020 and are slightly thinner.

The TV has a slight backwards tilt. It's not very noticeable in person, but it does appear to be by design rather than a defect with this specific unit.

The FireTV 2021 has decent build quality. It's designed differently than the Toshiba Fire TV 2020, but the materials used seem to be the same as it's made of both plastic and metal. It improves in a few areas like the metal feet and the thinner borders. It feels solid throughout and doesn't wobble side-to-side, but it tilts easily back to front.

The Toshiba 55C350 has mediocre contrast. Blacks look gray in the dark, and there's no local dimming feature to improve dark scene performance.

The SDR brightness is bad. It's much worse than the Toshiba Fire TV 2020 and it doesn't get bright enough to fight glare in well-lit rooms. Luckily, the brightness doesn't vary at all between different scenes.

These measurements are after calibration in the 'Movie' Picture Mode with the Backlight set to its max, Contrast at '75', Mid Luminance Gamma set to '-1', and Color Temperature set to 'Warm'.

There's no local dimming feature. We still film these videos on the TV so you can see how the backlight performs and compare it with a TV that has local dimming.

Once again, there's no local dimming, and the videos above are provided so you can see how the backlight performs in Game Mode versus a TV with local dimming.

The Toshiba C350 has bad HDR brightness. It gets brighter than in SDR, but it's not enough to make highlights pop in HDR. Once again, there's no variation in brightness between scenes. The EOTF doesn't follow the target very well as darker scenes are over-brightened and bright scenes are too dark, causing a loss in details.

These measurements are in the 'Movie' HDR Picture Mode with the Backlight at its max and the Color Temperature set to 'Warm 2' and all other image processing disabled.

The HDR brightness in Game Mode looks a bit brighter than outside of Game Mode, but the results are about the same. It's not enough to make highlights stand out. These measurements are with the same settings as outside of Game Mode, but with the HDR Picture Mode set to 'Game'.

The Toshiba C350 has okay gray uniformity, but the sides of the screen are significantly darker than the center. There's also some dirty screen effect in the center, which is distracting while watching sports. Uniformity is better in near-dark scenes, but there's still some backlight bleed along the edges.

The Toshiba C350 Series has disappointing black uniformity. The entire screen looks blue because of the low contrast ratio and raised blacks, and the sides of the screen are darker.

The Toshiba C350 Series has a good viewing angle. The image remains consistent as you move off to the side, with very little color shift, but it appears darker at really wide angles. This makes it a good choice for a wide seating arrangement, as anyone sitting to the side will still enjoy a consistent image.

The reflection handling is decent. It handles a small amount of light well, like from a lamp or overhead lightbulbs, but it's not as good with strong light sources on it. It's a bit worse than the Toshiba Fire TV 2020 because it reflects more light straight back.

The accuracy before calibration is very good. Most colors are only slightly inaccurate, and any issues aren't really noticeable. However, the white balance is a bit off, and the gamma doesn't follow the target well, so most scenes are too dark. Also, the color temperature is colder than the 6500K target, giving the image a blue tint.

The accuracy after calibration is excellent, but the calibration settings are limited, and you can't adjust the white balance. Still, the colors and white balance improved, and the color temperature is close to the target. Gamma is also better overall, but most scenes are still too dark.

You can see our full calibration settings here.

Sadly, the Toshiba C350 doesn't upscale 480p content properly, so it's not suggested for watching DVDs from an older source. As long as your source upscales DVDs to at least 1080p, you won't have any issues. The image looks blurry, and it doesn't display a proper 16:9 aspect ratio either. The photo above is cropped for the proper ratio and you can see the original here.

Unlike the Toshiba Fire TV 2020, the Toshiba C350 TV isn't good at displaying 720p content like from cable boxes. The image is less sharp and looks choppy.

Fortunately, the Toshiba C350 TV displays 1080p content like from Blu-rays well.

This TV displays a perfect 4k image and there aren't any dithering issues like with the Toshiba Fire TV 2020.

This is a 4k TV that can't display an 8k image.

The Toshiba C350 Series has an RGB sub-pixel layout, which helps with text clarity when using it as a PC monitor.

The Toshiba C350 Series has an okay color gamut. It has trouble displaying the primaries in either the DCI P3 or Rec. 2020 color spaces, and tone mapping is off in both.

Due to the narrow color gamut, the color volume is disappointing. Bright colors are displayed well, but it can't display dark saturated colors well due to its low contrast ratio.

This TV has excellent gradient handling in SDR. There's some banding in dark shades of gray and green, but it's not very noticeable. The Debanding Filter improves gradients in real content when set to 'High' or 'Medium'.

There aren't any signs of temporary image retention on our unit, but this can vary.

Although some IPS panels can suffer from temporary image retention, this doesn't appear to be permanent as the IPS panel in our long-term test is immune.

The Toshiba C350 has a decent response time. Although it's slower than the Toshiba Fire TV 2020, there's a lot less overshoot with darker transitions, so you won't notice any black smearing behind darker shades.

The Toshiba C350 is entirely flicker-free, and it doesn't use pulse width modulation to dim the backlight. This helps reduce eye strain if you're going to use it as a computer monitor and helps avoid image duplications.

Unfortunately, there's no optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion, to help improve the appearance of motion.

The Toshiba C350 Series doesn't have a motion interpolation feature.

Due to the somewhat slower response time, there's not much stutter with lower-frame rate content.

Sadly, the Toshiba C350 TV doesn't remove judder from any source. This is disappointing considering most entry-level TVs like the LG UP7000 can at least remove judder from native 24p sources.

The Toshiba C350 has a basic 60Hz panel and doesn't support any variable refresh rate technologies.

The Toshiba 55C350KU has very low input lag as long as you're in Game Mode. There's very little delay between your actions on your controller and the action on screen.

The Toshiba C350 only displays basic signals at 60Hz, and it can't display chroma 4:4:4 properly at any supported resolution. This is disappointing if you want to use it as a PC monitor, as most text appears blurry.

As the TV doesn't support high-frame rate content, you're limited to 4k gaming at 60Hz from either the Xbox Series X or PS5. It has an Auto Low Latency Mode setting that automatically switches the TV into Game Mode when you play a game from a compatible device, but it's not clear that it's in Game Mode. A HDR symbol appears in the top right, as you can see in this photo.

The Toshiba C350 TV is one of the few TVs we've tested in 2021 that still has Composite inputs, which is great if you have old entertainment devices, like DVD players or a PS2.

The Toshiba C350 Series has eARC support, allowing you to pass high-quality, uncompressed audio like Dolby Atmos or DTS:X formats to a compatible receiver through an HDMI connection.

The Toshiba C350 has a poor frequency response. It doesn't produce any low bass, so there's no thump or rumble in action scenes. It doesn't get very loud, and the sound profile isn't the most balanced either, but it's fine enough to listen to dialogue.

The Toshiba C350 has great distortion performance. There isn't much distortion even when listening at its max volume, and not everyone may hear it.

The Toshiba C350 comes with the Amazon Fire TV platform built-in. It's user-friendly, and the menu navigation feels smooth with no obvious bugs. It's not as advanced as some other platforms, but it's still good for most people.

There are ads in the Home and Live tabs in the interface, as well as the app store. There's no way to disable them.

The app store has a great selection of apps available to download. You can cast content from your phone, but it's not as easy as other TVs. It doesn't support Google Chromecast, so you have to screen mirror your Android phone, but it does have Apple AirPlay and HomeKit, so it's more user-friendly for iOS users.

The Toshiba C350 comes with the same remote as the Toshiba Fire TV 2020. It's simple with the necessary navigation buttons and shortcut buttons to popular streaming services. The built-in mic allows you to ask to change HDMI inputs, open apps, and search for content, but you can't ask it to change certain settings. It also works with compatible Amazon Alexa devices.

There's a single button underneath the center of the TV to turn it On/Off or change inputs.

• Remote (with 2x AAA batteries)
• Power cable
• User guides