Blu-ray Players

Toshiba’s Blu-ray players have never been cutting-edge affairs, but the company has wholeheartedly embraced 3D. The BDX3200 is its latest 3D-ready effort and with its £150 price tag should appeal to those on a budget – although Sony’s BDP-S480 costs the same amount and offers much more in functionality.

The BDX3200 is easy on the eye, with slim bodywork (42.5mm high) and a sleek black finish.

I had absolutely no trouble using the player, thanks to the uncomplicated menu system and its responsiveness to remote commands. Disc loading times are fairly fast, taking 50 seconds to load Terminator Salvation.

It boasts a surprisingly wide range of picture adjustments, grouped as Video Processing and Motion Video Processing. These let you alter the usual parameters, as well as offering presets, noise reduction and tweaks for individual colours. Get the settings spot on and the deck delivers impressive 2D and 3D pictures.

The front-mounted USB port provides media playback and supports MKV and DivX HD.

The feature set is decidedly lacking. Wi-fi support (built-in or dongle), network streaming, smartphone control, built-in BD Live memory, a second HDMI output and 2D-to-3D conversion are all absent. Toshiba also missed a trick by not adding its new Toshiba Places internet portal to its player.

The picture adjustments should have been grouped into a single menu, as some of the settings overlap – without careful use you can end up spoiling the picture.

Toshiba BDX3200
Price: £150 Approx

Overall: 3/5