Home > Consumer Reviews > Toshiba W607 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR

Before I offer my evaluation of the Toshiba W-607, I would like to express a general observation of the majority of the VCRs available on the market at this time. Due to the competition to offer lower priced units, I feel that this has been detrimental to picture quality, especially when viewing tapes recorded from network TV. In the past year and a half I have had to replace two VCRs that were purchased approximately five years ago and fell in the $400 price range. None of the half dozen makes or models I brought home came close to duplicating the older units picture quality.

The Toshiba W-607 was purchased to replace a 5-year-old Toshiba model M-660, an excellent machine that I used as my criteria when judging all other VCRs. Although the picture quality of taped programming, including digital cable, falls short of the M-660, it comes quite close. Overall I am pleased with the W-607's performance and features. It's mechanical functions are smooth and quiet. All of the new Toshiba's offer the one minute rewind capability with T-120 tapes. Although this feature may seem convenient, it is a generally known fact that the fastest way to damage the VCRs mechanism, is to rewind tapes in the VCR. It is far better to invest in a separate tape rewinder for $10 or $15.

Programming and set up is straightforward. The addition of auto channel scan and automatic clock setting, are probably the greatest improvements in new VCR technology.

The 607 lacks the "index" feature available on the older unit. This feature placed an electronic "tag" or "flag" on the tape to indicate and allowed easy return to a chosen location on the recording or the start of a recording and remained on the tape until it was taped over. The 607 does have a "counter reset" that allows the user to rewind or fast forward to that zero point. This can only be used once during recording and leaves no electronic "tag", meaning that once the tape is removed, the zero point is lost. My other complaint is that whenever a tape is inserted and viewed, the on-screen display automatically shows the counter setting, speed etc. this information can be removed by pressing the remote's display button. I must say that this feature is useful when flipping through channels in that it displays the program title and channel being viewed.

The newer remote has larger main function buttons for play, pause, rewind etc. but retains the record and timer buttons of the older remote, which I feel have always been too small for easy activation.

Despite the fact that I have pointed out a number of negative features of Toshiba's Model W-607, my primary concern for high quality recording/playback, ranks this VCR number 1 among all the "newer" units I have tried. Taking into consideration that the W-607's price is approximately one-third the price of a unit purchased five years ago, I guess a few concessions must be made.

Picture quality and sound are excellent, the rapid rewind feature is terrific, and the unit's full-size chassis makes it fit in nicely with standard A/V gear, if that's a concern. The remote is unusually well-designed and convenient. Whenever the unit is powered off, a loud "bump" sound comes through the speakers--this isn't the case with any other VCR I've tried, including an earlier Toshiba model. And when one is watching TV, the unit defaults to "Display" mode, showing time, channel, and program information superimposed over the TV image--one has to press the "Display" key twice to clear it, an extremely annoying inconvenience...

This is a great product ! Definately value for money. The picture and sound quality are very satisfying. In all very satisfied costomer.