Toshiba W522 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR

The worst part was recording as you have to press 2 buttons in order to program recording. When it was recording, a big "REC" showed in the beginning and then replaced by tape meter which could confuse you as you might not realize it was recording. When programming, channels were not defaulted to those you had access but it went from channel 1, 2, 3...ie, it was a bit time consuming to program.

Remote was OK but it was quick enough if you do commercial skipping.

Soundwise, for some reasons, it was better than my hi-fi panasonic even with the same home theatre set up.

Durability wise, I bought mine from Nov 2002 & I broke it in early June 2003 when I tried to clean up the tape head. Something just fell out when I opened it and tried to clean it the 2nd time. I guess it was my fault. The inside of it was made with a lot of plastics which I don't think it would last long anyway. However, it is reasonable if you don't pay more than $ bucks for this unit. Now I have to deal with Toshiba people. Don't know the outcome yet.

Picture quality was good for me as I didn't have any problem like others.

Tracking was better than my 3 other panasonic. It usually found the right tracking for the tapes that we put in.

Noise was reasonable to me and was silent when playing. Rewind was quick as advertised.

It had good feature like showing you titles of TV programs when changing channels and auto clock setting.


not bad but not great either   April 20, 2003
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

Okay, it was pretty cheap. It functions pretty much as advertised and is not a bad machine for the money. But...some of the functionality is frustrating. I've missed recording a couple of my favorite shows because of the fact that it won't record your programmed shows if you simply power it OFF when you're done using it. You have to remember to power it OFF and set the RECORD button also (this requires pushing 2 buttons on the remote simultaneously). On the plus side, the rewind is extremely fast and the counter display is "clock time" as opposed to just numbers counting up or down. (So if you want to skip a 1-hour segment it is very easy to do.) Overall, this has been a good VCR for the money, with a few minor inconveniences.


Excellent for the money!   January 12, 2003
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

It had been awhile since I bought a VCR. I love the auto clockset feature! Also, the cable tuner on this VCR is great and so is the sound quality. I am very happy with it so far. Using an older non cable ready TV with this and the picture looks good..


good in general but...   January 1, 2003
james (CA United States)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

I have kept a 5-year-old SHARP VCR, which I liked very much until my little boy destroyed it. I could not find a SHARP but someone recommended this Toshiba VCR. Since I always liked my old Toshiba notebook computer and this model was on sale, I did not hesitate to buy this unit. This is not bad for the price. But people in Toshiba VCR must more work on the remote control, which does not work for my SHARP TV. The manual says that it could happen, and then I need to use the TV old remote control! Two remotes! Does not sound friendly or convenient...