This is our first seriously large plasma TV, replacing our 32" LCD model which has served us well over the years.

For too long, a large expanse of suitable wall had been calling out to us to be filled and, although we tend not to indulge in outsized Super Monster TVs, the reality is that the size of the room is more than sufficient to take it and in view of the onset of the cold weather, we recognised that we may well be spending more time inside this year than most other years, so since we were needing a new telly, this one seemed to tick all the boxes that were important for us.

We did undertake considerable research but were swayed in our final decision by our son who bought one of these last year with his Christmas money. Now that newer models are available, we were able to get this one at a cheaper price than he paid for it. That said, you are looking at a price in excess of £650 for this television and it is not universally stocked at the popular outlets by any means even though it's only been around for 18 months or so, so your best bet is to seek to hunt one down in the January sales.

Having a sleek piano black frame and definitely looking the part, it passed the threshold with my wife as far as appearance is concerned and sits nicely in the room, albeit in a setting which makes it look a little too modern. However, it's hard to get an old-world telly to match our furniture.

It's a 50" 1080 HD television with Freeview and (with the help of my son who helped me install) it was fairly easy to set up with most features being set up automatically. Mind you, he did have the benefit of having already installed his so I jut let him crack on with any manual adjustments to various settings for picture and sound etc.

It works without any issues with both Playstation 3 and Sky+HD. There is plenty of capacity as regards inputs with 3 HDMI sockets. It has 2 x Scart sockets. It's got a USB port and a card slot supporting JPEG and MP3.

Menus are easily navigated and even though I am not a techie, my son was able to teach me sufficient to get by. It's still fairly new and there are elements of the settings that I have yet to twiddle with.

The aspect I have been most impressed with is the quality of HD viewing which is much clearer than our old set which has now been relegated to the bedroom. For sport and wildlife programmes, the picture seems so sharp and this adds considerably to the viewing experience. The set has good colour resolution and gives you plenty of options to set your own preferences.

Viewing is good from most reasonable angles. I haven't bothered fitting my surround sound system yet because I was impressed with the quality of the sound from the set itself and because my wife doesn't want more wires. My son had bought the tilting bracket for installation for his but he advised me to just get the ordinary one for our house because he had ended up mounting his flat.

Getting it home could prove a bit of an issue for some as the box is huge and only just fitted in to our vehicle, so if you don't want to pay extra for delivery, it's worth checking this out beforehand. It's also very heavy.

There have been no issues with reliability as yet, but we have had it only 3 weeks so far and the novelty factor has yet to wear off. It isn't as feature ridden as many others we researched and it's basically LG's entry level model. So many of the features we could have had just weren't worth the extra to us but to me this set offers very good value.

I don't want to become a total couch potato during the winter but I am confident that this investment will pay off.