Had been looking to upgrade from my Philips CRT 28" TV for a while but LCD and plasma TVs were just too expensive. But prices have dropped A LOT and this TV was just a bargain for what you get: 32" HD ready display that sits in a beautiful enclosure. The screen is surrounded by a transparent plastic rim all around that gives it a classy modern look and kinda places it in a different price league. The frame is high gloss, and while this may not appeal to all I find it a nice contrast with the mate screen and transparent rim. The whole thing sits on a solid glass stand that swivels so that you may turn the TV to one side or the other if nee/want to. You can also wall mount it using standard mounting kits (not included).

Off now to what matters the most! The device comes with a nicely laid out welcome menu that will help configure the TV for your favorite picture and sound settings. This is simply done by choosing which side of the image you prefer. However, I felt that these presets were not satisfactory, although I did not test all possible combinations. You end up getting an image that is either too bright or with too intense colors (like if people just bathed in carot juice, you surely know what I mean). It takes a little tweaking with the standard picture adjustment menu to get it right and when you do, WHOA! Thanks to its 30.000:1 contrast you can get blacks that are REALLY black while keeping REALLY white whites. You can also reach colors that are very vivid yet natural looking. Watching again "the fifth element" for the n-ieth time and I was blown away. The scene where they focus on Mila's face when she was about to jump off the building... just "whoa" comes to mind!

The menus give you a lot of choices of configuration for the sound, picture, installation, etc. Channel installation can be done completely automatically and it works very well, updating the channel info if supplied. You can play with the channels by renaming, moving to other positions, etc.

Connections wise, this TV is pretty well stocked with all the standard connectivity that you've come to expect from such a device, including 4 HDMI connectors and one lateral PCMCIA socket for decoding digital TV using the built in tuner. Unfortunately it does not have a VGA connector, which I now dearly miss to connect my laptop to the TV. However, it does feature a USB port to which you can connect a USB key with photos and have they played as a slide show. You ca also use this to play MP3 stored in a USB device.

The sound is also very good and quite powerful, but for sound fanatics like me; at least two stereo speakers decently separated were required to get a better cinema experience.

All in all, stunning picture quality once you get it right with the settings and good features, making it a great value for your money.