When we moved into our flat there was a one essential that we were going to buy, and that was a good, large, full HD TV. We settled on a size of about 42" and after looking around, we settled on the Toshiba Regza 42AV635DB from Amazon.co.uk at a cost of £502.25. When I looked on Amazon today it's currently selling for £899.99 so I think we got a really good bargain there! We did have the chance of getting our TV for free as we bought it the same time they had a world cup promotion on, where if England won the world cup we'd get the cost of our TV back. We didn't put our hopes up on that one.

This TV ticked all of our boxes and it wasn't too expensive. It also boasts about it's resolution + up-scaling feature which enhances standard definition to virtually high definition standards. It has an AutoView function which apparently instantaneously adapts to the lightning conditions in the room providing optimal output. All I can say is that the TV image is brilliant, sharp, clear and colourful and certainly the best quality TV I have ever owned. It has Freeview built in, as most new TV's these days do, and has the digital tick so it's ready for the digital switch-over. I'm glad it had Freeview as when we first moved in we were waiting on our Virgin HD TV to be installed, although in our flat the TV signal, was poor and we struggled to pick up basic channels using the old fashioned way, and whilst Freeview provided a good quality image, again we could actually only pick up a few channels. The Freeview on the TV however was good, the auto tune ran and picked up all the channels it could for us, and we did run it a fair few times after messing around with the aerial wire! The TV guide was good and overall I would have been happy enough using that, however we had decided to get Virgin cable TV.
The TV comes with a stand which you have to fit together yourself, this did require 2 people as the TV is so large, however it was simple enough to put together and overall the TV looks sleek and stylish. You can pivot it on the stand if needed.

It comes with 4 HDMI connections which is great for us as we have our Virgin HD, Xbox 360 and a Wii, and we are planning on getting a PS3 eventually so these connections come in handy. Its simple to switch through these different connections, just one button on the remote control allows you to quickly switch between them. I must admit the HD TV channels are so rich and clear on this TV, I have been very impressed. Another thing is playing on the Xbox 360 on this TV. Not only does the 42" size along for a large picture, but the TV also has a 'Game Mode' function which is compatible with any HDMI equipped games console. Toshiba say that this feature "bypasses much of the picture processing technology required to enhance TV programmes and films, resulting in an improved response time and screen refresh rate." Whatever it does, the end result when gaming is outstanding and I'm really impressed with the picture quality. If you love gaming then I certainly recommend this TV for that aspect alone!

Onto the sound. We usually have surround sound however we haven't gotten around to purchasing a new speaker system yet. Despite this the sound is actually not bad at all, I have heard much worse on LCD TV's and it's not annoying me at all really, and it's good enough until we finally got some speakers.
The TV also has an On/Off button meaning you can switch the TV off rather than on standby. Despite this we always switch it off by the wall anyway, my partner hates leaving things switched on!

Overall I have been very pleased by our purchase. The picture quality of the TV is brilliant and I love it's large size. Combining this with HD TV and gaming it gives an excellent rich and clear image and makes gaming even better. As mentioned before we paid £502.25 for this on Amazon and now it's considerably more, so I suggest searching around elsewhere for a good price. It was certainly worth every penny we paid for it.