This is not the last word in personal video recorders, but it comes pretty close. Drab in looks and without advanced features such as the editing of recordings, this twin-tuner Freeview PVR is, nevertheless, extremely advanced for a budget deck.

Helped along by its tempting price, key among its advantages is its abilities with its twin Freeview TV tuners. It can record one channel while showing another, of course, but it can also record programmes on two separate channels simultaneously.

Another rare characteristic of this Daewoo is its smart looks and the fact that it has operating buttons on the unit itself - most rivals rely purely on remote controls. Not that the remote has been forgotten. Far from it: it's a well designed, if lightweight, affair that is clearly labelled and comfortable to use. It also operates the onscreen menus quickly, to our relief.

There's nothing special about the connections, with two Scarts (one of which handles RGB pictures) alongside an optical digital audio output for attaching it to a home cinema amp. For good measure, stereo phonos are also provided.

The capacity of the hard disk is 160GB, although another model, the 80GB-endowed 9502T, is also on sale, for £130. That hard disk also provides a pause live TV function for a maximum of two hours, complete with a dedicated 'time shift' button on that clever remote.

Making actual scheduled recordings is just as easy: simply scan around the vividly coloured seven-day EPG and select a programme. There's no series link, but specific time slots can be programmed to record daily and weekly. Recording can be protected from automatic deletion (when the disk is full) and scanned through at a maximum 24x speed.

In fact the only major weak point in comparative terms is the Daewoo's lack of editing options when it comes to the library of recordings, but at least playlists can be set-up, something that makes archiving to a VCR using the second Scart a good deal simpler.

Natural history

Picture quality is good and our test channel BBC1 benefits from natural-looking skin tones and a very clean image free from noise. Scrolling text can judder but that's as much down to the signal quality and the LCD we used.

Aside from advanced editing functions, there's little missing from the Daewoo 9503T. Although it sneaks a good score because of its relative ease of use, it's that twin tuner, twin channel recording that really swings it.