Move the sofa aside because Toshiba's 52-inch DLP monster is the ultimate big screen budget TV. Winning the sheer acreage award for TVs for under the two grand mark, Toshiba's first DLP rear-projection TV is simply behemothic. You get no less than 52-inch of screen driven by a fully HDcompatible 1,024 x 720 DLP chipset packed into a rather fetching cabinet.

Light silver, lacquered aluminium and a gloss black trim line (with touch sensitive controls) set it out from the crowd, if not the Samsung SP-50L7.

The DLP engine creates a relatively short plinth, so the 52WM48 is supplied with a hefty wood and glass stand. In complete contrast to the Samsung, this is a big, bulky affair, but it does give you plenty of room to place home entertainment ancillaries, an embroidered doily and half a dozen out of date copies of FHM. OK, the Toshiba is by no means a moose on the loose, but its cosmetic charm plays second fiddle to the gorgeous Samsung.

Of course, the Toshiba is almost £500 cheaper than the Samsung, so savings must have been made somewhere other than just the design. Sure enough, the Toshiba is very much a DLP 'lite' TV with just a single tuner, no Virtual Dolby or other pseudo surround sound, and no built-in subwoofer.

However, you do get a sub output. The remote is an immediately forgettable grey piece of plastic, but it will at least control a DVD player and VCR too.

Out of the box

The core technology is up to snuff with the very same HD DLP chipset as the rest of the DLP pack, a HDMI input (but sadly not DVI as well) and a suitably long lamp life. There's a Digital Noise Reduction feature ... and that's about it for niceties to sing about.

Fresh from the box, the Toshiba is nothing short of stunning, but not for the right reasons. The sharpness is set way too high as standard, leading to drop shadows and dark edges around characters. The colour is also right out there, romping around the same Day-Glo paint factory as the ThemeScene. Shield face from picture intensity blast, and dive into the menus to achieve an altogether more acceptable image.

And acceptable it certainly is. With broadcast TV, 'talking head' programs ruthlessly reveal a TV's ability to look natural, as faces three feet across mean a whole lot of flesh to render. With make-up artist precision, the Toshiba creates highly realistic flesh tones backed by high contrast and definition that add a great sense of depth. Close to the screen, it's all too easy to see the line structure of broadcast TV, but sit more than 3m away and the Toshiba really impresses.

Surprisingly, the sheer size doesn't overbear the entertainment value, and one associated reviewer (the missus-to-be) settled down to several episodes of EastEnders on the Toshiba. She noted a good sense of getting involved in the plot - even if I thought it represented a big screen horror.

The picture is lively and smooth - a fine combination indeed. The processing is superb, with negligible picture noise and very little digital banding. The Toshiba seems to avoid all the hype and bluster and potential for overkill of DLP and hits an amazingly natural balance that is just right.