Oh, how other TV brands must hate the Acer AT4220. Every time we visit a manufacturer these days they moan about how it's nearly impossible to make a profit given how fast flat TV prices are plummeting. Yet here's Acer sticking the knife in again, by remarkably offering a 42in LCD TV for just £1,000. Strewth. If Acer can actually ally any quality to this price, the likes of Sony and Panasonic will have to start quaking in their boots.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the AT4220 is nothing special to look at. Its combination of dark grey screen bezel with silvery outer trim and speaker section falls flat thanks to the lack of any gloss or metallic finish, and a rather plastic feel.

Connectivity is fine, though; not least because the TV's lowly price point hasn't stopped it sporting twin HDMIs - great news for HDTV fans. What's more, these HDMIs can take 1080p feeds - as, we're chuffed to say, can the component video jacks. It means you can get 1080p feeds in from an Xbox 360 games console.

Elsewhere there's a PC D-Sub interface, two Scarts (both RGB compatible), and a composite video input. This does leave a couple of notable omissions, namely a fourpin S-video option, and a CI slot for adding subscription channels to a built-in digital tuner.

This latter omission is hardly surprising though, given that the AT4220 doesn't actually have a digital tuner! We guess this must be one of the sacrifices Acer has had to make to hit the £1,000 price.

The AT4220's quoted specifications bode reasonably well. The 1200:1 contrast ratio is higher than we might expect, the brightness is in line with the rest of the LCD market at 500cd/m2, and the native resolution is an HD-ready 1366 x 768.

Working our way through the AT4220's features, the first thing that strikes us is how unpleasant its remote control is. It looks butt-ugly, feels horribly lightweight, and features squidgy, unresponsive buttons. Yeuch.

Just as well, then, that the onscreen menus are really pretty good, being clearly presented and well organised. The only problem with them, in fact, is that they don't actually contain many features; in fact, all we could spot of even passing interest were a three level noise reduction system, and a few picture presets. Still, this seems forgivable given the AT4220's aggressive price.