The catchily-titled Hitachi UT32MH70 is remarkably slim.

At only 35mm thick, this 32incher is in danger of gliding away on the faintest of breezes.

I exaggerate, of course, but it's still as thin a production screen I've ever seen up close. It's impressive. Yet once the 'wow' factor has worn off, you have to wonder whether its girth, or lack of, is simply a gimmick. And is there a performance compromise to be paid?

Slim at the expense of features

The biggest trade-off of an attenuated footprint is the absence of a TV tuner. This Hitachi is, for all intents and purposes, a monitor. It has speakers, granted, but few connections. One HDMI v1.3 input and a VGA port are it.

No Scart, component or any other analogue trickery. In fact, I've never had an easier time listing equipment specifications. It's as devoid of bells and whistles as a freshly-mugged Morris dancer.

Furthermore, when attached to the included desktop stand rather than wall-mounted, the footprint of this super-slim TV is clearly engorged. These are caveats that will put off a large majority of normal folk.

Strong pictures

Few would consider wall-mounting a 32in screen. Most would need more than a solitary HDMI socket for connectivity with other kit, especially considering its lack of a tuner.

A Scart for a Freeview box or PVR, perhaps? Component can be served via a VGA adaptor, but it's hardly an ideal solution, and few external content delivery systems offer this
as an alternative. In short, while undoubtedly beautiful, this is a niche product.

All is not lost, however, because the MH70's pictures (almost) make up for any shortfalls, and Hitachi has promised the UK release of a separate media box - containing a digital TV tuner - for later this year (it's already available in Japan).

Naturally, this will come at further cost, but those who are initially willing to pay a little extra for a little taken off will surely be happy to financially oblige. Especially if the company also brings over the optional wireless connector that allows you to transmit signals using Ultra Wide Band technology.

 

The panel is HD Ready, with a 1366 x 768 resolution, and although other manufacturers have 1080p 32in LCDs on the market, that's really an overindulgence for such a screen size.

With substrate real estate of such dimensions, 720p is ample - the monitor can accept signals up to 1080p, but downscaling images to fit the native resolution can cause all manner of foibles, so it's advisable you output images to fit. There are even some who advocate upscaling DVDs, via their player, to 1080p and then feeding the result to a 720p panel, which is subsequently downscaling the picture again. Lunacy!

Weighing the scalers

There's actually something to be said for driving this screen without upscaling standard-definition content at all. If your upscaling player uses an old or regular processing chip, you will be better served with coughing out 576p or 480p images. I did, and was dazzled by the results. SD video, from DVD or a set-top-box, is rich in detail and depth. One person who spied the set during testing actually thought SD DVD was high-definition footage, it's that involving. While lacking in the kind of absolute detail HD encodes can offer, this screen is assured in its standard-def control.