A picture paints a thousand words, they say. So if you don't mind, by way of opening this review we'll simply direct your attention to the pictures of the Loewe Individual Compose 40 and save ourselves having to write at least 800 words or so. Rather pretty isn't it? And we can assure you that a mere photo doesn't do the glinting, ultra-slim reality justice.

The design isn't just extravagant and opulent, either. It's also uniquely flexible. For starters, this screen, with the TV mounted on a square silver post (which contains a centre speaker) can be partnered with huge floorstanding left and right speakers (£250) and a subwoofer (£500), is just one of many presentation options.

Other possibilities include speakers that fasten to the TV's sides instead, 'compact' satellite units, and a speaker bar that can be placed under the screen.

The TV and speakers come in two colour variants too: Aluminium Silver (shown) and Aluminium Black. As for stands, you can get a rotating table-top stand, a floor-standing 'pole' stand, and even a 'screen lift' mount where the TV is vertically mounted on a pole .

Finally, you can completely alter the look and feel of your Individual Compose 40 by adding different inset panels along the TV's sides. The large range of colour options available include: Ebony, Rosewood, Light Oak, High Gloss Black, Metallised Chrome, Aluminium Silver and Ruby.

As you'd hope for a TV as luxuriously expensive as this one, its feature appeal isn't restricted to its design flexibility. In fact, it's got another truly unusual trick up its sleeve: a built-in 160GB hard-disk drive recorder able to record Freeview channels (two digital tuners are provided) or stuff received via Scarts provided it's not piracy-protected.

Other eye-catching tricks include the TV's Full HD screen resolution, Loewe's Image+ picture processing system, which boosts sharpness, noise reduction, colour and motion handling, plus a dynamic contrast system that delivers a 4500:1 claimed contrast ratio.

Finally, we ought to mention the set's connectivity, that features an adequate two HDMIs (when three might have been better on such a premium TV), a PC port, digital in/out and a USB input, besides all the more standard ports that you'd expect to find.

Loewe's swanky new remote control is a huge improvement over the frankly horrible previous effort, but the onscreen menus continue to be fiddly and unintuitive.