Full HD TVs seem to have made the journey from minor videophile concern to the mainstream in about a fortnight.

Mirai's DTL-742TE600 is at the vanguard of a wave of large affordable, flatscreens with 1080p panels that suddenly seem to have infiltrated the AV market and is among the cheapest sets of this size and specification we've seen.

Inside Mirai's budget LCD

Everyone wants to get their hands on 1,920 x 1,080 machines at the moment, and the need to keep cost down and make this must-have resolution available to all, is reflected in a set that has more than a whiff of compromise about it.

The build quality, for example, is pretty iffy. While the chunky styling makes the set appear larger than 42in, the lack of solidity to the hollow-sounding, plasticky casing immediately suggests that corners have been not so much cut as hacked off with a big rusty saw.

It's full HD, you know. That's right, 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, which means you can watch Blu-ray discs and top-quality broadcasts in their unadulterated, maximum resolutions. And did we mention that it's really cheap for a 1080p panel? Because that's about your lot.

Okay, it's got an arguably miserly two HDMI inputs, various picture modes and one of those pseudo-surround modes that never really works properly, but if these, or any of the other uninteresting entries on the spec sheet turn you on, then we are afraid that we are unable to provide you with the kind of help you need.

Infuriating to operate

You might be supposing that the more stripped down and entry-level-oriented a set is, the easier it should be to use. And in most cases, you'd be right.

The Mirai conforms to this norm in the sense that its menus are relatively straightforward and reasonably intuitively laid out. But a few boneheaded design touches make it occasionally infuriating to operate.

The one most likely to drive you into a techno-cidal rage is the remote control. It's an ugly brute, for a start, with the company's usual large, glow-in-the-dark keys set in a lightweight zapper that looks like it has escaped from the 1980s.