While industry watchers may witter on for hours at a time about whether or not there's any genuine benefit in having a 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution in a 32in TV, the simple reality of the marketplace is that Joe Public demands full HD regardless of screen size.

So it is that Panasonic has been compelled to launch its first 1080p 32in TV, the 32LZD80.

Panasonic's first Full HD 32-inch

The home for all those tiny pixels is reasonably attractive with a slick black finish, but at the same time it's hardly revolutionary.

For more excitement you need to turn to the television's connections, which comprise three v1.3 HDMI inputs, a built-in SD card slot for direct viewing of digital photographs, a component video input, a digital audio output, a dedicated PC input and much more.

The 32LZD80 also promises some potent black level response with a claimed contrast ratio of 10,000:1 delivered, inevitably, with the help of a dynamic backlight system that dims the picture's brightness during dark scenes to help them look, well, darker.

Improved picture processing

As you'd expect of any full HD set worth its salt, the 32LZD80 can play back the 1080p/24fps format used to master the majority of movies to Blu-ray disc, plus there's a '1:1' pixel mapping mode that deactivates overscanning for a purer rendition of 1,080-line sources.

Inevitably, Panasonic has been busy tweaking its image processing since its previous LCD generation, resulting in the 32LZD80 stepping up from V-Real 2 to V-Real 3 technology.

As far as we know there's nothing radically new about this latest V-Real incarnation; it's simply an improved and refined version of the previous one, with its focus on noise reduction and enhancing contrast, colour and detailing. But any improvement on what was already one of the finest image processors around can only be a good thing.

With surprisingly few tweaks to play with in the 32LZD80's onscreen menus, we might as well wrap up with a quick mention of a deficiency.

A simple TV to use

This TV doesn't have 100Hz, which combats LCD's common problems with handling motion. For that you'll have to look higher up the manufacturer's new range.

With their superbly designed remote controls and total no-brainer onscreen menus, it's hard to imagine any Panasonic TVs scoring less than five out of five in an 'ease of use' section.