Samsung's PS42V4SKX is made for the budget market and as such it's not truly HD Ready. But that's not to say it hasn't got a few tricks up its sleeve. It doesn't look very special, mind you. The muted greyness and wholly unimaginative rectangular lines look almost painfully bland.

Rather easier on the eye are the TV's connections, especially the DVI socket, which can handle HDCP anti-piracy protocols. Alongside this can be found component video inputs for analogue HD/progressive scan sources and a fair selection of the usual TV basics.

Denying the PS42V4SKX an HD Ready badge is its native panel resolution of just 852 x 480.But other key specs of a claimed 3,000:1 contrast ratio and 1,000cd/m2 brightness both bode rather better for the screen's video potential.

Also hopefully playing a part in pimping up pictures is Samsung's Digital Natural Image engine (DNIe),a proprietary picture processing system targeted at making moving objects look clearer, colours richer, the contrast range broader and details more obvious. Intriguingly the DNIe system used by the PS42V4SKX is apparently specially designed to be HD friendly.

Unfortunately, in practice DNIe doesn't do anything particularly miraculous to this Samsung's picture. The biggest disappointment is how soft the image is. While especially true with standard definition sources, even high-def fodder lacks the pristine detail and sharpness the format's capable of.

The TV's noise reduction systems aren't exactly world-beaters, either. At times DNIe seems to exaggerate dot crawl and there are fairly regular appearances of plasma's troubles with mosquito noise over moving objects.

Also occasionally troubling is the screen's colour tone. Reds can look over-stressed, while skin tones can adopt a greenish pallor, especially during dark scenes.

Although we seem to have got off on the wrong foot with this Samsung's pictures, there is some good stuff to talk about. For instance, while not always 100 per cent natural, the PS42V4SKX's colours are certainly vibrant. They're admirably backed up, too, by very pleasant black levels that give images depth and solidity without looking hollow or forced. At the other end of the spectrum, bright whites have a tone that seems well suited to video use.

It's a relief, too, after the problems seen with some Samsung LCD TVs, to find no major problems with MPEG artefacting while using the TV's DVI jack. Also, the set suppresses plasma's traditional issues with colour banding better than many budget models.

The PS42V4SKX's audio is very solid. Bass is well controlled and punchy, treble effects are accurately positioned and surprisingly rich, and there's plenty of space for the mid-range to manoeuver in.

Dull though it sounds, probably the best word to sum up the PS42V4SKX is 'okay'. Given its price, we guess we can't complain about its average picture and slightly above average sound. But at the same time, we don't feel inclined to rave about them either. John Archer