High definition is a beautiful thing. Nobody who has seen it can deny that. But it's an expensive and complicated thing so there will be huge numbers who really won't be bitten by the HD bug at all. And it's precisely these people that Sharp is aiming at with its LC-26P50E.

Not only is this TV not HD Ready but it's proud of the fact! Sharp has deliberately given it a native resolution of just 960 x 540, since while this isn't sufficient for native, unscaled HD pictures, it's perfect for showing unscaled PAL, standard definition pictures. Well,nearly perfect; actually a few lines have to be cut off the 576 visible lines of the full PAL picture - but during our tests we never actually missed them.

The home for this PAL-friendly machine is a pretty one, looking a vision in its black screen frame and dramatic, light silver trim.

Connectivity is good too, with HDMI and component video jacks showing that this TV has not forgotten about HD altogether. More down to earth jacks include a pair of Scarts, an S-video port and a composite video input. Unfortunately, there's no PC connectivity.

Features beyond the unique PALoptimised pixel count are fairly numerous, with highlights including a back light adjustment; optional 3D comb filter; noise reduction;black stretch option, and a film mode for enhanced motion on DVD.

Performance

To be honest we were sceptical about the TV's PAL-optimised claims, thinking that maybe they were just a fancy excuse for the 26P50E's low resolution panel. But the quality of the PAL performance suggests there might be something to Sharp's argument after all.

The main reason we say this is the simple clarity of standard definition PAL pictures, at least via the RGB Scart. The images from a DVD deck and Sky Digital receiver both look remarkably clean, with no softness, no motion smearing, no dot crawl, no colour noise, no edge overemphasis... all problems commonly attributed to the scaling of PAL signals to fit higher or lower resolution panels.

The result is possibly the most polished PAL picture we've seen on a 26in LCD TV.

On the down side, high-definition pictures, particularly 720p ones, don't look quite as pin-sharp as we've seen them on higher resolution panels. They're still very pleasing - a function, perhaps, of the simple and therefore scaling-friendly mathematical relationships between the 540 lines of the TV screen and the 720 and 1080 lines of HD footage. But the fact remains that this is not the ultimate HD machine.

More unexpectedly, it's not outstandingly brilliant with tuner pictures either, leaving them looking a touch soft, while their colours look slightly waxy. They are still impressively free from noise, though.

Sonically, it is a fair to middling performer, capable of handling most normal TV viewing, but lacking the raw power and dynamic range to avoid sounding rather flat with action.

Overall, while not the best option out there for HD gurus, if you're one of the millions whose TV diet is likely to mostly or exclusively comprise of standard definition sources, then the PAL-friendly 26P50 simply cannot be ignored.