Toshiba isn't a company to play catch-up while others set the pace: if there's new technology to be had, it wants in on it and fast. The 32WL48P sets itself right at the vanguard of new LCDs by being among the first mid-sized, front-room models to boast an HDMI input.

It's a handsome, rather than pretty 32in set, with Toshiba sticking to a fairly unadventurous aesthetic. A swivelling, desktop stand supports a relatively plain, silver set that could have been produced by any number of flatscreen manufacturers.

The screen surround is gunmetal grey, as opposed to the usual black, but this is about as distinctive as it gets. A typical Toshiba touch, however, is the bottom-mounted, built-in speakers. The sonic difference between sticking your drivers here instead of mounting them vertically either side is minimal, but if the reduced width of 32WL48P floats your boat, then great.

This TV also boasts the manufacturer's Active Vision processing, but as we've marvelled at this particular piece of electronic wizardry before, we'll focus on the thing that most obviously sets this screen apart, its HDMI connection.

The description of this next-generation AV conduit as the 'digital Scart' has long passed into cliché, but it still hasn't cracked the mainstream yet and is some way off totally replacing its multi-pinned analogue predecessor. Its presence on this TV is, however, a welcome reminder that the hi-def future is soon to be upon us and that you needn't break the bank to be a part of it.

The other chief advantage is, of course, that all the audio and visual data from your DVD deck is transported to the screen and displayed entirely in the digital domain. This means no quality-compromising conversion to analogue and then back to digital again before viewing.

HDMI (unlike the video-only DVI alternative) also carries multichannel audio, which is a huge improvement on Scart's analogue stereo capability. This might seem of limited importance when you're sending the sounds to a two-speaker TV set, but it does mean that those of you without surround separates can at least benefit from the cleanest possible audio signal from your DVD deck.

It's also worth noting that the HDMI capability enables the 32WL48P to recognise and play back stereo versions of DTS-encoded soundtracks, as well as the usual Dolby versions.

The back panel bears witness to Toshiba's admirable kitchen-sink connections policy, as seen on most of the company's recent LCD offerings. The inputs are spread over three areas under neat, snap-off covers.

The rear panel hosts the main event in the form of the HDMI input, which rubs shoulders with an RF jack, an RGB computer port and a pair of stereo audio phonos. The more mainstream AV selection is housed on the rear right-hand side, where you'll find a trio of Scarts (two RGB capable), a component video input, stereo in and outputs, and a line-level output for an external subwoofer to beef up the low-frequency sounds.

A corresponding section on the rear left houses the secondary socketry, which includes S-video and composite video jacks, as well as yet another stereo pair and a headphones output.

There's something about broadcast material that never seems to look quite right on LCD sets. Perhaps the brightness of the whites looks too garish, or maybe the fancy-pants digital processing throws up artefacts all over the place. Either way, the result is often a noticeably dirty picture.