You don't have to look far to spot the main raison d'etre of Toshiba's 42PW33Q.It's all about screen size for your buck, as it delivers a whopping 42in of widescreen pictures for just £700.But does it have anything else to say for itself?

Aesthetically it's nothing to write home about. With its grey, plasticky and almost featureless fascia it couldn't be less eye-catching.

Connectivity though includes a set of component video inputs. However, these ultimately end up feeling a bit pointless, since they can accept neither high definition or even progressive scan inputs. Elsewhere the only highlights are three Scarts (though only one can handle RGB), plus a subwoofer line out.

A quest for features turns up very little indeed. For starters the pictures are standard 50Hz affairs, with no fancy picture processing to help them out. Also, unlike the Samsung SP42Q2HD,this Toshiba carries no built-in digital tuner.

Perhaps worst of all, the only convergence system available for aligning the red, green and blue elements of the CRT picture is a manual one, requiring you to faff around with red and blue adjustments for ages before you end up with something that looks more or less accurate.

The good news, though, is that the Toshiba's pictures actually aren't bad; hardly world-beating ,but certainly much more enjoyable than those of Samsung's rival CRT effort.

The first thing that strikes you is how startlingly clean the picture is, with no nasty processing noise, accurate edges free of glimmer or haloing, and practically no sign of any streaking echoes from particularly bright image points.

Pictures also look sharp on this Toshiba, with decent amounts of fine detail and no sense that the picture is out of focus. There are small patches of softness, perhaps, where our even our best efforts at getting the convergence right can't quite prevent slight red bleed. But you seldom notice these during day to day viewing.

The Toshiba's picture also looks more solid than that of the Samsung, with less fragile peak whites, more profound black levels, and likeably rich, fully saturated colours.

Inevitably for a £700 42in TV, though, the pictures aren't perfect. For starters the 50Hz flicker is really quite pronounced at times, especially where there are onscreen graphics. Next, the picture lacks the intensity and dynamism of other technologies. Finally, we were slightly aware of the blanking lines in the picture during very bright scenes.

Sonically the 42PW33Q is solid. There's an impressive amount of bass and enough power to meet the demands of a raucous action scene. Treble details are rather swallowed, though, and dialogue can sound a little thick - but not seriously so.

We really do have quite a bit of time for the 42PW33Q.It's not as good a performer as some of its rivals, and is seriously basic in terms of specification. But the simple fact that it gives you 42in of perfectly presentable pictures for just £700 deserves a loyal following.