Coming straight out of the LCD computer monitor market, ViewSonic would appear to have the necessary technological know-how to impress the average man on the street, and throwing an asking price of under £2,000 into the bundle is not a bad way to make new friends and influence people right from the start.

That said, the company is all too aware of the prejudice that many consumers rightly or wrongly have against manufacturers that mainly produce PC peripherals crossing over into an AV market. For this reason ViewSonic has made every effort to include as many features as is possible to influence buyers that it knows what it's doing.

Disappointingly, build-quality and design aesthetics don't appear to come under this remit. The result is a TV with a design that is bland, to the point of being ugly.

A simple grey rectangle with equally nondescript speakers lining either side, you're almost grateful that the on-light is a glaring blue. Not only that but the 30in 16:9 screen actually has a 29.5in viewing area. While ViewSonic will undoubtedly argue 'what's a few inches between friends?' most will feel that they've somehow been cheated by this rather silly and unnecessary oversight, even if it is only half an inch.

But before we get too wrapped up in feeling as though we've been conned, we should sit back and take stock and, in fairness, it quickly becomes clear that the N3000W's benefits far outweigh the failings.

Looking at the sockets on offer at the back of the screen, it's more like a telephone exchange than a bargain display. There's two RGB-enabled Scart sockets, two component video inputs (one PAL progressive scan-enabled) with composite stereo audio jacks to complement. Plus, DVI and VGA inputs with a stereo mini-jack for PC audio, an RS232 service port and two RF antenna ins.

Outputs are also supplied for R/L audio (through composite) and a subwoofer and VGA port for video. The remote control offers a different button for each display making it a chunky affair.

Put simply, there was very little that we wanted to connect to the ViewSonic that we couldn't, and the sheer choice of options on offer completely nullified any need for a separate switching box - even considering the size of our equipment stack.