How does 40-inch of flatscreen luxury for a little over £1,500 grab you? On price alone, this 40-inch LCD TV gives plasma a run for its money. But surely that's where the good news stops: a 40-inch LCD TV for this price can't deliver the visual goods, can it?

Once you've gathered your jaw from the floor, after seeing the lowly price tag, the N4060W sets about its seduction. The TV may be on the plastic side, but you wouldn't guess from the tasteful grey screen frame.

Whipping out our magnifying glass for the all-important connections, we soon discover that there's more here than we expected. The (single) HDMI is present and correct, as well as a trio of Scarts, component video inputs (which are HD capable), and a PC VGA input too.

The specification is also good: the native resolution of 1,366x768, high contrast ratio of 1,000:1, and claimed brightness of 500cd/m2 all tick the right boxes. The onscreen menus aren't the quickest in the world, which is a shame, and there aren't that many features to write home about (noise reduction and picture-in-picture functions are worthy of note), but bring that price tag back into focus.

When our standard-definition test DVD of Fear and Loathing... was playing, the brightness and vibrancy of the colour palette were the first things about the N4060W's pictures that impressed us: the colourful desert sequences and dark casino scenes (which are punctuated with vivid colours) were well rendered. If you take into account the sort of pictures that we're used to seeing in screens of this size that cost this little, this is a remarkable effort.

Too good to be true?

The overall effect of the pictures is one of believability: flesh tones lack any showroom dummy hues, and even reds are rendered with a certain degree of authority. There are more picture-perfect screens out there, but they'd empty your wallet for a while too.

A high-definition feed of Premiership football courtesy of Sky HD ups the ante again. We're surprised to discover that this ViewSonic is a dab hand at handling motion too, with little sign of smearing and judder. Pictures are pretty sharp, too.