Curiously, you won't find anything in the manual about them but ISF Day and ISF Night modes are available. But even without intricate tweaking, I was able to get the colour temperature to a perfect 65K without compromise and therefore spin the Blu-ray edition of Men in Black safe in the knowledge that I was seeing it as the director intended - at 24 frames per second, with a wholly accurate colour field.

I'm used to seeing stunning hi-def pictures, it comes with the job, but I don't have the words to describe how bowled over I was at the visual luxury on offer.

The shadow detail on these sets is simply amazing, giving images an almost 3D appeal.

Future-proof

Connectivity-wise, I still rather lament the loss of the separate media box which came with earlier Pioneer plasmas. They seriously reduced the amount of cable spaghetti on display.

That said, you're spoiled here with the wealth of sockets on the rear and side of the TV. Three HDMI v1.3 inputs are present, matched by an equal amount of Scarts.

Two of the latter can also output video, feeding a DVD recorder, for example, from the internal Freeview tuner, but, interestingly, one of them can only be utilised if the third HDMI jack isn't.

Almost all other flavours of feeds are catered for, except, somewhat oddly, S-video. Oh well.

There's also a side-mounted USB 2.0 port. If you have JPEG images stored on an USB memory stick, digital camera or flash card (via a memory card reader) they can be displayed in full using the natty on-screen menus. Unfortunately, only JPEG files can be read; it would've been great if there were video codec encoders inside the panel to play DivX or XviD, but as they're generally rendered at low bitrates and resolutions, maybe a 60in Full HD TV isn't the best way to view them...

That said, the Freeview pictures from the in-built tuner are exceptional, almost regardless of their resolution. There's some artefacting that becomes overtly visible with the shoddier channels, but this is a caveat of our standard definition digital TV service and is apparent on any fl atpanel over 32ins.

If I were to have any bones with the LX6090 (or the LX5090, come to that) it would be that everything, speakers, desktop stand or wallmount, comes as an optional extra and bumps up the price. But, to be honest, I still think that the starting point of £4,300 isn't too unreasonable for a prestige 60in TV, let alone the fact that it's currently the best TV on the planet.

The same goes for its smaller sibling, which, at £2,500, may be twice as expensive as nearby peers. But if you consider both of these models as pinnacles of HDTV design and technical innovation, like I do, their clarity comes cheap for the price.

Too good to resist

As has been widely reported, these will be the last Kuros to feature Pioneer-made glass. From 2009, the company will source its substrates from rival Panasonic. It remains to be seen how they'll compare to these beauties. TV connoisseurs should care less, though; resisting these screens is futile. My advice is buy now and enjoy.