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As is so often the case, the 19DTT's superior black levels help it produce an unusually natural palette of colours, especially with the Fleshtone feature engaged. And colours receive a further subtlety boost from the screen's high resolution, as it allows blends to appear with surprisingly fine gradations.

More good news finds the picture looking pretty sharp and clean with standard and high definition sources alike, and this sense of clarity holds up even during action scenes thanks to some surprisingly good motion handling.

It has to be said that the difference made by the extra detail and clarity of HD sources is hard to appreciate fully on a screen this small. But considering the TV is so affordable, we guess you might as well have the HD Ready resolution rather than not, right?

Really, there's only one thing that lets the 19DTT's pictures down substantially and that's its brightness. The screen only claims an output of 300cd/m2, and this does seem reflected in the way dark areas tend to look rather hollow, as we mentioned earlier, and the way the picture loses its lustre in bright ambient lighting. Ideally you'll watch this screen in a fairly darkened room - or at the very least you won't place it slap bang in the middle of a kitchen's sun-trap!

Moving on to the 19DTT's sound, it's par for the small LCD TV course. Which is to say, pretty useless. Things just about hold together during most ordinary TV viewing, but a film or high-octane drama really put it through the wringer. And as for that pseudo surround mode, forget it. I could discern hardly any difference in the sound whether the mode was active or not. Except that the pseudo surround actually sounded slightly worse than the normal stereo setting.

Verdict

Perhaps inevitably for £240, the LGB-19DTT can't escape all of the usual small LCD TV pitfalls. Its sound and brightness certainly fail to impress. Yet its black levels, colours and features roster do set it a notch higher than anything else of a similar size and price we've seen to date, so if you're in the market for a small second-room TV, you'll struggle to find anything better.

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