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Sadly the 42DA8 also falls prey to another vintage LCD problem: motion blur. Panning around the landscape as far as the stupidly limited camera will let you in PS3 flop Haze, for instance, results in some quite obvious trails behind sharp edges, while the occasional moments of fast action lose resolution.

In the 42DA8's favour is the exceptional vitality and aggression of its colours, which really explode of the screen. Its HD pictures also look superbly sharp when they're relatively static (and thus unaffected by the set's motion blur issue), and there's very little trouble from such video nasties as dot crawl, grain and colour bloom.

The 42DA8's standard definition pictures generally deserve praise too, as DynaPix does a better job than most processing engines of upscaling standard def sources to fit the screen's HD Ready resolution. Noticeable extra detailing and sharpness gets added without the sort of video noise side effects so common on many rival models.

The final entry in the 42DA8's plus column is its sound. Those Oblique Cone speakers really do perform a cut above the flat TV norm, producing slightly more dynamic range, soundstage width, clarity and sheer volume than many of their peers.

Verdict

Although hardly expensive for a flat 42in TV, the 42DA8 just doesn't manage to sparkle in any department. Fundamentally average.

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