Toshiba 42WP46 plasma TV

A none too pricey plasma set, but at what cost to the performance?

While we'd all love a nice big plasma telly to whack on the living room wall, scraping together enough of the folding stuff to buy a half-decent model is another matter entirely. But the times they are a-changin': take a gander at this new Toshiba, because you may just be able to afford it without taking out a second mortgage or sticking poor old granny on eBay.

Okay, so a couple of grand isn't exactly peanuts for most of us, but it does represent pretty good value for money. A scan through this plasma's lengthy features list reveals built-in progressive scan to smooth out the picture, a reasonable set of connections (including component video) and a stonking contrast ratio of 3,000:1.

This last spec is reflected in the screen's ability to create deep, accurate black tones - something of a rarity on plasmas - but sadly, the overall picture doesn't quite match the efforts of new screens from Hitachi, Philips and Pioneer. And, unlike these rival models, the Tosh maintains a rather paltry resolution of 852 x 480 pixels and is noticeably lacking both an HDMI and a DVI digital input.

That said, the stereo speakers, backed up by some audio-processing wizardry, provide decent sonic accompaniment to the picture, and we can't really find fault with the styling or the build quality.

So unless you want the very best picture and a set that's future-proof - you'll need a digital video input for Sky's forthcoming HDTV service, apparently - the Tosh represents a very sweet deal. It's certainly a step up from similarly priced budget plasmas.