Hitachi UT32MH70

The basics

Hitachi UT32MH70 is an ultra slim TV. Only 35 mm thick, this 32-inch telly comes in black. It doesn't have a TV tuner, but it does have its own speakers and quite few connections. It has a VGA port (so you can connect it to a TV) and one HDMI v1.3 input port, no Scart and component connections, though, sadly.

The good

Thin televisions are nothing new, but this is painfully malnourished. At 35mm deep, it looks like it's been run over by a steamroller. It hasn't, of course, as TVs don't take kindly to that sort of thing. But its startling thinness is guaranteed to draw admiring looks and comments, it certainly did in our lounge. The glossy semi-translucent frame is a nice touch too. And while picture quality is good...

The bad

... we found the 32-inch image to be annoyingly dark and dingy. Strictly speaking it's not a TV either, it's more like a display or monitor, with just one HDMI port (alongside VGA and standard composite video), so you can hook up Sky HD, but no built-in tuner. There's no SCART socket either, so hooking up a Freeview box isn't really going to happen.

The bottom line

We reckon aliens gave Hitachi the tech to make a television this thin in exchange for an intimate probe. Shame they didn't pass on the secret to gorgeous images too...