Akai LM-H30CJSA review

Two buttons on the remote control allow you to control the picture format and brightness directly. As with televisions from Sony, you can keep 4:3 material such as The Simpsons in a square format, or take the top and bottom off the picture to make the characters look less stretched out.

But in terms of other tweaks you can make to the image, the options are minimal. If you use Digital Video Essentials to optimise your picture quality, you probably won't be interested in a budget TV in the first place and you won't find much to tweak if you are. There are only basic options to change contrast and brightness -- the former is set at maximum by default and needs dropping down -- and there's a second menu to alter colour hue/saturation and sharpness. And that's your lot -- it's lacking essential features such as picture presets (like Movie, Game or Sport) and the only other things to adjust are the treble and bass settings.

One useful feature, for AV geeks at least, is that the main menu displays information about the current source, such as resolution and whether it's progressive or interlaced. This tells you whether your PS2 games or movies are being played back in progressive scan, which gives us a warm feeling inside.

Performance
If we've given the impression the Akai is a no-frills LCD, then the picture quality tilts the story back its way. Across all sources, even composite, the picture is impressive. While the lack of contrast has a noticeable effect on shadow detail, nearly all the other telltale signs of a cheap LCD are noticeable only by their absence. There's no colour bleed and fast motion is handled well, thanks to a nippy response time. So, in real-world terms, this is a fantastic TV for everyday terrestrial viewing. Stick on an atmospheric movie, such as our test disc Underworld, and the dark areas result in an annoying lack of depth.

If anything, the Akai's ability to hold its own when faced with a poor analogue TV or composite signal is the most important strength -- it means you don't have to be so picky when choosing how to connect the rest of your AV equipment. We'd like more connections, but you can be sure the picture quality from those available is universally impressive. The only other limiting factor is the viewing angle. You'll need to position the TV so you can view it straight-on.

Audio is tinny, which is strange, because the speakers are rated at 2x10W -- not too shabby, given the price. However, they struggle to keep up with the demands of even a modest soundtrack, making a meaty film like Master & Commander sound as lightweight as an episode of Neighbours.

Edited by Mary Lojkine
Additional editing by Nick Hide