While 32 inch LCD TVs now regularly sell for what can realistically be called a ‘mainstream' price, screen makers have traditionally struggled to make screens bigger than that anything larger as affordable. But now there seems to be a wave of large screen, lower price units.

Consider ViewSonic's 40 inch N4060w LCD TV: yours for around $3000. At first glance, it certainly doesn't look cheap; its combination dark grey matt inner screen frame and slightly silkier silver bezel harmonise well enough together to distract you from the actually slightly plastic build quality.

A prominent logo on the TV's fascia proclaims that ViewSonic's N4060w carries an HDMI jack – but that's actually just the start of a surprisingly fulsome connectivity roster that also includes three Scarts, an HD capable component video input, and a D-Sub PC interface. And with a screen resolution of 1366x768 it can lay claim to being HD Ready.

Other specifications? There's a claimed contrast ratio of 1000:1; a brightness of 500cd/m2; and a response time of just 8ms. The viewing angle is good at approx 170º horizontal off axis.

Features found within the cleanly presented if rather sluggish onscreen menus aren't especially numerous, with interesting ones being restricted to noise reduction, SRS audio processing, and a limited picture in picture system. But this relative feature stinginess is really only to be expected on such a price-busting TV.

Performance

If you come to the N4060w expecting budget-priced performance, we think you might leave surprised.

Two talents in particular stand out: the overall brightness, and the vibrancy of its colour palette. This pairing delivers an immediate and dramatic, attention-grabbing impact that exceeds what we are accustomed to seeing on budget LCDs of any size, never mind one as large as this.

Out of the box, the set's colour temperature is way too high. After calibration our labs got this down to a more reasonable 8400K. This, and the set's overall brightness, is down to the backlight level. Bright reds generally avoid LCD's tendency to make them orange.

During high-definition viewing the N4060w's sharpness is good too, especially with 720p. 1080i feeds are fractionally softer than the 720p ones, suggesting that the scaling engine could be better.

Another tick in the plus column comes from the ViewSonic's handling of fast-motion. During cricket footage from an RGB Scart-connected Digital receiver and the frantic truck/motorbike chase from an HD tape of Terminator 2, we spotted little sign of LCD's common troubles with smearing or judder. Even horizontally scrolling text in the news ticker looks smooth.

Predictably, this is an analogue tuner screen only. And images delivered by this source are the weakest on view. The colour tone loses its way a bit while watching the analogue tuner, with greens, blues and skin tones all looking overcooked and strident. Peak whites tend to blanch out.

With RGB-delivered DVDs, meanwhile, the set can over-stress acute edges, making them glimmer and giving the picture a slightly harsh appearance. This can be minimised with careful calibration of the contrast, brightness and sharpness settings – but it never completely goes.

Like so many LCD screens, it's the black level which ultimately disappoints. After prolonged viewing, it becomes apparent that shadow detailing in dark picture areas is undermined by a fairly obvious bluish undertone.

In our measurement tests, we rated the ViewSonic's screen at 910:1. This can be considered high and is down to the high brightness backlight.

Consequently, the screen is at its best when viewed in relatively high ambient light. This goes some way to disguise its black level performance.

Although we'd expect most SmartHouse readers to use the N4060w with a separate sound system, we should still say that its sound performance is rather perfunctory. The speakers are okay for normal TV viewing, but show a marked lack of power and bass during action scenes like the trench assault in Legends Of The Fall (an old test sequence favourite of ours).

We also noted occasional lip-synch issues that you might feel necessitate the purchase of a lip-synch correction device. But given the cost of the TV, even if you did want to add the cost of a correction device, the N4060W would still look affordable.

Conclusion:

While not an outstanding screen, there's no doubt that this LCD delivers big bangs for your bucks. Sure, it has weaknesses in both its sound and vision departments, and the lack of a DVB tuner is a blow. But those caveats, particularly on the picture side, are not as heinous as anticipated given the approachable price.

For general large screen viewing or an HD-friendly games screen, it's worth auditioning.

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ViewSonic N4060W|$3159 | 

For: Connectivity; design

Against: Feeble sound; limited contrast/black level; colour tone/detail with standard def sources

Verdict: Worth auditioning for general large screen viewing, or an HD-friendly games screen