Bush 15.4-inch HD LCD TV review

Bush's new LCD TV can play a lot of different roles.

It has a built-in tuner, so you can use it as a TV set; a VGA socket, so you can use it as a PC monitor; and a range of other video inputs. It even has an HDMI connector, enabling it to deliver true 720-line resolution from an HD video player or PlayStation 3. Yet it's lightweight and compact, and easy to use with the well-designed remote. The built-in speakers aren't thunderous, but loud and clear enough for most living rooms.

The picture from the TV tuner is sharp and bright from head-on, but as with many LCD panels, vertical viewing angle is limited: stand up and the picture looks washed out. The backlighting seems uneven, too, so the bottom of the picture is slightly brighter than the top.

Bush advertises this as a true HD display, but the screen's so small you'll hardly notice unless you watch from very close up. And you do need to be using HDMI to get the benefit: connect an analogue source (such as a DVD player or a Nintendo Wii) and, no matter which socket you use, the picture becomes smeary and fuzzy. Many LCD TVs have difficulty scaling analogue video to fit their native resolutions, but this is particularly poor. There's no zoom feature, either, so if your input sources aren't in widescreen you're stuck with black bars at the sides.

Connected to a PC, the TV gives a clear enough picture for occasional use, but it's nowhere near as bright as a proper monitor. Its native resolution of 1,280 x 800 isn't supported by all graphics cards, so you may end up with a slightly stretched or compressed picture. There's no DVI socket, although you can use a DVI-to-HDMI cable to get the best definition.

If all you want is a tiny TV with HDMI, this is a budget option. But it isn't ideal if you plan to watch analogue video sources too.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith