Quality picture for lounges of the rich

LCD TV's trim is made from silky anodized aluminium and available in many colours

You won't find German flatscreen TV maker Loewe waging a price war with cheaper Asian manufacturers this summer sales season.

Loewe joins Marantz and Bang & Olufsen in the European contingent of consumer electronics houses that make no sacrifice on quality and style but fill a tiny niche here because they rarely cut prices either.

They are the brands filling the houses of the wealthy, and the brand new Loewe Individual 32in LCD TV is the type of set you'll want in your lounge if you ever make it into that category.

It's a beautiful TV. It's trim is made from a silky anodized aluminium that's available in all sorts of colours but looks very fetching in black.

A flush metal grid encases some powerful speakers that sound great on their own, but give a lovely surround effect when used in conjunction with a home theatre sound system. The TV sits on a sturdy, minimalist stand but can also be wall-mounted.

The aesthetics are impressive enough, but the real breath-taker is the picture quality. In true 16:9 widescreen format, DVD movies look fantastic.

Loewe uses a system called Image+ to control the picture, which is amazingly clear and detailed. The thing with the Individual is that the superior quality means there's more to see.

Ironically, that served to show up some of the visual flaws in some of my favourite films when viewed at higher quality settings.

Artificial lighting sources become more obvious and bad camera work sticks out. In some cases, I had to turn down some of the settings to regain the illusion of cinema - such is the clarity of the picture. In action scenes, there was a subtle but noticeable jagged effect, which is symptomatic of most LCD screens, which have to constantly refresh to reproduce the picture.

Plugging my laptop into the Individual opened up a world of possibilities. At its highest 1366 by 768 resolution, the set displayed the Windows desktop in perfect detail.

Text was easy to read and, with use of a Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse, I was able to surf the web, check my email and stream video over the internet from the comfort of the couch.

It strikes me that the media centre PC concept that's coming into vogue is already a reality. Any laptop with a VGA connector, DVD drive and Windows XP can drive all your entertainment needs - providing you've a good flatscreen TV to feed it into.

Through Windows Media Player 10 I was able to play high-definition video clips through the Loewe. The HD clips have been recorded at much better quality and take advantage of the full image capabilities of the Individual. The short clips are a glimpse into the future of movie watching, which will improve greatly when HD content is more widely available.

Another great feature of the Individual is a built-in digital recorder. It's not as advanced as standalone digital recorders, but by pressing the pause button on the remote, you can begin recording live TV. If the phone rings or a visitor arrives, you'll miss nothing.

There was only a single TV tuner in the model I used so I wasn't able to channel surf while recording. But Digital Recording Plus is very useful and the set has in-built capacity for up to 100 hours of recording.

However, this Loewe stunner is gifted with some great features that are of no use to us.

There's a system for an electronic programming guide, but these aren't available in New Zealand except through Sky, which will offer its own guide through its My Sky set-top box and digital recorder.

While I was able to enjoy high-definition video clips supplied via my laptop, the capability of the LCD and its digital TV tuner won't be of much use for broadcast TV because the country's broadcasters lag behind the rest of the world in introducing high-definition broadcasting. It's still years away.

Still, if you're investing in an LCD or plasma screen, it makes sense to buy an HD-ready set in preparation for the arrival of HD-DVD and Blu Ray recorders later this year.


Loewe Individual TV

* Pros: Great screen quality and design
* Cons: Expensive; programming guide not available
* Price: $5999
* Herald Rating: 8/10

www.loewe.de