Based on the packaging, the press release and the stickers running down the side of the screen itself, the Humax Amadeus sells itself on its sounds qualities. That’s down to two 8W speakers kicking out an impressive sound, which is free of distortion even at neighbour-baiting levels. Oddly, given that sound is its strongest point, the best options aren’t switched on as standard and you will need to have a fiddle with them to find the best choice for your space.

Thankfully, other TV functions are easy to set up, with automatic searches for channels the first time you use it. However, the PVR functions are conducted in an unusual way. Rather than come with an embedded hard drive to store programs, the TV has an external drive that plugs in using a USB lead. OK, the designers have crafted this so it’s sleek and black (much more so than the TV itself, which looks bulky), but it still seems like an oddity sitting in front of your gogglebox. At least it has the added bonus of letting you plug it into your PC and fill it up with MP3 tunes, making good use of the speakers to blast these out. It’s just a shame that the manual tells you not to go connecting devices such as USB key drives to the TV’s USB port, as this would have been a very useful function.

In contrast to the hard-to-miss external hard drive, controls for the PVR are hidden away under a sliding panel. That means there are no accidental presses while you’re channel surfing the regular stations. All the usual options are here, including pausing live TV, recording and playback of programmes. These only work for the digital tuner, though, so there’s no stopping the action on analogue channels while you nip to the smallest room in the house.

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