Remote Control:
If anyone can then it must be Toshiba. The remote control of the 42 WL 67 Z is perfectly sized - neither too large nor too small, but just right. There is just the right amount of space surrounding the individual buttons, which also have the precise amount of cushioning.

In addition, the buttons are organized logically and make use of the navigation cross for both channel changing/volume adjustment and menu navigation itself. Although a doubling up of the button's functionality is often misleading, the Toshiba implementation is completely free of such confusion and operation is self-explanatory.

Screen Menu System:
The screen menu system has a very pleasing layout and compliments the remote control superbly. When operating the set for the first time, the Toshiba initially requires confirmation before searching the airwaves for available TV channels. The ones it finds are logically sorted and labeled with the broadcasting station name.

Channel Changing:
What is disappointing is the rather sluggish responsiveness to channel changing. One and a half seconds are required before the next channel's content is displayed - a period that is just not in keeping with modern times.

Images from the analog cable TV tuner are prepared on the 42 WL 67 Z in a very pleasing manner. Details are maintained even during camera pans, and marquee texts retain their structure. However, the Toshiba does not feel obliged to portray the original faithfully as edges are slightly lifted and faint shadowing appears in the picture, which despite these nuances is still very crisp.

In contrast to the recommendation for a home-theater configuration with DVD material (refer to the boxes), the menu's sharpness preset should be adjusted to approximately -20 during TV reception. Otherwise the picture appears far too artificial.

DVDs played back through the Scart RGB socket are crisp, and the full-frame video processing delivers a clean picture. This is also the case where fast camera pans are concerned, delivering imagery without saw-tooth effects and line flicker. Better still is DVD playback through an HDMI interfaced modern DVD player with built-in scaler, as the resulting picture on the 42 WL 67 Z is just that little bit sharper.

Both the Toshiba's contrast and brightness are superb delivering more than 400 Candela/m2 for perfect viewing even in brightly lit rooms. An 800:1 contrast ratio is less than that of good plasma sets (which do come close to the still undefeated CRT), but is still a respectable value for LCD devices. The evening golf tournament in "The Legend of Bagger Vance" movie is quite impressively and realistically reproduced on the Toshiba.

Despite the fine adjustments of the "3D Color Management", even the experienced user is not capable of extracting accurate or fully natural colors from the 42 WL 67 Z. Even if the best "Warm" preset is selected, the colors are still too cool, and at a temperature of 9,300 Kelvin are far removed from the ideal of 6,500 Kelvin. The corresponding picture has a marked blue cast, and the green end of the spectrum is missing altogether. Skin tones, such as Julia Robert's complexion at the beginning of the "Mexican" are an ill-looking violet color.

Full HD picture material is rendered to perfection with pixel accurate positioning on the Toshiba. Any picture fuzziness is completely suppressed by the ability to deactivate the set's overscan. The resulting picture is exactly what one would expect from full HD equipment - it is crisp, and the finest of details are accurately rendered.

However, once again, the image is spoilt through the set's inability to render colors realistically. Carrots in the restaurant scene from the HD DVD edition of the DVE High Definition test disk from Joe Kane appear as if they have been painted red. They look more like red peppers than carrots.

More embarrassingly for a full HD television is its inability to interpret 1080p signals regardless whether they originate from a home-theater PC or Blu-ray player.

Computer Operation:
It is a real shame that this high-resolution panel cannot really be used as a super precision computer monitor. The internal workings of the Toshiba prevent the best intended ambitions of the user from materializing. The 42 WL 67 Z accepts PC signals via its analog VGA interface, but only at the reduced resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, and causes fonts from both a Windows or MacOSX desktop to appear blurred.

Web pages have reduced legibility, and digital photos or HD videos cannot display their full detail potential with this restricted screen resolution. This Toshiba is also not capable of interpreting progressive formats via the HDMI interface, making a DVI to HDMI adapter superfluous. Hence, even though the will is there, the technology to deliver useable PC content to the screen is simply lacking.

Sound Quality:
Regardless which of the various audio presets is selected, music still sounds hollow and insubstantial. The "Bass Boost" setting is also not much use, in fact quite the contrary as activating it will cause speech to sound muffled. In other words, use either headphones or connect the set to external stereo hi-fi equipment, surround equipment or an AV receiver.

Picture Preset: User Settings

Brightness: 49

Contrast: 95

Color: 40

Sharpness: 12

Color Temperature: Warm (9,300 K)

* applied to realistic playback from HD DVD/Blu-ray material through the HDMI interface in a darkened environment. Manufacturing and HDMI playback device deviations may necessitate slight adjustment.

Plain and simple: The cabinet of the 42 WL 67 Z is purely functional and lacks any kind of design gimmickry.

Meager: Two Scart sockets and two HDMI interfaces are rarely enough for today's multimedia offerings.

Perfect: The remote control has the correct physical proportions; the buttons are arranged according to their function, and they have just the right amount of springiness.

Ice cold: The color matching of the Toshiba is way too cool resulting in artificially appearing faces.