Samsung PS50A756 1080p plasma: Come on you Red Devils

Samsung is, you may be aware, an official sponsor of London-based Russian football team Chelsea. If, like most right-thinking humans, you hate football with every last breath in your body, you might not know that Chelsea's innovative nickname is 'The Blues'. Amusingly, when Samsung launched its new range of 'touch of colour' TVs -- the colour in question being red -- it turned to Chelsea players to promote them.

This little colour-based faux pas shows no signs of abating, with the new plasma range from Samsung -- including the PS50A756 -- also featuring Manchester United's colour, and in the same copious quantities as the 'rose black' LCDs. You'll either love the red in these TVs or you'll take one look at it and say, "Why the hell would they do that?" We'd wager on the latter -- and also on not seeing this range at Stamford Bridge anytime soon.

Despite all this, the new PS50A756 is a pretty good-looking 50-inch plasma. While other companies have done their best to reduce the size of the bezel, Samsung actually makes a design choice to draw attention to it. This particular TV has a thin strip of clear plastic around the outside, which we think is a very stylish accent to the red-orientated set.

As you would expect, this is a 1080/24p capable set, which means Blu-ray movies should look beautiful. Interestingly, Samsung also calls it '3D ready', which means with the requisite silly glasses, you could be enjoying objects flying out of your TV and other such joys. The PS50A7 also features the much-hyped InfoLive, which is designed to keep you up-to-date with RSS feeds displayed on-screen while you watch TV. You can watch your shares' value plummet, for example, while you enjoy a game of friendly, happy football.

You get four HDMI sockets, the usual array of VGA, component and Scart inputs and there's an Ethernet socket too, which is designed to allow you to use the InfoLive features. At the side is a USB socket -- alongside one of the HDMI inputs -- that allows you to use the new and improved WiseLink Pro functionality, which now allows you to watch video as well as look at photos from a digital camera. The TV can handle hi-def H.264 and even XviD, which is a cool bonus.

Despite not much caring for the colour, we have to say we snuck a peak at the PS50A756 this morning, and we're very excited by this TV. The picture quality is quite remarkable. We'll be reviewing it in full very soon, so keep an eye on the TV reviews channel. -Ian Morris