Acer AT58 TV series puts you in the driving seat with Pininfarina styling

Acer is putting the pedal to the metal with the AT58 series of televisions devised by car designer Pininfarina. The Italian outfit, best known for styling Ferraris, has teamed up with Acer for the company's first foray into the world of tellies.

The 23-inch, 27-inch, 32-inch and 42-inch models are 1080p high-definition backlit LED 1080p tellies. The series offers 50Hz refresh rate, with 100Hz versions of the two largest models also available. All have Freeview tuners and HDMI inputs, without which they'd just be fairly dull monitors, to be honest.

The 23-inch model comes in white or black. All the TVs boast "slightly curved edges, which recall those of the first televisions that we would switch on furtively when we should have been doing our homework". If you're still doing your homework when your favourite show comes on, the AT58s include a built-in personal video recorder to tape your stories to an external hard drive or USB stick.

At least they're not bright red. The Ferrari fire-engine look just about works for the Acer Ferrari One laptop and special-edition Liquid E phone, but would probably be a bit distracting when you're trying to watch Morse.

The AT58 series launches in October, costing between £230 and £280. The 27-inch and 32-inch models launch in November, with the 42-inch arriving in time for Christmas.