Sagem Axium: Eye on the Sky

Some people would rather be seen with a 15-inch black and white TV than a rear pro. In our anorexic desire for flat TVs, rear projection tellies and their hefty waist-line just can't compete, but Sagem's new 56-inch model is only 44cm deep. It's now dwarfing our collection of 42-inch plasmas, towering over everything with elegant French nonchalance. If it could talk, it would be saying, "Olympics? C'est rien..."

Its Parisian style should be enough to convince you that rear projection is the way forward -- its curved stand is an elegant way to hide its Dolby Virtual Surround speakers. But if you're the sort of hardware fetishist that gets a warm feeling inside when you reel off a list of numbers, check these bad boys out: eight video inputs (Sky HD compatible), the latest DLP HD2+ chipset and a 1,280x720 pixel resolution. We can't wait to run our Denon DVD player through this mother.

If we manage to control our shaking hands long enough to plug everything in, we'll get a review on the site for your delectation. It'll have to be pretty special -- we're only just getting over our loss of our Samsung SP-50L7HX. -GC

Update: this review is now live here.