Samsung UE55D8000

The summer months are normally dreadful for television. The terrestrial channels seem to serve up  hour after hour of unwatchable guff and even if you have a Freeview box you have to settle for the occasional half decent film that you've already seen 37 times, or repeats of  mildly amusing current affairs based comedy shows, now made redundant by the fact that it really is "old news". Okay, so there have been huge innovations in your pay monthly digital provider of choice and there can be no doubt that technology and content availability are moving forward into the 21st century at a healthy pace, but, you really are limited to the choices that your providers give you. Here at Explorer Towers, we firmly believe it is only a matter of time before your TV and internet are combined in holy matrimony and give birth to a product which can offer you genuine choice of content you want to see, when you want to see it ("telenet", anyone? Quick, get it trademarked!).

You have to admire O2s ability to get the big players and most sought after phones on board. Not content with exclusice contracts with the iPhone and Palm Pre, they have now set up links with Samsungs new Android powered touchscreen smartphone, the Galaxy. So what to expect? 8GB memory can let you download about 2000 songs, so while not quite as impressive as the iPhone, it will certainly do for me. An OLED screen will give off a fantastically clear picture quality and superb depth of colour. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack is a major breakthrough in my eyes having had countless nightmares with those piddly little phone jacks you get with most models. Despite the "big" jack, the Samsung remains slim and, so long as you don't mind O2's less than perfect reputation for phone signal looks like it will be a bit of a winner.

Samsung have joined the number of mobile phone manufacturers such as Apple, RIM and Palm in designing their own smartphone platform. The Linux-based operating system, known as Bada - the Korean word for "ocean" - will feature exclusively on Samsung mobile phones from next year.

Buying a TV can be an expensive business, but there are options out there for those on a tight budget. At a sub-£350 price point, Samsung’s 32” LE32B450 LCD is one such TV. Samsung are highly regarded industry-wide for their medium to high priced sets, but how do their budget TVs stack up?