Scarlett O’Hara, one of the most memorable film ­characters of all time, was a beautiful, seductive, feisty woman with a tongue that could cut steel and eyes that could bring a man to his knees. In many ways LG’s Scarlet shares this unconventional beauty, only with a ­technological twist. 

A seductive crimson rear, an absorbing piano black face and a haughty presence; there is no disputing that Scarlet is a sexy creature. We were so taken by her in fact that we have made it office policy to exclude the use of the word “it” in her presence.

Scarlet has a stunning set of figures. We reviewed her 42-inch, LG60 model with Full HD 1080p resolution. She ­displays a busty 50 000:1 contrast ratio, a petite 4ms response time, a tight 16:9 aspect ratio and a round set of three HDMI 1.3 inputs. In addition she provides onboard MP3/JPEG/DivX/Xvid playback via USB. When watching HD video you can’t help but ­appreciate her picture ­quality and the vivacity of the colours (most notable in human flesh tones, the depth of black ­levels and the true shadow details) on display.

From a usability ­perspective she is brilliant.  She has an ‘Expert Mode’ which allows viewers to ­completely customise every audio visual setting ­imaginable. She also offers a number of preset enhanced AV modes such as Cinema, Sport and Game modes.

Her LG80 alter ego is ­perhaps a little more subtle in her features, with no backlit Power ring, a slightly less busty 30 000:1 contrast ratio, and only two HDMI 1.3 ­inputs. Once you switch her on, however she transforms, with an impressive 3.1 ­channel virtual-surround sound system seemingly ­appearing from nowhere. Right and left channel ­speakers automatically ­extend from her sides, while a third centre channel speaker ­enhances human vocal sounds and lastly a woofer is fitted in her back. In total she outputs a ­maximum of 50 watts of sound.

LG seems to grasp the ­consumer need to have ­hardware that looks as good as it performs, Scarlet being a prime example. RRP on the 42-inch LG60 is R19 000.