Humax TV/PVR Combo

When I was younger, being a naive but tech-loving soul, I desperately wanted a doorbell. At DIY stores I would excitedly press the test buttons and decide which ring I liked the most; I would judge whereabouts on the door frame the button would best be sited. But my mother, wearing her practical hat, refused – "it's just another thing to go wrong", she told me, and we had to make do with a boring old mechanical knocker.

Why this dreary stomp down memory lane, I hear you ask – well, Humax have given my mother something new to worry about. The LP32-TDR1 is a 32 inch widescreen TV with a build in 160gb twin-tuner PVR, cutting out the need for a seperate box and generally making things a whole lot more streamlined. Capable of storing up to 100 hours of video, as well as pausing and rewinding live television, it's likely based on the guts of Humax's highly popular PVR9200T standalone PVR, which is never a bad thing.

So why would my mother be distressed? Well, time and experience has told me that while combined gadgets are great when they're working, should something go wrong – a hard-drive crash, for instance, or a cracked screen – you're having to send your whole home entertainment system off for repair. Plus, when it comes round to upgrading time (a time every gadget-lover cherishes) you don't have the option to replace just one element; it's all or nothing.

This isn't going to be a big deal for a lot of people. They're going to sigh in relief at not having to figure out esoteric cabling, nor juggle two remote controls. But should the day come when they're cursing their everything-in-one-box for its fickleness, they really shouldn't bother calling my mother up for sympathy. She'll have none.

Humax [via Pocket-Lint]