Good luck finding the PC's power switch. According to the manual, it is "located below the television control cluster"--but there is no illustration, and the word "cluster" appears nowhere else in the manual. (As a public service, I should point out that the switch in question is located on the left side of the TV, above the optical drive, and nowhere near anything that might reasonably be called a television control cluster.) Once Windows was up and running, its text was hard to read from a comfortable TV-viewing distance, and the keyboard worked only sporadically.

Setting up and using the ATVI-3G4542 as an HDTV isn't much easier. All TV inputs and PC ports--not just the HDMI and AV inputs, but also the PC's six USB ports and even the headphone jack--are on the back of the set, facing down, which makes them extremely difficult to access. Once you know how much effort is involved, you'll think twice before plugging anything into the ATVI-3G4542.

This set isn't especially easy to use once you get everything plugged in, either. The main menu doesn't explain the various options, and it responds to the remote in unexpected ways. For instance, if you want to adjust contrast, you select the option, press the remote's Enter button, and then use the left and right arrow buttons to adjust the settings on the slider bar at the bottom of the screen--just as you'd expect. But when you're done, pressing Enter a second time accomplishes nothing. To leave the slider bar and return to the menus, you have to press Menu, which is unusual for an HDTV.

The menu lacks some important options. There's no Advanced Video submenu for video geeks, and no parental control menu for parents who want ot put some programming off limits (you are allowed to lock up the TV entirely with a password, however).

The remote control is neither backlit nor programmable. The important keys are reasonably well placed, but Mute and Display are somewhat small.