Ffalcon? It's a rebranded TCL – Made by TCL for JB Hifi and other select retailers. One year warranty as opposed to three years for TCL branded goods.

Best feature for us is the ability to use this as a "dumb" TV. You have the choice of disabling smart functions on initial setup. We chose to do this. Should a firmware update be available I can obtain it online and update via USB. You can enable smart functions at any time via the menu system later. It's Freeview+ compliant, but that requires an internet connection.

The manual is a mixed bag. Between the eight page quick-start guide and main manual, there's sufficient guidance for installation, safety and initial setup. There's also a small trouble-shooting section at the back. Chapter 1 mentions TVs with buttons on the main chassis, but they're not relevant here. Not even a Power button, so take care of your remote as there's no redundancy.

Whilst there's a few pages of information for Smart and streaming functions, there is NOTHING written about sound or picture settings. You may be thinking "Seriously? These are simple and everybody knows that stuff!" Well, no. Plus it's a bit shoddy all the same.

There's eight sound presets. There's five picture presets. There's Micro dimming, Flicker less, Auto format, Motion clarity and a bunch of options in the Advanced Picture sub-menu including two and ten-point white balance. None are explained -- you're on your own. I already knew what most of them were, including Overscan (Amiga days) but how many other people will?

The standard feet are about a metre apart. If your viewing platform is narrower, there's VESA-mount pedestal stands available from around $20 online.

For anyone wondering, there's three HDMIs, one of which is ARC (Audio Return Channel) capable. They're calling CEC "T-Link". It's mostly fine but for some minor niggles I'll list below. My understanding of CEC suggests it's never 100% reliable, regardless of brand.

With minimal fiddling, I achieved a nice picture. Panel is bright and contrasty but looks best with non-SD broadcasts. Decent 480P encodes look better than 576i SD DTV. I don't stream or possess 4K content. I have played my 2003 xbox* on it, and it looks just as good as our old Samsung PTV. I know others are using current-gen consoles and the onboard HDR10 is reputedly good.

The sound is pretty decent for such a TV, with varying degrees of clarity via presets or more tweaks using the Personal preset; even a bass boost, not that the speakers really deliver it. There's also a headphone jack at the bottom of the ports board (with you facing the screen, on the right).

A nice touch is the ability to disable the power LED. Good thing too, as there's a broad plastic lens at the bottom-centre that helps spread the light. It still comes on momentarily when you power it ON/OFF. From the same Advanced sub-menu you can enable "Instant Power On" that the manual helpfully explains "enables you to turn on your TV quickly". Like, there's another way? These functions typically come at the expense of slightly higher standby consumption. Again, the manual does not mention this.

The basic user-interface is reasonably well presented with sensible use of dark grey areas of varying opacity, depending on function. The channel information text sizes are quite small for programme synopsis and associated broadcast data. If you can pass an eye test, you'll read it okay. Responsiveness of remote button presses is variable, sometimes laggy. Interesting that there's no transparent lens on the nose of the remote. Might perform better if there were, and I'll soon look into that.

Niggles? A few.

1. Channel presets don't loop first-to-last or last-to-first. Eg from 85, clicking up should go to 1. From 1, clicking down should go to 85. In each scenario, it goes to source selection. If an active HDMI connection is present (and T-Link enabled) it will power up that device. External sources should only be accessible via the dedicated Source button, not channel up/down.

2. Muting audio sends signal to AVR and sound is muted. Un-muting usually leaves the Mute icon displayed, despite the sound being back on. Requires volume adjustment to clear it.

3. With T-Link and ARC functions on. Switching off the AVR doesn't switch to internal TV speaker. Requires T-Link or ARC to be switched off in a sub-menu off Main or from the Options menu where there's an Amplifier ON/OFF toggle.

4. If you keep USB storage connected, each time you power-on the TV, a prompt appears asking if you want to browse it.

5. PVR: there is no way to delete recordings! I'll have to delete them using my PC.

6. Access to the sleep timer is convoluted: Menu - System - Timer - Sleep timer - select duration - Return or Exit

7. Battery for remote is removed by sliding off cover on the underside of the remote. Which happens to be the entire length of the remote itself, despite the battery section accounting for just 20% of the overall length.

8. *No component input. Remember your favourite devices with RGB cables? Unless you route them via an AV receiver or RGB-HDMI adapter, this TV can't display them. Of little consolation is an AV composite adapter included for the 3.5mm AV jack, but we're talking legacy (1970s!) connectivity here. Weird how they accommodate that, skip RGB and provide HDMI.

Despite all that, it's still quite a bargain for a cheap 4K+HDR smart TV. As options for non-smart TVs of this size are virtually non-existent, the ability to run it dumb will appeal to many. You can check them out in-store, so take a USB stick with video you're familiar with. What you get for under $400 might just surprise you.