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Sharp Aquos LC32D62U 32-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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Customer Reviews
I'm glad that they put a matte finish on the glass so that there's much less glare than on my old standard TV. The border is shiny piano black but I haven't been troubled by reflections or fingerprints. I also haven't noticed any problems with uneven backlighting or bad pixels. When watching non-widescreen programs the set will let you choose from black sidebars, stretch, or zoom. I wish it were smart enough to automatically zoom in on letterboxed low-definition shows but it's easy enough to switch manually.
I was surpised at the diversity of input ports: multiple stereo audio jacks, component, composite, S-video, cable, and HDMI. The set will let you rename the inputs on-screen and disable inputs that you don't use.
I'm very pleased with the speakers. The sound quality is quite good and, unlike many sets, the volume covers the entire range from very quiet to blasting with fine control. My old set went from "not quite loud enough" to "annoying loud" with a single press of the volume button. I know that many people hook up external sound systems these days but for my purpose I'm glad to have good built-in speakers.
The remote control is perplexingly big. The buttons are small and widely spaced. There's also a flip-open compartment with four small buttons inside. Why they didn't just put those buttons on the surface is beyond me.
When I received my package, it was damaged on delivery (a big crack in the speaker) and had 12 dead pixels. Amazon and UPS took care of the replacement about a week later and I received another unit that was in perfect condition, but appeared to have already been taken out of the box
once. Hmm, maybe a refurb? I don't know, but it has no dead pixels this time around and since I bought it as a "new set" I have a "new" warranty, not a refurb warranty.
I have heard from doing lots of research on this TV that certain sets suffer from dead pixels while ones not built in the Japanese plant do not. My own experience would seem to corroborate this idea. For instance, my original TV with the 12 dead pixels said "Manufactured in Japan" on the back. This new one, which is the same model but of a different batch, says "Manufactured in Mexico" (and has NO dead pixels!). Caveat emptor!
Another important thing to note:
This TV DOES support 1080p over both Component and HDMI (this is relatively unclear from every website I've read, and most TVs only do 1080p over HDMI!)
For the price, this TV is a steal. The picture quality is superb. I bought a miniDVI -> HDMI cable for my girlfriend's Macbook and watch 1080p content on it all the time. Sharp automatically recognizes it's a computer signal over HDMI and works beautifully.
Image is fantastic, no blurring on super fast action racing games.
I connected a small UHF antenna and got great HDTV reception in my area. As a big fan/owner of Sony and Samsung LCDs - this TV has excellent ink black blacks and the pureest whites. The color is as good or better as any other 2007 high end LCD TV when compared at side by side at the store.
The adjustments setable per each input - for colors, picture, zoom/stretech options.
Standard DVD:
The picture looks great, and even though not HD it does not pixellate or blur as much as I'd thought it would. It is noticable that you are not getting a truly HD picture, but not enough to make me want to go out and immediately get an up-converting player.
Comcast HD box:
The standard channels look so-so, depending on the network and the time of day (prime-time channels are given more attention than off-peak), and HD channels simply scream with life. Discovery HD is amazing! The color balance is wonderful, and the blacks are astounding. It has "living black" as I like to call it, whereas many flat-panels have dull, flat blacks that wash out the picture. I am told that this is because some TVs display black as an inactive pixel (or something of that nature), whereas higher end TVs actually render the color black. My girlfriend's mother said that it was amazing because there was actually DEPTH to the picture. The amount of shows and networks broadcasting in HD on Comcast is a bit low for my liking, but that will change soon enough.
I had tried connecting the cable directly to the TV, but since we get digital cable, the higher channels just showed up as 100.5 100.7 etc. Not exactly an easy way to tell which channel you're watching.
Apple Mac Mini computer:
I had some issues getting the picture to come up. The TV just kept telling me that there was no compatible signal. Since I had no other monitor I had to enable the text-to-speech feature and feel my way to the picture settings in the control panel. When I turned off the "TV overscan" setting, bam, signal. The picture looks good enough, but not as good as i'd hoped. Maybe the Mac Mini just doesn't have the cahones to push that great of a picture to a monitor this big. One other downside is that the picture does not fill the whole screen, but rather leaves about a 3/4 inch of black all around, which reduces my visible image to about 29" in the end. Still huge, but I'd rather have the whole she-bang. I am told Apple TVs fare a lot better in this department, but I want to do more than they offer.
*EDIT* I cured the overscan issue and got the full screen real-estate of the Mac Mini by using a program called DisplayConfigX (12 bucks) which lets you set a custom screen resolution. I recommend setting it to 720 and working from there. The 1080i resolution makes everything so small that it ends up being pretty much useless. I also puchased a Wii controller, "wireless" wii bar, and a bluetooth dongle and with a program called RemoteBuddy you can use the Wiimote as a media center remote, though I've still got to iron out some kinks, like clicking stuff (the wiimote isn't steady enough to click without it registering as a click-and-drag).
All in all, I love the set. I love it so much I had the 42" model purchased for our lounge area at work, and that one works just as well. I compared similar size competitor's sets at the local big-box store, and most were easily inferior to this set, with the exception of the larger Samsung models that support 1080p (I like the look of the Samsung models more, but sadly they don't make a 32" model that has 1080p), and I am told that Sony brand sets are superior to these, but come at a premium I wasn't prepared to shell out.
Let me get to the problems with this set. Aquos are notorious for banding, both horizontal and vertical. Mine has it too, but it is pretty subtle. You only notice it vaguely on occassion and if you turn down the brightness a tad and maybe turn up the contrast a skoshe it's gone. It's not a big deal on my set, but it may be worse on others so you should be aware of it.
Also the contrast could be better. The 62U comes with a feature you can turn on that automatically adjusts the picture to suit the ambiant light. That's nice, but it darknes the picture down. You may decide to keep this feature on all the time anyway because the darknening gets rid of the gray black areas. This is only in large dark areas so if you're watching Batman Begins for example it may become more obvious.
Overall this set has an extraordinary picture, the built-in speakers are good and the features are very helpful. The digital noise feature is amazing by the way. Again it's a compromise sometimes because it can give a weird strobe effect at times, but it does what it says and eliminates all but the heaviest grain/noise.
This set makes everything look as good as it possibly can, very highly recommended.
The picture quality for HD programing is FANTASTIC. The picture quality for non-HD programing is VERY GOOD. Black's are GREAT. The only negative I have found is related to the volume of the sound (no additional speakers are connected). If there is background noise inside the house, I am unable to raise the volume high enough to compensate.
We love this TV and only wish that our entertainment center had been able to hold a larger version of the D62U series.
Highly recommend!!!
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