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Sharp Aquos LC42D64U 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
Product Description
Product Details
Video Reviews
Customer Reviews
Price - Excellent. 4.5/5 Sharp was the cheapest prices between the top 3-4 brands I looked at that had a familiar name and plenty of reviews. I did examine other brands with lower prices on 1080p TVs, but I couldn't really obtain enough informational reviews or enough good ones to justify purchasing any of them just for the lower price.
Picture - Excellent. 4.25/5. I'll be honest, I was a little worried when purchasing a Sharp TV. First of all, I saw it's previous model (the D62U) at a Best Buy and a Circuit City and was not totally impressed with the picture, but I had heard that sometimes bad feeds or other issues can make a store-display not as attractive. However, my real concern was if my TV would have the infamous "banding" that seemed to plague some of Sharp's earlier models. You can easily find out what banding is by searching something like "Sharp banding issues". I won't go into specifics myself about that. Anyway, I had read this model of TV -can- have banding, but that it is not near as common nor as significant in earlier models. My TV has no noticeable banding issues at all, and I'm not going to go out of my way to nitpick and search for any small issues that may be there as I can't see them now.
As for the picture itself, it is great. Much better than the store displays for the earlier model that had me worry. Obviously, out-of-box settings aren't the best. At first I tried to change picture modes (of which there are several) to a User setting and tweak it using recommendations from some tech forums. This became tedious as people posted different specs and none were really quite looking right for me. So I gave up on that and just tried them on the default settings for what I was doing. I set my HDMI PS3 input to Gaming picture and it looks great. I see no reason to change it beyond that, it looks exactly as I was hoping for. Same with the Movie setting as well for my DVD input. No dead pixels and a crisp clear picture with good contrast black levels and brightness make it a great choice.
Plenty of options available for picture adjustment as well.
Features - Very Good. 4/5 Plenty of inputs. You can read the specs in the item description. My only reason for docking it a point is because the 3rd HDMI and 2nd Component are located on the side and stick out when plugged in. I can understand this could be an eyesore for those wall-mounting it or just not wanting to see them sticking out. I am not using that 3rd HDMI port (yet), but I do have 2 component items hooked up and the cords sticking out the side and noticeable from looking at the TV straight-on plus the location of my TV itself does make it a tad annoying, but I am getting used to it and it's not really bothering me as much as it might others.
Overall - Excellent. 4.75/5 (note, the overall is not meant to be an average of the other scores). Overall, it's definately a great buy. There is more that I could say and some things I have probably forgotten about that I wanted to say, but that's ok. I don't want to make this too awful long a review. So, yeah, basically my experience with this TV is amazingly good and I would easily recommend this TV to anyone who asked me. It's price, features, and picture easily won me over.
I had originally ordered the LC-42D62U (not from Amazon - sorry!), but discovered some minor 'banding' issues with the set when I hooked it up. Overall, the picture was outstanding, but in dark or deep shadow areas slight variations in tone were evident as horizontal bands. If I'd only spent a couple hundred dollars on the set, I might have just let it go, but for over $1500, this wasn't acceptable. I was initially nervous because, although most customer reviews for Sharp's LCDs were positive, some of the negative ones were accompanied by customer service horror stories. So, with some trepidation, I called Sharp. It was a Wednesday afternoon. The representative I spoke to was courteous and friendly, and asked if I could take a digital photo of the problem and e-mail it to Sharp. That was reasonable to me, so I agreed. I didn't get a chance to send the pics until Friday around noon, from my office. By the time I got home from work I had received a reply thanking me for the pics and promising a prompt reply. By the time I woke up on Saturday, I had received another e-mail saying they had reviewed the pics, would exchange the set, and would contact me to make arrangements. Monday morning I got a call at my office from another courteous rep telling me that my new set would arrive in 7-10 days, and the trucking company would pick up the old set when they dropped off the new - AND that since the D62 line was no longer in production, they would be sending me one of their brand new (thinner, lighter, more feature-laden) D64's.
The exchange went off without a hitch, and the new set looks absolutely fantastic. Like all LCDs, some fine tuning was definitely required, as the out-of-box settings are overly bright and saturated (to make them pop on showroom floors), but once the set is properly tuned it looks amazing. Blu-ray is awesome!!
So, the product is a definite winner, and my initial problems were handled with speed, courtesy, and professionalism. All in all, I have to say that this turned out to be the best experience I've ever had with customer service from ANY company.
Model #: SHA LC42D64U
This was my first purchase for a flat screen television and I waited 3 months to ensure that this product review is as accurate as possible. I'm not the type of buyer to buy a new piece of electronic equipment on a fly. My last television lasted 10 years, needless to say I shop for a long term investment. This television in one word is "beautiful."
We (my wife and I) went to the store to buy a Sony Television--that's all we ever purchased in the past. They are simply too expensive and with the guide of Consumer Reports we started looking at the Toshiba televisions. We saw the picture quality of the Sharp Aquos LC42D64U and we were awestruck. We kept viewing other televisions and kept going back to the Sharp Aquos.
It's just a beautiful piece of Art when it is off. It is incredibly slim and the shiny bezel gives it a golden touch. When it's on, watching the HD channels is so mesmerizing that it literally transcends you. The regular channels look very good as well but of course, not as beautiful as the HD channels. We have a standard DVD player and even with that, the picture is absolutely stunning--imagine with an HD DVD player.
In addition, the television has an amazing list of features. It has several features including: an analog PC input, HDMI 1.3 with CEC and Deep Color support, side input panel, and a lot more picture adjustment settings. It also has an RS-232 control port if you have a control system for your AV. It has a USB port for updating firmware in the future which is a great addition (this will allow future HDMI protocols to be implemented).
The only draw back I would give is that the speaker sound quality could be better BUT that doesn't take away from the overall performance of the television. If you have a surround sound system, then that reasoning is moot. If you don't, I would still purchase this television because the sound is very good, just in comparison to the television you'll expect a master sound theatre.
Picture looks great. Until recently, LCD's looked duller than plasma. I think they changed the glass coating on new LCD's like this one. It really pops.
It's easy to set up. Had trouble with every other component in our new AV system except this one, which worked flawlessly.
It's slightly smaller than other LCD's. When you're trying to cram 42" into a small area and pass the spouse calling it a monstrosity test, you've got to be very careful. The footprint of this set is the same as 40" older plasmas and it's thinner. Size matters! (Smaller is better).
Overall value/pricepoint of this videophile set is great. Sharp just released the D64U line in August. All indications are it's a hit.
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