Customer Reviews

Sharp Aquos LC-20B8US 20-Inch HD-Ready LCD Flat Panel TV

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is my first LCD TV so you might take my opinions with a grain of salt. It has a very bright display with rich, saturated colors. I am very pleased with the picture quality, even though I don't have an HDTV setup. I have it in my bedroom so the size, while not huge, is appropriate for the room. I deliberatly chose the 4:3 aspect ratio because I am fond of watching old movie serials and old TV DVD's and it is perfect for that. Otherwise I might have gone for a widescreen. Should I ever be in the market for a larger screen TV, Sharp would be at the top of my list of considerations.
Edit: Now that some time has elapsed, I have found one thing about this TV which I find particularly annoying, and that is the Closed Captions. You cannot turn them off and keep them off. That is, when you select OFF for the closed captions it might stay off for a little while. Then if you change the channel the things are back on again making it necessary to go back to the menu and turn them off all over again. Except sometimes it still is off but the CC's are on anyway. I use the mute button because I don't want to hear commercials and I don't want to read on screen the dialogue either. But I can't get rid of the closed captions. I was watching some of the World Cup on a Spanish station and I muted the audio because I cannot speak Spanish, but here come the closed captions pasted right on the screen in Spanish!! I find this so annoying that I changed my mind about buying another Sharp TV set. I don't care how nice the picture is. My mother has a new Panasonic TV and never has problems with the closed captions.

I had bought a 13" for my bedroom a few months back and knew that the Sharp Aquos is one of the best LCD around so I bought this 20" and the only thing that I was dissappointed about was the lack of video inputs, only 2 normal inputs. But otherwise great tv.

Neat, clean lines; terrific clarity, good sound and fits in small places. I really like this TV.

I have had my Aquos for one week and agree that color, white balance and sharpness with standard cable is great. (I never realized how far off the white balance was on my old Sony Trinitron until I compared it side by side with the new Sharp).
Sound is a problem though, and it's not just because the speakers are small. Even when using external speakers or feeding the sound from the TV to my stereo, the TV's pre amp tends to boost the very high frequencies way up even with the treble adjustment on the TV turned all the way down. This defect in the sound reproduction is bad enough to make the TV fatiguing to listen to after a while. My workaround is to use my Sony VCR as the tuner and sound source, use the Sharp as a picture only "monitor" and use my stereo for the sound amplification. Only problem is I now have to fuss with 3 remotes!
And as far using the Sharp as a PC monitor (it does support XGA resolution) sharpness is good after tweaking the "phase" setting, and lowering the Red and Blue signal setting were needed to get good white balance. But the biggest issue using the TV as a PC monitor is backlight flicker. With the backlight turned all the way up there is no noticeable flicker, but at a setting of 6 or below (1= darkest, 15= brightest) flicker starts to become noticeable when viewing anything with a light uniform background (like a text window). Therefore I could not recommend this as a primary PC monitor but perhaps as a secondary monitor for viewing pictures or videos. The flicker is there in TV mode, too, but it is not noticeable because typically you would turn up the backlight higher when watching TV as compared to using it as a desktop monitor.

This is a wonderful little set. I was leary of getting a factory refurbished set, but it's running great after several months and no problems at all. The non-HD channels come in a bit blurry in comparison, but that's to be expected. There are so many HD channels now--including all my favorite shows--so I am really enjoying it. The speakers are really nice, too. I have an efficiency condo so the small size and compact speakers included are perfect.

I did a fair amount of shopping and comparing. The price at Amazon and the performance of the Sharp TV are winning combinations. The TV met all expectations.

I bought a sharp lcd tv from j& r in new york last Jan, after a year and half, when powering on the tv, sometimes works, sometimes not. after unplug in, wait for a while and plug back, worked for a couple months. Send it to service center to checkup, was told that the lcd control board needs to be replaced. when request to get back the replaced lcd control board, was told that sharp does not give back the replaced board, it has to be shipped back, otherwise, you have to pay additional fee to get back the replaced board.. it's rather strange to hear such a lousy policy from any vendor..

But, if you do want to get a sharp, better get a long long warranty, it would help down the road.

Quality of picture was much less than one would expect from that pricy TV. Also, it was not compatible with my PC, so, I am returning it.

just bought this tv. I should have spend a little more for the panasonic or sony .I shopped this tv every where . Best place to buy circiut city $526.00 . new in box .You have to ask for this t.v Not on display I don't why they do that , maybe to get the internet shoppers in the store .

i find the cable wires hard to screw in and the power cord difficult where it is located amd the super video truly hard I find the set okay