Customer Reviews

Sharp Aquos LC32D62U 32-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've had this TV for three weeks now and I'm very happy with it. I went with the small end of the HDTV line because I have a moderately sized apartment and didn't want the set to dominate my living room. The 32" screen is a nice, modest size and the picture quality is great. Going for 1080p rather than 720p might be overkill at this size, but it's nice to know I have the sharpest image money can buy and it'll make a stunning second monitor for my computer.

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.

Hello everyone! I just purchased this TV several weeks ago from Amazon. It's a wonderful TV to be sure, but it has risks that I'd like to warn everyone about.

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.

I purchased this TV for exclusive use of my Xbox 360. As other have stated, this DOES accept 1080p thru component input as well as HDMI. This 1080p thru component inputs is key feature for any Xbox 360 gamer.

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.

My Sharp Aquos LC32D62U was purchased through one of Amazon's sellers, and they dont accept returns on TV's. So I'm stuck trying to get my defective set fixed by Sharp. The set worked for about 1 day (looked great by the way), but then failed (1/2" wide black line across screen and rest of screen blurry and with double image).
Called Sharp 3 days ago to get it repaired. They said to wait 2 days for service center to call me. They never did. Called service center and they said Sharp never contacted them. Called Sharp and was told dispatch center closes early on Fridays. Told to wait 'til Monday to start from the beginning. So I'll be lucky if I get a call from the service center one week after my first call to Sharp. Lets see when they actually show up, and when my set actually gets fixed. I guess that is the risk you take when buying a TV set online. Buyer Beware... you may have a huge headache on your hands even though you spent over $1K on a TV.

QAM tuner picks up all my HD local channels, plus INHD and TNTHD from my local comcast market. I work at CC, so I got to know the TV really well from how it looked at work. Once I took it home, it looked 10x better once I was done with my calibration DVD. I sit about 10.5 back, so analogue doesn't look bad at all. I must say, this set does analogue stuff fairly well. Local HD stuff looks phenomenal. I don't even like NASCAR, but FOX HD made me feel like I was right there. No uneven backlight issues,no blobs or anything else. Mine came out of the box looking great. For this price, I advise you give this TV a look. Once I hooked it up to a Blu Ray player, it looked GREAT. I highly encourage this TV for small living spaces like mine. My room is probably 12x12, so it looks perfect.

Make sure you carefully examine the picture using the actual unit you will buy, and if you are mail ordering it, make sure you have a good return policy that allows returns for screen defects. Sharp will NOT replace units that have even very noticeable flaws. I have a unit with a region of dim pixels the size of a pea, and they consider it to be 'within spec', and WILL NOT replace it. I made the mistake of taking it to the authorized repair facility, instead of returning it to the vendor immediately. It took them four weeks to finally shoot me down, by which time I could no longer return it to the vendor. Now I own a very expensive television that makes me angry every time I watch it. NICE JOB SHARP!!! They will definitely be at the bottom of my list for my next purchase. Too bad, I used to like their sets.

I eagerly awaited the delivery of this bad boy, and can not be more pleased with it. Currently I have a standard def DVD player, Comcast HD cable box, and an Apple Mac Mini connected to it. I'll give you a run-down on how each fares:

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.

My husband got the 42" version of this set mainly to watch his never ending sports. I liked it so bought the 32" for my movies. It's great for both HD and standard programs which we receive via cable. I have the cable company's DVR box and that's working well with this set. I rent movies from Netflix and all of those have looked fine though I still have a standard DVD/VCR combo. The sound is fine and this TV looks very nice as well. Thanks to all of you who reviewed Sharp in the past as I chose the brand in part due to your recommendations. One thing, the picture on the 32" seems slightly better than the picture on the 42" but that may be the way I adjusted the picture. My husband likes his brighter, wants to be blinded by ice when he watches hockey, or so I surmise. Maybe it's just the size of the screen that makes a difference, but both are basically great.

When I was shopping for a new HDTV this spring, I did a search of everything I wanted in one. The 62U popped up right away because it has everything. And it all works fantastic too. The built in ATSC tuner is stunning! I had a digitalstream external tuner for my last TV and it was very touchy. I had to readjust the antennae all the time. Not so with the 62U. There's still the occassional adjustment, but for the most part everything comes in beautifully all the time.

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.

UPDATE 10/25: After Sharp told me that one dead pixel was normal, the tv stopped working and just had a continuous flashing green power light. (I know, how convenient). Sharp wanted me to schedule the TV for service via a local service center, and after not hearing from the service center I decided not to mess around any more and called 6Ave and advised the TV stopped working 20 days after delivery. 6Ave has a 30day replacement guarantee if your tv up to 32 inches proves defective. Instead of waiting for the service center to repair my tv and since it did have one bad pixel, I opted for 6Ave to send me a DHL shipping label to return my tv for a new replacement. It took 6 days to get the label and four days after returning the TV to get the replacement (a brand new set). The new set works fine and I do not see any bad pixels on this one. We'll see how it lasts during the next 30 days, but based upon this experience I am somewhat concerned about the SHarp quality control and willingness to stand by what is deemed acceptable from the LCD pixel standpoint. The picture does look great and the features are nice, so as long as you get a set with no bad pixels you should be satisfied. I would strongly encourage you to understand your return options if you order via mail-order. You'll pay more buying directly from a store, but atleast you can conveniently return for replacement in shorter period of time.

ORIGINAL POST:

THis is my second Sharp HD LCD that I purchased. I had no problem with Amazon or 6Ave in the order/delivery process with prompt delivery from 6Ave. I did have one bad pixel on the screen which is almost impossible to see unless you are directly in front of the tv and looking for it. I called Sharp technical support and they advised that this is within their normal tolerances for an LCD. I was very pleased with the picture quality and features of this Aquos unit, however, after 4 weeks of using it the tv screen went blank this morning and now won't even power up. Sharp was supportive in creating a support request with the nearest service center and I am awaiting their callback to schedule the service visit. My parents had a Sony LCD that had an LCD go bad within the first month, so I know from talking with the service tech then that if your display is going to malfunction it will usually occur within the first 30-60 days of use. If it wasn't for the bad pixel and now having to deal with a service call, I would have given this five stars.