Cheap Buy HDTV

I was in desperate need of a 1080p 32" HDTV that would fit into the existing entertainment cabinet in my living room, which is exactly 31" wide. You'd be amazed at how difficult it is to find a 32" LCD that meets that requirement. Most are around 31.5", which is very close but just wouldn't fit.

Long story short: The set has gorgeous picture quality. No complaints at all about that. Unfortunately, the speakers are extremely tinny and just plain awful. The limited audio controls in the setup menu allow you to adjust treble and bass. I wound up pulling treble almost all the way to the bottom to temper the scratchy highs, and then nudging bass up a bit. But don't turn the bass up too high, or the speakers will distort during loud noises. The best I can get it still sounds far worse than the 20 year-old standard-def set that this is replacing. This TV really requires the use of a separate audio system. In my case, that means I'm going to have to find a soundbar that will also fit my cabinet. I hadn't planned on that.

The television is fairly easy to set up. My only disappointment there is that the set only offers a 4:3 pillarbox mode on standard-def input signals. HD input signals are locked to 16:9. Because the upconverting DVD/Blu-ray player I plan to use with this TV doesn't offer a pillarbox mode either, I'm going to have to train my wife to set the player for 480p output whenever she wants to watch her beloved Gilmore Girls DVDs, and then set it back to 1080p afterwards. Or else she'll have to watch them stretched, which neither of us finds acceptable. That's going to be a big nuisance (with a long learning curve, undoubtedly). Why don't TV manufacturers enable full aspect ratio control on both SD and HD signals?

The set's a little expensive. But, again, gorgeous picture. I'm happy with the purchase overall, despite these caveats.

Considering the technologies packed into this tv, its one of the better value among its class, if you can live with some of its flaws.

Positives: Very, very good picture quality after calibration. Blu-rays look especially stunning. Deep black, and very good black details.

Neutral: Slow tuner, changing analog and digital channels takes at least a couple of seconds. Average input lag. Using Guitar Hero 3 lag calibration tool, I was able to get 48 milisec in Game mode, and between 90 - 130 milisec in other modes.

Negative: Flashlighting. My tv came with 2 large spots, the size of my palm each. Reducing the backlight helps somewhat, but they're clearly visible during dark scenes such as the cave scenes of Iron Man blu-ray.

Some recent Sharp panels had banding issues. This Genx panel supposedly corrected this problem. However, I'm disappointed to find out that it is still present at least on my tv.
I have an inch wide, faint verticle band on the left side of the screen. I didn't detect this initially until watching the oil field burning scene in Baraka. Subsequently I noticed it came up during watching the US open, and Master and Commander. I can conclusively confirm that the banding is there with my tv when displaying a solid green jpeg. Again this banding is quite faint and very hard to detect, but once I did it's very hard for me to ignore.

got this about a week ago. the picture is amazing. very black blacks, extremely sharp color. paired with a sharp aquos blu-ray player, the aquos link system works very nicely. more than enough connections. menu/settings are pretty easy to access/understand. LED technology seems the way to go given the energy savings and life of the backlight, and sharp seems to have a winner here. interesting to me - if you upgrade to this from an old lcd hdtv, you'll notice a huge difference in the heat coming from the tv.

the only downside are the speakers - they are clear enough but tiny and hollow. but this holds for every lcd tv on the market as far as i am concerned, so i can't really hold this against sharp.

like the previous reviewer said, as long as it proves reliable sharp has produced a tv that gives the best sony, samsung, and other sets a run for their money - at a much lower price.