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Posted on Nov 26, 2006 - 3:33am by John P. in Must Haves, Reviews
My living room wasn’t bringing the kind of audio visual pleasure it once did, so we had to take the step up to a new HD TV. The problem was, which one to get?
The absolute dimensions for our built in cabinetry dictated that we could go no larger than a 40-42″ flat panel TV, depending on the brand. After doing quite a bit of comparative analysis we finally decided on the Sharp 42″ Aquos LCD (LC-42D62U), which we got at Best Buy.
This TV was only released a few weeks ago and Best Buy’s initial pricing was $2,299. Just before Thanksgiving they put it on “Sale” for $1,999. Being a Reward Zone member, and a pretty darn good customer of Best Buy, we had received a coupon good for 12% off the purchase, which brought the pricing down to $1,759.
HINT: Tell the people in the store that you got a 10% or 12% off coupon but left it at home and the’ll give it to you on any large ticket item in the store.
At the time of purchase, a quick search on Price Grabber revealed that I couldn’t even get it online anywhere cheaper, so we went ahead and picked one up.
There were four primary characteristics which drew me to this TV:
The TV has a Built-In HDTV Tuner, but that’s only good if you’re going to use it with an antenna. To get HD via cable or sattelite you’re going to need a box, or one of the new HD TiVos.
The two HDMI inputs mean that you can either hook an HD tuner and an upconverting (or HD / Blueray) DVD player to it simultaneously, or you can use an HDMI switching A/V receiver.
After getting the TV home and hooked up to our Time Warner HD DVR I’m pleased to report that the HD picture quality is outstanding. I’d give it an 8.75 out of 10. (I mean, I’ve seen better – but you’re going to have to spend double to triple what this one cost to get it today.) And that is only with a 1080i source. I imagine that 1080p will be even better, but I’ll wait till either Blueray or HD DVD win the standard war before investing in one of those.
Sound quality on this set is adequate, but personally I don’t rely on the internal speakers as we run it through a 5.1 surround system. One thing I found out the hard way is that if you use the digital optical output on the TV to connect it to your receiver, you can no longer use the variable volume control. I mean, the settings will allow you to choose it, but turning the volume up and down on the TV has no effect on the actual volume level. I suppose this is because it’s a digital signal, but it would have been nice of them to tell you this in the manual.
The remote control that comes with the TV is pretty weak in my opinion. I don’t find it to be layed out very intuitively and it’s too large. Luckily I’m not planning on using it as I’ll likely convert to a Logitech Harmony programmable remote in the not too distant future.
Finally, I’ve noticed that non-HD shows seem to have a little more difficult displaying contrast between shades of black or other dark colors. I’m not sure if this is my cable box, the quality of the broadcast, or the actual TV. Anyway, it’s not that bad, but I do notice it. The simple solution is to just watch as much HD content as possible. :-)
The exceptional picture quality combined with the low price make this HD TV an outstanding bargain. For those that require lots of features such as picture-in-picture or high end internal audio systems you might want to move along to a Sony XBR, but for the money – at this point in time – the Sharp Aquos simply can’t be beat.
If I can make a suggestion for a new computer monitor for the man…
http://tinyurl.com/7zr8s
I’m not sure Terry. I don’t see the benefit to downgrading from my current monitor. :-)
http://www.ocregister.com/blog/gadgetress/uploaded_images/HWspace-783745.gif
Then the Man has to go where no man has gone before…
http://memory-alpha.org/en/images/a/a4/USS_Enterprise-D,_past,_present_and_future.jpg
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can i use the 42′ sharp as a monitor?? i see no input for the computer cable
It doesn’t have an RGB input, but if you have HDMI or Component outputs on your video card I suppose you could use it. And it would be one bad ass monitor! :-)
John
yea ill do that i might have to get another video card tho , thanks
So i wetnt to tiger diect and bought the s video interconnect cable, since my video card only has a RGB input and a svideo. they said it would work b/c i had that hook up on th back of my 42 sharp and on my computer….. well when i went home i hooked it up.. turned in my TV and switched the input to s video, which i was supposed to do. it did’ent work.. no picture. i dont know what to do. Any suggestions??
You have to turn on your secondary monitor setting from the display adapter settings. You should see something for TV/2nd screen etc where u turn on the S video signal since the primary is going out your VGA cable to your monitor.
Hmmmmmmm this is a great idea for the December member prize of the month :)
Kim:)
I appreciate the reviews that you’ve done for the items that you’ve bought for yourself. I’m definitely thinking that it’s a worthy blog post both from you as well as something that I’m going to consider doing whenever I buy something. It at least contributes to the public wealth of knowledge.
Just curious but what kind of a television did you have before? And what kind of sound system do you have running? (I’m curious because I’ve been looking around for a little bit.)
I connected my aquos using svideo, but the resolution sucks, it does not give me the option to set it to the full 1080 resolution stated. Not sure if it is my video card, s video, or the aquos.
Anyone connect it through HDMI yet? and has anyone had any better luck with Svideo resolution?
You can get 720i if you hook up a RGB cable (if you have one on your LCD TV) If you have a DVI output on your computer then you could get a DVI to HDMI. The best solution is to get a Full HD capible Video card (1920×1080p) that has either HDMI output or DVI output.
HDMI outputs also allows 5.1 digital sound to your LCD TV in the same cable where as DVI will only send video to your LCD TV. Then you will have to hook up sound from either a 3.5 stereo jack to RCA, unless you have a 3.5 jack input on your LCD TV, then use 3.5 to 3.5.
What are the best video settings for the Aquos? I just picked up the 42 ” LCD and can’t get the picture just right yet; any suggestions?