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(More customer reviews)I have had this TV for a couple of weeks now. I waited a month from the day I ordered it to the day it finally arrived.
This TV is not heavy and it was easy putting it up on the wall mounted rack. I was pleasantly surprised.
Let me get this straight to anyone who is concerned, the gold bezel is like a faint gloss on the bottom of the TV. Hard to notice. I am not certain why they put that light color on the set, but you have to strain to notice it. When set up on in my theater room, this is not noticeable in any way. Don't worry about it if you are dithering on purchasing this set because of the gold bezel.
The picture is stunning and excellent. It is the best picture I have ever seen on a set. It's got some interesting features, for example the TV has a built in ambient light sensor which ramps the brightness of the picture up and down based on the light surrounding the TV. Turn it off. It dulls the picture quality in darkness. I have found no way to make it useful.
Folks, this TV has two major flaws but there is a work around for the first so bear with me. The second issue, only time will tell.
First, the TV seems like it is designed to be the hub of all of your HDMI components. The folks at Sharp assume that everyone will rush to buy a Sharp AV receiver, Sharp Blu-Ray player, etc. and have them work together with their Aquos Link. They are dreaming.
In my setup, I use a Pioneer AV receiver, a Panasonic Blu-Ray player and a DirecTV DVR, Satellite Receiver. All is HDMI and state of the art.
I wanted to pipe all of my HDMI components through the Pioneer AV Receiver and send an HDMI video signal to the Sharp TV. Works fine except the Sharp TV pops up a message "An Incompatible Audio Signal Has Been Received, etc., etc.".
Folks, I turned off the audio of the TV (selectable from the Sharp Menu), turned off the Aquos Link and I still got the message. Turns out, the TV REQUIRES PCM audio NOT HDMI only!!!! Even if you turn off the speakers on the TV, it still pops this silly message up.
Interestingly, there are only two ways to get this message off the bloody screen. First, you can turn the volume off the Sharp TV down to zero. Voila! The message goes away. The other way is to find a way to disable a pure HDMI audio signal from your AV receiver.
Okay, I found a work around by turning the volume to zero, but you would think that Sharp would be more interested in working with different HDMI components that are not Aquos Link. Nope, they don't. Very disappointing.
There is a second flaw that I do not know if it will fix itself or not. The bloody set "pops" loudly every few minutes or so. It's like the plastic is settling when it heats up. It's a strange noise but seems to be reducing over time. I don't like this problem as I don't have a work around. Time will tell.
Hindsight being 20/20, I think I would get a Sony or Samsung 65 inch LCD knowing what I know now. They are more expensive by 25% or so, but these two issues should not be in a high end TV.
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This is an update to my earlier review. One month after ownership.
Couple of things I would like to report. I have downgraded this TV to two stars.
1. The "popping" sound hasn't gone away. It's still popping as often as ever. This is very annoying.
2. I have 4 pixels that have gone bad. They are very noticeable on the screen. they appear as white lights on the screen on a dark background.
3. The screen wants to adjust itself when it thinks it is too bright a picture. Even when I have this feature supposedly turned off. When moving from scene to scene, this "adjustment" is visible and annoying. It distracts you from the movie.
4. One thing I forgot to mention in my earlier review, I attempted to pipe all the HDMI components into the TV (as Sharp seems to think this is the best way), then pipe the sound output to my Pioneer AV receiver via a fiber optic digital (can't output HDMI from the TV). The TV DOES NOT pipe the native sound through from the components. The result was a downgraded sound from the TV to the AV receiver. This is why I decided to keep the AV receiver as my component hub because I wanted to enjoy the surround sound as the sending component (Blu Ray) meant it to be heard.
My observation / advice is: don't buy this set. Sharp needs to work on the end product for a year first. Too many issues. Again, the picture is excellent. No complaints about the picture quality other than the dead pixel issue and goofy auto brightness feature that won't turn off.
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More info on the dead pixels. Just had a warranty person from Sharp come by and he found 10 more dead pixels on the screen that are not as bright or noticeable. Hopefully sharp replaces this beast as that totals 14 dead pixels.
As far as the popping sound. I am told I will have to live with it.
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Latest update - Sharp replaced the set quickly (they paid shipping both ways). Their shipping company helped take the defective set down and put the replacement set up.
Only one dead pixel on this set. Much better and acceptable.
No popping sound either.
I am much happier with the Sharp now that I replaced the defective set. One thing to remember is that my defective set was one of the first ones out of the new manufacturing plant. This replacement seems to work fine.Thank you.
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