Sharp Aquos LC42D72U 42-Inch 1080p LCD HTDV
See it at Amazon.com for $2,399.99Average Customer Rating
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(4 out of 5)Great TV and features, just takes a while to calibrate!
I originally owned the Samsung LN-S4095D 40" 1080p LCD HDTV, but I returned it. Once I saw the high-def picture, I wanted a larger screen. My AV cabinet was able to handle a 42, so I took a chance with the new LC42D72U. After much research, I thought Sharp had the best offering in the 42" LCD category. So far I am very pleased.
I purchased the set from Wholesale AV. It was a positive experience. The TV arrived on time and in excellent condition.
The first LC-42D72U had a small defect. Most people would not notice it. In a quiet environment, certain backlight settings caused the TV set to hum (See 5/17/07 update below). The hum was very faint, it sounded like a tuning fork. I confirmed with Sharp this was a defect. The merchant was kind enought to arrange an exchange. My new set is perfect. With any new technology, there is bound to be a small percentage of defects. Both Sharp sets had no PQ issues with respects to banding or clouding.
Be prepared, the factory settings are awful. The image is much too dark out of the box. The backlight, contrast and brightness all have to be jacked up (please see 4/11 update below). The HD PQ is just stunning. The contrast and the black level are unbelievable. I think the latest generation LCDs definately close the gap with plasmas in respects to contrast/black levels. The standard def signal is OK, not great. My view is there is going to be less standard def in a few years, so the high def PQ is more important.
The TV has plenty of inputs, most are 1080p compatible. There are 2 HDMI and 1 DVI inputs. It looks like the HDMI inputs are not compatible with the new 1.3 standard. I have a cable box and DVD connected by HDMI and a VCR and X-Box connected by RCA. I still have a few inputs available for additional devices.
As for comparing the LC42D72U vs. LN-S4095D, here are my observations:
- The Sharp gives you an extra 2", providing a more immersive experience.
- The Samsung has a glossy picture. The images shown on the Sharp are flat. This emphasizes the brightness on the Samsung. On the flip side, I think the flat picture makes the Sharp picture more realistic.
- The Samsung has a higher cd/m2 spec than the Sharp (550 vs. 450). I was able to reduce this gap by jacking up the backlight, constast and brightness on the Sharp.
- The Sharp has an light sensor that adjust the backlight setting. This is a nice feature for a room that has varying light conditions. On the Samsung, this can be achieved by pressing a button on the remote to adjust the backlight setting.
- The Sharp has deeper blacks than the Samsung. You could argue this is not a fair comparison, since the Samsung I reviewed belongs to the prior generation. Samsung just came out with a new line of LCDs, with comparable constrast ratios.
- The speakers are larger and give you a fuller sound on the Sharp vs. the Samsung. This is probably because the Sharp has a larger enclosure. Most people will not use the onboard speakers and will instead opt to send the sound signal to a home theater system.
Overall, I think the Sharp is an excellent value. I gave the HDTV 4 stars since there is room for improvement with respects to the brightness of the picture. Of course, you should compare the picture quality at a store before making the plunge...It is a matter of taste (glossy or a flat picture).
4/11/07 Update: I was able make significant improvements to the picture brightness, thanks to another D72 owner's recommendations on picture settings. Now there are no brightness issues. The key is to let the color setting drive some of the brightness. Now the picture is brighter and richer, much more natural looking. I can see now that the cd/m2 spec is not important. The Sharp panel is efficient in transmitting light. With this problem solved, this TV can now be rated 5 stars.
5/17/07 Update: The humming issue could have been a faulty component cable. The Samsung 4095 did not have this problem with this cable. I switched to a HDMI cable for my cable box connection and any humming went away.
(5 out of 5)Awesome TV... a word about viewing angles
I'll just echo what others have said here about the quality of the TV. It's really great. The 4ms response time is probably a good "feature" to think about when deciding on this one over the 62U.
A good DVD to test out for fast moving images is probably the CG-animated Final Fantasy VII - Advent Children. It has VERY fast moving images as there's a lot of fighting scenes and this TV handled it beautifully.
Now then, as far a viewing angles. I'll just relate my story to those worried about "wash-out" at extreme viewing angles. OK, when I received my set from a friendly Fed Ex delivery guy, I quickly opened the box and prepared to set up the TV. Because it was replacing a really heavy Sony WEGA flatscreen on a shelf roughly 5' off the floor, I just set the set on the floor to test to see if it operated alright. Well it worked fine, but there was one thing I noticed. It washed out very easily at just about any viewing angle other than straight on at about 6 feet sitting in an office chair. So you can guess that I was concerned that when I would stick it up where it ultimately goes.
Jump to the next day when we took a couple hours in the morning to change out my old TV and what do you know...it actually views better from a low angle looking up, rather than a high angle looking down. Then it dawned on me...a lot of people hang these on their walls quite a bit higher than their eye line. So rest easy if your placement location is higher than your eye line.
Also, from that high angle, side-to-side viewing angles are good too. Little to no wash-out.
EDIT: UPDATE 9/4/07
OK, so I've had this TV now for about 2.5 months now. And for HD sources, ie. MPEG2 and MPEG4 compressed 1080i satellite feeds, it looks awesome...but from afar. What I mean by that is that you can still see digital noise in the picture up close. But it quickly disappears once you step about 2-3 feet back from the screen. Some of it may have to do with the picture settings I like to run, but it's still there. I don't have a true 1080p source to test it with, so I don't know how it would handle a full 1920x1080p signal. But anyway, even DVDs up-converted to 1080p via an Oppo DV-981HD Universal DVD Player looks good from about 8-10 feet away. Any closer and the image gets soft and loses detail. But hey, that's the case we've all been dealing with SD TVs for all of these years.
So how does it really look for various programming? Well, HD sports look awesome. HD Football is unreal, or shall I say, surreal. Meaning that it doesn't even seem it's real, because it's like sitting there in the stands with a virtual camera instead of sitting at home watching a game on TV. Same thing with HD baseball. Amazing! Especially if the soundtrack is in DD5.1 Even HD soccer looks good. HD Tennis is great too, especially the Champions Tour with McEnroe and others.
Other programming like nature shows or whatnot look great too. Also if you have HD music video channels, like VOOM's RAVE channel or MHD (MTV, VH1, CMT), that content is unbelievable. It's like you're there in the front row.
(5 out of 5)First really good LCD TV
I always wanted a flat screen TV, but as a frequent gamer, I was always scared of the 'burn-in' effect in Plasmas. Last year I decided to buy a LCD TV, which are not subject to that issue, but when I went to the store I got really disapointed with the picture quality in LCD. Images were washed out, sports and action scenes looked blurred (slow response time) and contrast was awful. Plasmas looked so much better that I decided to put my plans on hold for a while.
Then the first generation of 1080p LCDs arrived (Sharp D62U series, Samsung 95 series) and made things better - not perfect, but better. It had nothing to do with the 1080p resolution, but contrast ratios increased and response times improved. Earlier this year Sharp released their second generations of 1080p and now we can really say that LCDs are comparable with Plasmas. Still more expensive, but definitely at the same level. Don't get me wrong, each one still has its pros/cons, but now the comparison can be taken seriously.
Sharp D72U series picture quality is really good, but as mentioned in previous reviews, it needed to be adjusted to match my own preferences. There are a few things that caught my attention on this set:
- Sharp does a good job with standard resolution TV: regular TV (non HD)images are not perfect, but they are better than I have seen in other sets
- It comes with a DVI port, so I was able to connect my Xbox 360 via a VGA-to-DVI adaptor and now I have not only 1080p games and HD-DVDs (with the Xbox add-on), but also Xbox upscale regular DVDs to almost HD resolution.
Some previous models of Sharp were prone to have 'banding' effects, but I have never seen anything similar in my set. I have had my Sharp D72U for 2 months now and I am really happy with this TV.
(5 out of 5)Was worth the wait!
I was thinking about buying the Sharp LC-42D62U but I had too many concerns after reading the reviews on it by the people who actually owned one. There were a lot pros but also a lot cons and the price kept coming down from $2000 to around $1300 which made it more attractive, but money was not my only issue. By accident I stumble over the newer version, the Sharp LC-42D72U and read the reviews on this model and the specs and decided that it might be worth the extra $$$$ if this model was much better. I went to Best Buy to see if they had so I could see it in person but they only had the 62U for display. It was a very nice picture but I wanted to make sure that I was getting the best value for my dollar. Well football season was here I needed a new TV since my old 32" Sony died so I took a chance and made what seems to be like a very good decision. My wife and three sons were shocked how great the picture is and so am I. I read all these issues about response time and shadows with the 62U model and I not seen any of that with the 72U model. So far so good we love it! It is a very attractive TV and I highly recommend it for anyone who is looking for a quality HDTV for a very reasonable price.
(5 out of 5)Excellent all around!!
I had originally bought the Sharp LC42C62U model, but returned that one to get the newer one instead. This model has more vibrant colors, and the picture quality is really good. Been loving it so far!! Did not notice any hum with my model, which the other reviewer had ...