Great picture
Pros:
Did I mention the Great Picture!
Cons:
Button layout on remote control is poor.
Internet feature is useless.
Limited Analog inputs.
The Bottom Line:
I'm happy with it - just don't buy it for the internet feature
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
Features:
- Contains a built-in HDTV and Analog tuner.
- Missing: There is no Picture-in-Picture feature (PIP) which seems strange for a 'high end' TV.
- A deceptively limited 'Internet' feature (totally useless).
Page 38 of the user manual says: "By connecting your TV to a broadband system you can access the internet from the TV."
It goes to explain features of the browser: Entering text from the remote control, making bookmarks, Use 'tabbed' browsing, secure connections and cookies.
All of this sounds good... But this explanation leaves out one major limitation...
YOU CAN'T USE THE BROWSER FOR GENERAL PURPOSE WEB BROWSING!
That's right... you can't read your Yahoo email, you can't do a Google search, and you can't buy a DVD on Amazon.
The only thing that you can do is visit the few pages that are linked from the Aquos home page.
On and by the way... browsing is dog slow.
I called up Sharp's tech support, and asked "How do I enter a URL into the web browser?" and as with most of my calls to any tech support they had no idea what I was talking about. I called back later after they had time to research the question, and they said "You can't do that... sorry if you mistakenly thought that was possible".
Limited Analog Inputs:
I was glad to see multiple HDMI inputs, but there are only a few analog inputs.
You don't really get as many as you might be led to believe.
Best Buy list the inputs as: 3 HDMI, 2 HD component video, 1 S-video, 3 composite video, 1 PC (RGB D-sub) and 4 audio.
But you quickly find out that you can't use them all since the inputs are 'shared'.
Input1 Composite or Component
Input2 Composite or SVIDEO
Input3 Composite or Component
Input4 HDMI
Input5 HDMI
Input6 HDMI with separate audio input
Input7 VGA input with separate audio
I have a few typical devices.
1 DVD player (Component)
1 Tivo (S-Video)
1 XBOX Game system (Component)
So I'm now I have run out of inputs! There's no place for my VCR and no place for my security camera that monitors the front door. Sure I have Three HDMI inputs, and a VGA input, but no more composite video inputs.
Strange Behavior I've noticed something strange when using my XBOX connected to the Component input. The screen will go blank for a second or two, and then come back on. Then a small notification window comes up briefly in the upper left corner indicating that it's running at 720p. I've read others complain about this on http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archive/index.php/t-994509-p-3.html
UPDATE Dec 2008: It's been fixed! Yeah Sharp! They offer a firmware update on their web site that is extremely simple to perform. I downloaded the firmware, copy it to a thumb drive and then plug the thumb drive into the TV. A few clicks on the remote and its done - so if you have the above 'strange behavior' get the update!
OPC feature:
The OPC feature is supposed to sense the amount of light in the room, and adjust the backlight to compensate. The only problem is that the light from the TV itself influences the light that the sensor sees, and as a result, the brightness of the backlight jumps up and down with the program material. (So I turned the feature off)
Feature that I like:
It has the ability to shut off automatically when the input signal is gone for 15 minutes (user selectable).
