Best Buy HDTVs Reviews

Sharp AQUOS LC60E77UN

The Sharp LC-60E77UN is a dream come true. Excellent image quality, superb black levels, smooth motion, and a true home theator experience.

I have been looking around at replacing my two year old Sharp Aquos 42″ lcd for the past few months. It was a great tv but I recently moved to a bigger house and needed a bigger tv in my huge great room. I used the 42″ for a variety of things: computer monitor, bluray’s, dvd’s, games, and normal tv viewing. I looked at plasma’s, LED LCD’s, DLP’s, and CCFL LCD’s. I knew I wanted at least a 55″ screen so I could read internet sized font from back on my couch (8-10′ away) but still keep the tv set on 1080p. I also love the immersive effect from a big screen. I looked for deep blacks, good motion, viewing angles, and an excellent contrast ratio.

First I looked at plasma’s and I finally ended up buying one after finding a great price on a 65″ panny S1. But after reading about the still prevalent burn-in issues and huge (780w!) power requirements I decided to return it and stick with an LCD. I don’t need to see what my electric bill would be like after running a hairdryer for 4-6 hours a day.

I then looked at the new LED tv’s from Vizio, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony. They had great contrast ratios and deep blacks but were priced much higher than the traditional CCFL tv’s. The other problem was that they stopped at 55″ and I would preferred to go bigger.

I got sidetracked by some of the DLP tv’s huge sizes at low prices, and while they have improved a ton over the years there are still several inherent problems with that style of tv that I could not put up with.

Then I looked at some of the traditional CCFL backlit tv’s. While most manufacturers only went up to a 55″ in size, sharp recently came out with a new 60″ and 65″ at a decent price. Keep in mind that while the difference between a 55″ and 60″ and likewise, a 60″ and a 65″ doesn’t sound like a lot, the total opposite is true. An extra 5″ added along the diagonal at these sizes adds a TON more area. For instance, a 60″ tv has over DOUBLE the area of a 42″. A 60″ is a very noticeable step up from a 55″ in size. While I ended up settling on the 60″ version of this TV I did consider the 65″, but just couldn’t justify the extra 800-1000$ sharp wants for it. Also at sizes that big 1080p starts to break down unless you sit far away from the tv.

Since sharp had the price of this 60″ LCD right around what some of the 55″ LED tv’s were going for I spent a lot of time deciding between the two. The store that I was at played the classic trick of setting the more expensive LED tv’s to a more colorful, bright setting to somehow make them look better than their cheaper traditionally backlit counterparts. After messing around with some of the other 55″ CCFL backlit tv’s I couldn’t quite get them looking as good as the LED versions. Then I messed around with this 60″ sharp, totally different ball game. After putting the backlight back down to more common levels, turning the brightness down a notch, upping the color, and upping the contrast a touch, I got this guy to look just as good (if not better!) than any of the 55″ LED’s, (even the samsung 8-series). I don’t know what sharp did with this panel but the black levels were very deep, and the whites were still sparkly white. Maybe it has something to do with the new Kameyama plant that these are built at. The black levels were on par with the panny S1 plasma, but the colors and bright scenes were so much more vivid.

Many manufacturers use 8-bit panels to save on some cost, but this is one of the only 10-bit panel’s available in this size. Color experts can explain better the technical differences between 8-bit and 10-bit color, but to my eyes it just means more deep, rich colors.

Another thing I liked about this panel was that it has a semi-gloss screen. Unlike my older sharp, which has a full matte screen that washes out more at wider viewing angles, this screen keep’s its deep black’s throughout a much greater viewing angle. I will admit though that the plasma’s had noticablely better viewing angle’s than any LCD I looked at, but it wasn’t worth all the drawback’s of plasmas. I do get some glare off the screen in the day, but it is partially diffused and isn’t very distracting. This tv really shines at night though.

As part of testing, I also hooked up a laptop through HDMI into the tv. After messing around with the window’s resolution output I got the screen stable at full 1080p. I stood back 10 feet, and was still able to read google new’s, the weather forecast, facebook, and all my other internet sites. A slight bump up in windows DPI and even people with less than perfect eye sight could clearly read the text. I really don’t understand why people pay hundreds extra for tv’s with internet connectivity when a $300 computer can be hooked up to this tv and run bluray’s, go to ANY internet site, and stream music and video.

While almost all the new LCD’s are coming out with LED backlighting, a lot of people don’t realize that CCFL backlights have been evolving over the 10+ years they have been out. Remember back 6 year’s ago how horrible the black levels were on LCD’s? Well those tv’s were backlit with CCFL, just like this tv is today. The only difference? Sharp has virtually perfected it with this new model. Smooth, even, dark, blacks that are easily on par with any LED tv I’ve seen. Now I do think LED is the superior technology and will noticablely surpass CCFL in the next 2-3 years, but for now they are on their first and second generations, and they still have some bugs to be worked out. CCFL blacklighting is tried and true, and is on its tenth or more generation. I do have to admit, LED is a great marketing scheme right now to make people justify the inflated prices they are asking for them, when in truth the CCFL backlighting (at least on this screen) is at least as good.

Another thing this screen does well is it’s motion controls. Sharp’s 120hz technology supposedly helps with motion, something that personally I’ve never really had a problem with on any modern LCD. The film modes are useful for converting a 1080p/24hz bluray signal into a 60hz one, but I prefer to leave it off and have a more “natural” movie viewing experience. I watched Underworld on bluray on this thing the other night, and now I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the movie theater again. Immersive, beautiful, and all in my own home.

Another thing people think is going to be big is 3D. If you are one the fence about whether to wait for this to come out, or buy a big screen now let me give you a few pointers. Remember when HD first came out? Yes 10 years ago? How come after 10 years, over half the channels are still not in HD? HD programming requires a ton of bandwidth, and 3D will double the amount needed. Not to mention that when these 3D screens come out they will be extremely expensive, and content will be extremely limited. I don’t see 3D coming anywhere near mainstream for at least 5 years. If you want to wait that long and see if it’s going to catch on, be my guest, but in the mean time I’ll be enjoying my blurays infront of this big gorgeous screen. If you always wait for the next big thing, you will always be waiting.

Some people don’t like the Gold bezel on this screen, and at first I didn’t either. The pictures online really glorify it, but the truth is that in real life it is very faint and hardly noticeable. I still wish it was black but for all the tv’s strengths I can deal with this minor setback.

When shopping for this TV I was surprised by the lack of reviews. I took the jump anyway and I’m really glad I did. I got exactly what I wanted. A HUGE screen with rich colors, smooth motion, extremely deep black levels, lots of inputs, no dead pixels, and the flexibility to do internet surfing from back on my couch. My advice if you are considering a 55″ LED or any other tv this size range. Don’t just assume that because it’s an LED tv that it’s automatically better. If I just blindly went for the LED screens, I would have missed out on a 5″ bigger screen with picture quality that easily rivals any LED LCD I’ve seen, and I would have paid would more for it! Don’t buy into the marketing hype. Big thumbs up for sharp for making an awesome, affordable screen!

Reviewed by : Joshua Jones,   Jan 5, 2010