The Short Form

$12,000 / SHARPUSA.COM / 800-237-4277

Snapshot

Sharp’s new LED-driven LCD delivers staggeringly deep blacks in a ridiculously sexy package, but it’s not without its caveats

Plus

• Amazingly dark blacks • Unique super-thin styling

Minus

•Washes out bright highlights on some scenes •White balance is slightly blue

Key Features

• 1,920 x 1, 080-pixel resolution • LED-driven backlight • Two-piece design • (5) x.v.Color-compatible HDMI inputs • Pioneer-designed speaker system • Ethernet port for Sharp Aquos Net • Inputs: (5) HDMI; ( 2) component-,  (3) composite-, and (2) S- video ; RF antenna , RGB computer w/miniplug stereo audio , RS232C, Ethernet , and USB (for firmware updates) • TV: 49 x 34½ x 2¼ in, 94¾ lb • AVC: 17 x 2¾ x 2½ in, 8½ lb

Sharp's history as an LCD-technology innovator means you can expect big things from the company, whether it's a giant 108-inch flat-panel or, in this case, the firm's first LED-backlit model, the $12,000 Special Edition 52-inch LC-52XS1U. LED arrays are now the backlight of choice for high-end LCDs because they allow "local dimming" in parts of the image that call for deep black. Turning the backlight down or off in these areas keeps stray light from leaking through the LCD pixels, reducing contrast. But Sharp has pushed performance even further by using separate red, green, and blue LEDs instead of white light, a move intended to render truer, more saturated colors.

The LC-52XS1U is the classiest, sexiest, smartest-looking flat-panel TV yet. The brushed-stainless-steel bezel surrounded by black trim puts it in another league from its black-plastic brethren. Below the screen are flat membrane control buttons, and below that is a Pioneer-branded speaker system housed in a matching brushed-stainless-steel pod. The TV's input jacks and most of its processing circuitry are in a standalone component called the AVC (shown below) that feeds the display by way of an HDMI cable or an optional wireless HDMI kit. This allows the panel to be super-thin -- just 21⁄4 inches deep at its max, and about an inch deep at the outer screen.

The AVC has a gloss-black front panel set off by a stainless-steel door that swings down to reveal a convenience jack-pack with both an HDMI connection and an A/V input with component-,composite- and S-video jacks. Around back, you'll find four more HDMI inputs along with an RGB computer input, an RS232C port, and an Ethernet port (for accessing Sharp's Aquos Net Web services).

The Sharp's universal remote looks great, and most of its buttons are comfortably positioned. A display near the slim wand's top shows which component the remote is set to control, but there's no backlighting other than for the display, and the View Mode key for toggling among aspect-ratio modes is buried beneath a flip-down door. You change inputs by scrolling from a menu accessed through the input key or by toggling the input key repeatedly.

SETUP

Watching a high-definition cable channel on the LC-52XS1U, I was awed by how dark the TV's blacks were. But switching to the Movie picture preset (normally the best preset option with most TVs) caused skin tones to look excessively red.

The Sharp's video menu lets you fine-tune color with saturation and tint controls for all the primary (red, green, blue) and secondary (yellow, cyan, and magenta) colors. So, after choosing the User picture preset, the settings for which can be adjusted independently for each of the TV's inputs, I tweaked the set using test patterns and program material to make the colors look more natural.

The color temperature was slightly above the neutral-gray 6,500-K standard with the Low setting active (see Test Bench). Unfortunately, the TV's fine-tune adjustments for color temperature proved unable to correct it. This wasn't the end of the world, but it would have been better to achieve the more neutral gray we routinely strive for during testing.

PERFORMANCE

After setting up the Sharp alongside a first-generation Pioneer Kuro plasma and feeding both TVs the same signal through an HDMI splitter, I began my viewing with Close Encounters of the Third Kind on HDNet. The Sharp delivered an incredibly impressive picture that compared favorably with the Pioneer.

Blacks were noticeably deeper on the Sharp with both sets tuned to deliver the same level of shadow detail. In a scene showing a blackout overtaking a town, a low-angle shot of a tall McDonald's sign accurately reproduced the familiar red and yellow colors with essentially total blackness behind the sign. The edges of the black letterbox bars above and below the film's widescreen image were virtually undetectable from night sky when viewed from 8 feet away, and both the bars and the sky were noticeably darker than on the Pioneer.

Another scene shows a neighborhood viewed from a hillside as the house lights go out block by block. The starry sky here made for another staggering demonstration of the Sharp's excellent black levels and picture contrast. It again blended perfectly with the letterbox bars, and the white and red speckles representing stars looked more convincing and stood in greater relief against the black than on the Pioneer.

Switching to the Blu-ray Disc of Iron Man, I generally found the Sharp's colors vibrant and accurate. Occasionally scenes with heavy white or gray content would expose the Sharp's bluish color balance, but other scenes looked amazing. For example, in the sequence where Robert Downey, Jr. dons his armored suit, its pearlescent burnt-red finish, the brushed-stainless-steel straps on his boots, the brushed gold of his helmet, and the blue-green glow of his power generator were reproduced with striking punch. Close-ups of these -- and of the industrial-yellow robotic arms that fit the parts to him like a puzzle -- moved across the screen in a flowing concert of rich color and fine detail.

On some scenes, however, the Sharp blew out highlight detail even when the rest of the image looked just right. For instance, during a cocktail party where Downey is confronted by a reporter while standing at a translucent white bar lit from below, both of their faces looked washed out and very video-like where the light hit them hardest. Reducing contrast or the set's backlight can tame this, but not without sacrificing needed punch in the rest of the image.

BOTTOM LINE

The LC-52XS1U scores big on its stunningly thin design, super-deep blacks, and mostly excellent color. On these points, it's the best LCD I've seen and competitive with better plasmas. Its tendency to wash out some highlights and its slightly off-kilter white balance keep me from declaring it a rave, but this is an impressive HDTV, and Sharp gets big kudos for advancing the LCD state of the art.

TEST BENCH

Primary Color Point Accuracy vs. SMPTE HD Standard

With its Active Contrast setting turned off and User video preset and Low color temperature setting selected, the LC-52XS1U’s grayscale measured around 7,200 K for most of its brightness range. The result was a subtly but noticeably bluer picture than that delivered by a set calibrated to the 6,500 K neutral gray standard. Red, green, and blue adjustments in the user menu proved ineffective on our sample, and no service menu adjustments were accessible, so evaluation was conducted at the Low setting’s default.
Coordinates for the red and blue primary colors measured close to the SMPTE standard with Expanded Color Space selected, though green was oversaturated and leaned toward bluish green. After making color adjustments in the user menu’s Color Management System , the color decoder measured –20% error on green, 0% error on red and blue.

Gray fields looked exceptionally good for an LCD viewed from head on, with the patterns showing excellent uniformity down to 30 IRE, though the LC-52XS1U showed some drop off of contrast when viewed from as little as 15 degrees left or right of center (equivalent to shifting about 4 feet either way at an 8 foot distance). Overscan of HDTV signals measured 3% in Stretch mode, 0% in Dot-by-Dot, 15% horizontal/5% vertical in Super Stretch, and 15% horizontal/15% vertical in Zoom.

I found myself working hard throughout my evaluation to get the TV’s bright highlights under control. With the image adjusted for appropriately punchy contrast, there was a tendency for highlights to wash out and become pasty -looking, especially when the highlight fell on fleshtones. Lowering the contrast solved the problem but made the overall image duller than I’d have liked. After much tweaking, I settled on a compromise position but still repeatedly found myself back in the menu to try to optimize this parameter.

The Sharp fully resolved 1080i and 720p test patterns on its HDMI and component-video inputs, but was noticeably softer with 720p input signals than I’ve typically seen on 1080p TVs. The image looked appropriately crisp when fed 1080i or 1080p signals, this softening was obvious whenever I switched between a 720p-format HD channel (Fox, ABC, ESPN) and any 1080i broadcast. Resolution patterns from our high-definition signal generator confirmed the Sharp’s 720p performance.

The LC-52XS1U did a good job upscaling 480i and 480p, and with deinterlacing 480i and 1080i signals. It passed all the Silicon Optix HQV disc jaggies tests on both the Blu-ray and DVD versions with no problems. It also passed the film and video resolution tests on both discs (with the Film Mode activated). The TV’s Fine Motion circuitry did a modest job of improving detail on moving resolution patterns, and the Noise Reduction circuitry did an excellent job of cleaning up random video noise in standard- and high-definition programs, though at the cost of introducing some modest softness to the edges of objects.