All in all, I'm satisfied, but teetering on the edge of returning it, because I really am pretty underwhelmed with the picture quality. I have two other TVs - a 55-inch Panasonic Viera Plasma hooked up via HDMI, and a 46-inch Samsung 1080p LCD hooked up via coaxial cable to a remote Dish box. I hooked up this Sharp via the same coax setup, so my expectations were for a good SD picture, which I know to be far below a true HD signal on a good screen. Here is the rundown:
PROS:
Price
Connectivity more than adequate - although I only need coax right now, I can foresee using this in a more complex setup in the future
Inputs are on the rear with a few on the side (Haier put them all on the bottom, which made no sense)
Intuitive menu and easy setup
Assembly onto the stand (and disassembly from it) was far easier than my samsung, whose engineers decided to bury the screws in deep caves on the rear housing
Speakers turn off when headphones are connected (and there's a separate option for disabling it permanently if you'd like, which I would recommend if you use it with an A/V receiver)
Easily wall-mountable (I recommend monoprice mounts for great value)
CONS:
underwhelming picture - I tried to optimize picture settings, but it still is nowhere near the SD quality of my Samsung, even allowing some benefit of the doubt on the size and price difference. It's not bad enough that I think I have a defective unit, but just bad enough to irk me.
TV does not swivel on the stand - head-scratching omission there by Sharp, but still no big deal
Menu - takes up 85% of the screen, right in the center. And unlike on Samsung, there is no way to move it, or make it translucent. That makes it tricky to adjust video settings while trying to see the effect of your changes
So although I know I'm comparing two high-end 1080p sets to a budget 720p, I do have a pretty close comparison with two sets receiving the same standard definition signal. I will keep it because it's not a terrible picture, but it will probably bug me for a while. If I were to do it over, I'd probably wait for another lightning deal (or the more rare Vizio deal on woot).
I bought this TV on a 24 hour sale, fast free delivery, TV looks great, sounds great, works great. Originally hooked it up to my FIOS with the coax cable until I got my HDMI cables. The picture is very good, better than I expected, and better than many other HD TVs I checked out. When I hooked up the HDMI cable and finally figured out the last settings I was amazed by the picture and sound. I can only imagine that the few who complained about picture quality have something set very wrong. Im impressed, as long as the quality and function are long tived I will keep this TV for a long time. The picture image is very sharp, not cloudy or muddy as a few have said (unless they have bad examples).
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