I’m buying a 52” LCD this week (was going to get it today but the shipment isn’t in till Wednesday). It’s a Sharp Aquos LC-52D65U, full 1080p w/ 5 HDMI inputs, or rather, my parents are buying it for my family for Christmas. My dad was getting a checkup at the local VA Medical Center, and they have these for $1,299 at the gift shop. So, I did some research, and found there weren’t a lot of reviews on line, because essentially it’s the same unit as the LC-52D64U, just the newest firmware upgrade for fall. I found one expert review, and it had a lot of nice things to say about it, but the downside was that the blacks were not as deep as on some other sets (which cost a LOT more), the viewing angle is not quite as good as advertised (174 or 176 degrees), and it’s below average at displaying SD content.
So I talked to my tech guy at work who’s a guru about these things, and he basically said it was a solid TV at a price you won’t touch (it’s $1,499 at Costco.com). One would have to pay a ton more to get deeper blacks and unless you’re a real stickler for perfection (in which case you should be looking at the 3 grand plus range), you’re not likely to notice. Re the SD content, I am going to upgrade my Dish Network receiver to an HD receiver (which upscales all SD content), and I’m going to buy an upscaling DVD/VCR so I can use my regular DVDs still (as I have 500 of them). Then some day when prices come way down I’ll probably get a PS3 and use that for my Blu Ray, at which time the price of Blu Ray discs will probably have come down so they’re affordable.
So, my only concern was whether or not I’d be OK with the viewing angle and the picture. So I went into Costco, and they had a Sharp Aquos 52 inch, but it was a different model number. However, I found that they have a 65” which is essentially the same model, just a larger size, and I was more than happy with the picture display. I also know they have a 46 inch, which should be cheaper than the 52, and would basically fit the bill for you…I would expect it to cost under $1,000 for that set in a 46 (I think it’s the LC-46D65U (though the 65 may be a slightly different #).
I talking with my tech guru at work, he also said that he is a real stickler for picture quality, and he prefers LCD pictures to Plasma even though the Plasma is supposed to look better, because 1) Plasmas burn more easily, particularly w/ video games, 2) he feels you can see the pixels at the edges of things on plasma, and 3) Plasma is so much less durable, even if you have a kid visiting and they walk up and press on the screen too hard, bye bye TV.
I’m fairly new to this, I know that Full 1080p Native is important to me and this is basically a monitor which will display whatever you give it, so it meets that standard, it has the latest HDMI standard (1.3) and it’s the newest unit they make, it has a 6ms refresh rate, and the picture on the comparable units was nice, bright, sharp and I could see it well from almost every angle. And I had been looking at Best Buy, and I’ll have to admit, I just like the crispness better on the LCDs that I’ve seen so far, I’d been thinking of Plasma for a while because for a while it was actually cheaper than LCD, but to get a 52 for $1,300, even if I were footing the bill, I’d jump on that deal.
If you have a VA medical center by you, their gift shops are getting the shipments on Wednesday and they also have the 46 inch ones, not sure the exact price, but I know it’s cheaper than the 52. Otherwise check out the Sharp website, I was told again by the tech guru at my work that the Aquos line is a solid machine.
But then again, yeah, Sony is always good, and I know other brands are as well. And in researching my other items, I’ve found that the Samsung DVD-V9800 DVD/VCR combo upscales to 1080p, and can be had for about $75 shipped at TigerDirect. That’s the route I’m going.
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