February 14th, 2010 | 
Author: Sharp AQUOS LC52LE700UN 52 Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV
The LE700 series again illustrates Sharp’s LCD technology leadership while also demonstrating its LED engineering advantages. Sharp’s UltraBrilliant LED system illuminates the TV to extremely high brightness and contrast levels and enables significant environmental benefits such as longer life expectancy, no heavy metals and lower power consumption. At the same time, the XGen LCD Panel utilizes an ingeniously devised pixel design that permits more light to pass through even while minimizing light leakage, with the result being the deepest black levels that AQUOS has ever achieved. Overall, the LE700 series shows that with Sharp, it’s not just LED… it’s AQUOS LED.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars The price is right
I replaced a 6 months old Phillips 52″LCD, due to a Wii remote controller accident flying into the screen, with the Sharp. I viewed many brands side by side at Sears, Bestbuy, Sam’s Club…etc and found this set to have the best picture for the money. Setup was easy to connect to a sound around system. The only complaint is the glossy screen and remote. Other than that, the picture is awesome when displaying Blue-ray videos. Sorry, no Wii games allowed to be played on this set.
4 Stars Nice one for the price
First off – this does not have local dimming. It took me a while to confirm that before I purchased it. I got it in spite of this feature not being present because of the price – got it from a local store who not only matched Amazon price but took another 10% down to makeup for the taxes – got lucky i guess…
PS3 games look awesome and blueray movies are really good. The built in speakers are useless, but I don’t use those anyway. The built-in browser is a waste. The only irritating issue is the dimming when credits roll – just as another reviewer pointed out. I turned the automatic dimming off and it became tolerable. The viewing angle is not bad, but not as good as high end Sonys.
5 Stars Great Tv
I won’t go into a lengthy review as others have already done that. I researched and researched some more without laying eyes on this set. It was between this set, Sony 52XBR9, and the 55″ Samsung LED. I was not sold on LED I just wanted a nice set that would do 1080p and was larger than my current 42″ Olivia.
We ventured down to a Brick and Mortar store just to view the set live. The store had everything set up on 720p over component video cabling, ridiculous. Thankfully the Sony sat right next to this one and the Samsung was a row over. This proved to be a nice setup for comparison. To make a long story short, this TV at least held it’s ground with the other sets. The price point was the deciding factor for us. The B&M store actually price matched the best deal I could find online and beat it by about $10.
The one thing I did not care for on this set was the Heavy contrast. Dark areas lost detail. For instance a man in a black suit, you could not see the details of the suit where you could on the Sony and Samsung. **See statement on Calibration**
I found some suggested calibration settings online and WOW did that make a difference. Blacks are Black without loosing details and all the colors look natural including skin tones. The difference is night and day. The TV is bright, crisp, detailed and a new experience for us in movies and HDTV. I don’t have a blue ray player hooked up yet (Christmas), I can’t wait to see that one.
I only gave 4 stars for sound because what can you really expect from a TV in the sound department. I heard all of about 2 minutes of the sets sound before turning it off. I have everything running through an Onkyo receiver for 7.1 THX surround.
Pros:
Great picture quality
Price point
Not side lit
Cons:
Remote (blah)
Stock calibration is terrible
Menu system and options are a little haphazard, not well thought out.
Conclusion:
I don’t regret this purchase in the least. I would buy this TV again and recommend it to others. The lack of local dimming does not seem to be a problem with this TV.
5 Stars A great TV from normal eyes
Never thought I would write a review. Since there are so few reviews online about this TV, I want to contribute because I feel I got a great deal of help from other reviewers. I want to share my two week experience with LC52LE700UN from my non-professional eyes. My previous 42in plasma was stolen in a breakin and I’ve been watching DVDs on a 27in CRT TV (analog) for a year. My wife and I decided to buy a LCD TV in this Thanksgiving at least it has a built-in tuner so that the kids can watch PBS. Our first attention was on Samsung LN52B630 and some Sony models after doing some research online. But the Sharp LC52LE700UN won our final vote. First of all it has a very good price for a LED TV. The online reviews and ratings are good enough for us when it’s compared with other LED TVs with 2 or 3 grand price tag. We bought it from a local store for its price. And we think it’ll be easier to us for services or even returning if bad things happen, which is a very big decision factor in our buying process.
When I see the TV in the store, I had the same experience as one of the reviewer giving low scores. The color on the TV was great comparing to other LCD TVs even with higher prices tags. Almost all of those TVs have a little gray touch. But this one’s color is sharp and vivid. I decided buying in right away without thinking second time. After the TV arrived and was turned on, I was little surprised and disappointed. My TV’s color is not as good as I saw in the store. It has the subtle white touch too. However I played the remote to adjust to higher color and contrast. The picture became what I expected again. Satisfied! After watching it for a few days, I notice the color becomes better even I adjusted the color and contrast setting to the default setting. Happy again.
In summary it’s a great TV from an amateur and easily satisfied watcher. The picture is sharp and colorful when I’m watching the Planet Earth blue-ray and the 1920×1080 wallpapers which I downloaded fron Internet. The operation is very easy. I plugged in everything I have, an old DVD player, a Panasonic blue-ray player and my desktop so that I can watch Netflix. I never needed to use the manual. By the way, 52in is a real big screen to me. I’m very happy with its size.
The con: If I watch it from a large angle like 160 degrees from the side the color is less great as I watch it right in front of it. Also the sound effect is not impressive as the other reviewer said. But it’s OK to me. I’m not a fan anyway.
2 Stars A realistic view
Based largely on on-line reviews and comments, I purchased this model locally. I was replacing a 5-year-old plasma TV that was wearing out. The in-store displays of most of the LCD’s were horrible, showing oversaturated color, lousy or non-existent blacks, and an overall crappy and unrealistic picture. The Aquos was an exception. Carefully watching the demo video, I saw rich blacks, properly saturated color, and a superior picture. So I bought it. The moment I turned it on, I thought “oh crap, what’s with this screen?” On normal non-demo video, there is no such thing as black on this TV. Unless the screen is completely dark, the backlight ramps up and almost the entire screen is varying degrees of gray. It’s blackest straight on, but even moving your head side-to-side causes the black/gray zone to dramatically shift. Even worse is the “automatic” backlight. Watching a movie credit roll is almost comical. No credits on screen, black screen. First credit shows up, black background ramps up to gray in about a second. Credit text scrolls off screen, gray background ramps down to black again. And the process repeats. Fortunately, this horrible “feature” can be turned off, but then you have the moving gray background all the time. And the sound is not average, it is pathetic. Full volume is not loud at all. There are bass and treble controls that do very little – you won’t get ANY bass out of this TV, and the first thing I did was get an external sound bar/subwoofer just to make it usable.
The LED backlight is brilliant, but the inherent flaws in the blacks/contrast make this TV a giant disappointment. Returning it is not an option for me at this point, but a friend just purchased a 52 inch Sony XBR9 and although it’s not an LED TV, the difference in picture quality and in the blacks literally blew me away. Lesson: Don’t be fooled by on-line reviews or in-store demos.
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