Sharp LC-60LE650U LED LCD 1080p HD Television

After 10 years out venerable 57" Sony reap projection TV started to have issues.  A month ago we noticed that the colors were "separated" around the edges, and time progressed the problem was getting worse.  I tried to troubleshoot the problem on the internets and determined the most probable cause was a failing convergence circuit.  This could be repaired, but if the part could be found the repair would not be cheap.  Instead, it seemed like a good time to retire the old TV and find a replacement.

We weren't in a particular hurry so I had time to research some options.  I measured the distance from where the TV would sit to the couch (120") and calculated that the correct screen size would be between 40" and 80" (You take the viewing distance and divide by 3 for the low end and divide by 1.5 for the high end), since the old TV was 57" we decided to look primarily at 60" flat screen TV's.  The second feature I wanted was LED backlighting.  LEDs last longer than fluorescent backlights, use less energy and don't suffer from as much of a color shift over time.  Next, I wanted at least 3 HDMI inputs so I would have at least one left over after attaching our Blu-ray player and DirecTv box.  Pretty much all TVs are 1080p capable so that wasn't an issue, I did briefly look at some 4k displays, but they're still quite expensive and there really isn't much in the way of 4k content available.  The final "must-have" for me was to have a smart TV with built in wi-fi.

One major concern was that our old TV would need to be removed for proper recycling so I started looking at electronics website such as Abt.com, HHGregg.com and BestBuy.com who offer this service and that would allow me to filter results and narrow down the prospective panels.  Once I had a short list I checked online for reviews and comparisons, at sites such as LCDTVbuyingguide.com.  After many days of research I pretty much had settled on a Samsung UN60F6300AFXZA and was just waiting to see if it would go on sale for Father's Day or July 4th (like I said, we weren't in any particular hurry to spend lots of money), but kept doing my research anyway.  While browsing BestBuy.com one day I noticed that my second choice, the less expensive Sharp LC-60LE650u, had a "See Price at Checkout" tag next to it, the TV had been on sale for just under $1100 so I went along to see the new price.  After entering in all my information and finally getting to the checkout page I saw a price of $881 with free delivery and free removal of the old TV!  That was too god to pass up, so I pulled the trigger.  Good thing I acted quickly since the next day the price was back up to $1079.

The TV was delivered two nights ago, so I haven't really had a whole lot of time to play around with it and customize the setup so these thoughts are somewhat preliminary.  As I have more time to mess around I'll make edits to this post.  First, the setup was pretty easy.  The stand was easy to attach with a few screws and the TV is only around 60 lbs so it was simple to pick up and place on the media cabinet I had purchased.  I plugged in the 2 HDMI cables, ran the digital optical TOSLINK cable from the TVs output to our old audio receiver and plugged in the composite cables from the VHS (yes, we still have a VHS).  Picture quality seems to be excellent, there are multiple picture modes available (Movie, Sports, Dynamic, Dynamic(AUTO), Game (and a few others I can't think of right now) and a User Custom mode.  Attaching to the house Wi-fi was also a snap.  If your router is equipped with WPS you can use that for easy setup or you can do things manually.  Our router does feature WPS, but I have it disabled due to security concerns.  The manual setup just took a minute.  Once you have the internet connection working you can update the TVs firmware through the on screen menu, mine did have an update available so I wen't ahead and took care of that.  You can also install new firmware from a USB drive using a file downloaded from the manufacturer's website.  There are a lot of options accessible from the on screen menus and I'm still playing around with them, one thing that was quickly done was to blank out the unused inputs and rename the ones being used to make it easier for everyone to find the input they are looking for.

As of now, there are a few things that I consider weaknesses.  The first is the sound, when you make a TV as thin as this one there isn't much room for decent speakers.  Sound is somewhat tinny without much on the bass end.  I'm still playing around with settings but the sound from the AV receiver is SO much better.  The second weakness is the remote.  The buttons are rather small and close together.  While it can be programmed to work with up to 3 additional devices it lacks the ability to access some basic functions on those devices, such as the DirecTv guide.  It also only contains codes for a limited number of devices.  They only have codes for AV receivers made by Sharp, so my trusty Panasonic SA-HE100 is out of luck.  I've also not been able to get it to work with our Sony Blu-ray player, but after I turned on the Sharp AQUOS link feature it does seem to communicate and turn on the Blu-ray player when that input is selected.  For now, we're just sticking with the DirecTv remote, it does allow us to at least turn on everything even if we can use it for some features of the specific devices.  I may have to look in to purchasing a Logitech Harmony remote if we're going to fulfill the dream of "One remote to rule them all"!

The final issue I'm gong to have to look in to is the signal passed through the digital optical audio output.  I watched Avatar last night to see how the 1080p picture looked, and it was fantastic.  The problem was that it seemed like the AV receiver was only playing in stereo instead of 5.1 surround sound.  I don't know if that's due to a setting in the TV, on the receiver or just not possible.  Tonight I'll try it again using an audio output directly from the Blu-ray to the receiver.  If that gives me the proper sound channels then the issue is with the TV.

Update:  After searching through the menus a bit I found that the default audio is set to PCM, by changing that to Bitstream I was able to get the Dolby Digital 5.1 signat sent to the AV receiver from the TV's TOSLINK output.