Compared to my 32″ Sony XBR. I have a Sony 32XBR in my living room - which is an excellent TV - highly recommend
I bought the LC-32D44U for a little more than half the price of the Sony for bed room
Hard for me to say how much better the Sony is to Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U one
I guess the Sharp is about 75% comparing picture and sound
Colors are ‘better’ on Sony - across the board
Shadow detail is better on Sony but not by as great a margin as color diff
Both are sluggish channel changing but Sharp is twice as slow
Mine developed a very annoying buzz emanating from the lower tv housing after about a week
Took the back off (sorta) and put little foam sticky dots wherever the back and front touched and buzz is gone
This tv is good for the money and am ok with the purchase - but - I wish I had of waited a little longer (saved up more $$) and got the 37XBR for liv rm and moved 32 to bed rm
LC-32D44U is an excellent TV! Very well-balanced and always looks good!. I have both this TV as well as a Samsung LN-T2642H. It’s very interesting to compare the two TV’s performances. If you want the more balanced natural look, go with Sharp. If you’re more interested in a vivid, colorful image go with Samsung. I also did an extended look at the Toshiba 26HL67.
There is a key difference between the panels Sharp uses compared to others. Sharp’s TVs are made with panels called S-IPS while Samsung, Sony and Toshiba currently use a panel called S-PVA. This has everything to do with why Samsung, Sony and Toshiba have very strong color but one thing I noticed about Samsung is that when you look at Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U for a slightly low angle, the color gets darker and starts to invert. If you look Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U from above, the color gets lighter and starts to invert. With the Sharp, no matter what angle I look at it, the color doesn’t change AT ALL! This is very impressive and cool!
I also notice that when I played around with the TV settings, Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U doesn’t need much to look good, Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U almost always does. When you turn on the Active Contrast mode on the Sharp (it’s equivalent to DNIe), Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U doesn’t totally knock out the details in darker areas. At first, I had to keep checking to see if Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U was on or not because I was so used to the way the Samsung crushes black details even on the Low setting. Once again, I was more impress with the way this TV addresses contrast in fact I think the Sharp does a better job with contrast because of its black color.
The Sharp’s black color is closer to black than the Samsung. The black color on the Samsung is more of a dark blue even on Warm temperature (it’s especially noticably at slight vertical angles) but with the Sharp the black was much closer to real black.
The speakers on the Sharp doesn’t distort at volume levels higher than 30. With the Samsung, when u turn the volume up pass 30, the bass tends to distort the fidelity of all the sound resulting in a buzz. This is probably due to the build of the unit and the lower wattage for the speakers. Sharp doesn’t sound perfect either but it’s definitely warmer and clearer at high volumes thanks to having 10 watts per speaker instead of 5. I would recommend everyone to get a 2.1 speaker for any LCD TV though. Take advantage of those sound outputs on the back of your TV!
Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U definitely takes your experience to a higher level!
One minus I have with the Sharp was that Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U didn’t have a headphone jack.
Overall, I think this is an excellent 32″ TV. Sharp is definitely worth a look and probably my new LCD manufacturer of choice. Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U doesn’t need as much tweaking when you switch between uses. I tested both TVs with PC (via DVI>HDMI), Xbox 360, HDTV, SDTV, HD-DVDs and upconverted DVDs. With the Samsung, I find myself always tweaking the settings between uses like changing the Energy Saving level, turning up the Digital NR for SDTV, turning Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U off for everything else, toning down the DNIe.
Thanks to Sharp’s OPC, the backlight adjust very intelligently based on what’s on the screen. I just leave the Active Contrast on because I know I’m not missing out darker details, the picture is very sharp and the panel is slightly faster thanks to the 6ms speed, which equals less motion blur with things like text and more solid image overall.
This Sharp is the real deal and reminds me much more of a CRT than the Samsung because the Samsung requires too much twinkering to get things comfortable. I think if the Samsung’s black was more like true black and the vertical angle didnt distort so much I wouldn’t tweak Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U as often.
So in summary, if you want the most vibrant colors and don’t mind tweaking between uses by all means get a Samsung. (I still like the Samsung and would give Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U a 4 out of 5)
If you want a more, natural looking picture, that doesn’t offer or require as much tweaking because Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U just plain looks good, go with a Sharp.
I think Toshiba and Sony TVs tend to do a better job with black crush and black color than Samsung but since the panels are the same technology (S-PVA), they still have the vibrant color and probably some vertical viewing weirdness.
great lcd tv. Could not find this model locally. Ordered from Amazon and had Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U in less than a week. Very happy with the transaction-would buy Sharp AQUOS LC46BD80U again.