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  • Tour & Design

  • Performance Features

  • Connectivity & Media

  • Controls, Menu & Remote

  • Conclusion

  • Series Comparison

  • Tour & Design
  • Performance Features
  • Connectivity & Media
  • Controls, Menu & Remote
  • Conclusion
  • Series Comparison

Tour & Design


The front of the LC-60LE820UN is made of a single piece of glass, with metal around the rounded edge. This gives this display a clean, rounded look that is carried over into the stand.

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Back**


The back of this display is not overly exciting: the ports are located on the right side, and there's a power cable, but that is it. The ports are at right angles to the display so cables can fit in a little easier.

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Sides**


There's no excitement on the sides of this display either: no buttons, ports or other sources of fun. Two dull, featureless sides, all in the name of keeping the display as thin as possible.

**

Stand/Mount**


The glass look of this display is carried on into the stand, which is made of clear glass and plastic.

**

Aesthetics**


This is an attractive display, with a clean, smart design that doesn't detract from the main business of the device: showing TV.

Performance Features

Display Size & Technology


The LE820 series uses the same 1920 by 1080 pixel, Full HD screen as the more expensive LE920 panel. The backlighting is provided by LED lights at the edge of the screen, which keeps the screen thin, but also means the display can't do the localized dimming many others can. It does include Sharp's new QuadPixel technology, though: most displays use red, green, and blue in each pixel, the combination of which can create every other color the TV can display. This LC-60LE820UN adds a fourth color: yellow. The theory is the additional yellow elements allow the display to show a wider range of colors, and can provide more accurate and subtle colors.

 

Sharp refers to this technology as QuadPixel. Without our full suite of color tests, it is hard to tell if it does what Sharp claims it does, but it certainly looked promising on the show floor.

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Formats & Resolution**


As a Full HD display, the LC-60LE820UN can handle all of the current HDTV signal formats, from 1080p right down to 480p and the standard definition signals that older devices output.

**

Brightness, Blacks and Contrast Ratio**


There are no precise figures we can attach to the blacks and whites of this display, as our CS-200 ChromaMeter didn't feel like coming to Vegas. However, we did think that the demos that Sharp were showing had promise: the blacks were deep and the whites bright.

**

Color**


The demo unit of the LC-60LE820UN that we looked at had very attractive color, and the extra color on the pixels seemed to make a difference to the color range of the display. However, we'll have to wait until we get this display into our testing labs before we can draw any real conclusions.

**

Motion & Refresh Rate**


The LC-60LE820UN has 120Hz motion processing; the 240Hz motion processing we saw in the LE920 series is missing. It's debatable if you would miss it, however, since we've seen little to no discernable difference between the two refresh rates in our tests. 

**

Viewing Angle**


The demo version of the LC-60LE820UN we looked at had a good viewing angle: the contrast between blacks and whites looked good out to a wide angle.

Connectivity & Media

Audio & Video Ports


The LC-60LE820UN is a well connected display: there are 4 HDMI ports, 1 component port and 1 composite video input. Sharp also offers a technology called Instaport which they claim avoids the usual delay when you switch between  HDMI ports. In addition, there are two USB ports.

The digital ports are located along one side of a bay on the back of the display, with the analog ports below them.

**

Media & Other Connectivity**


The LC-60LE820UN is something of a media maven: it can play back audio and video from USB devices, as well as stream audio and video over the tubes from the Internet. This is achieved through the now-ubiquitous use of widgets, but Sharp has thrown their own AQUOS Net service into the mix, to further enhance online capabilities.
**

Placement**


The ports and sockets of this display are a little awkwardly placed: they are set back from the edge, so you will need to reach right around the display to get to them. The side- and down-facing ports means that some cables won't fit, and getting access to these ports could be difficult if the display is wall mounted. This could be a real pain if you need to frequently plug in and unplug devices such as camcorders or digital cameras.

**

Audio**


There are two speakers located in the bottom of the display body, but we were not able to test their quality.

Controls, Menu & Remote

Remote


The TV's remote was not available to test. **

Controls**


The controls of this display are located on the front of the TV, in the bottom right corner. There controls are in a group of seven, and let you manage the basics: volume, channel, etc. The printed-on labels for the controls do detract a little bit from the clean look of the display: we prefer the illuminated labels used by other manufacturers, which fade out when the controls are not in use. The glass front of the display is also a little prone to picking up fingerprints. 

**

Menu**


We were not able to look at the on-screen menu system of this display for fear of offending the guardians of the demo units.

Conclusion

 

Series Comparison

LE820 Series


The LE820 series is in the middle of Sharp's 2010 range, below the more expensive (and more fully featured) LE920 series. There are three models in this range, at 40-inch, 52-inch and 60-inch sizes. 

Meet the tester

Richard Baguley

Richard Baguley

Contributor

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Richard Baguley is a veteran writer who has written about technology ranging from Alphabet to Zip file utilities. He has contributed to pretty much every major tech publication, including Amiga Format Magazine, PC World, Wired, CNET, Toms Guide, Forbes, and many others. He lives in the Boston metro area with his wife, dog, and an indeterminate number of cats.

See all of Richard Baguley's reviews

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