Aquos LCD HDTV

To sum it up in a word... WOW. I had been casually researching LCD tvs for a while and slowly narrowed my search down to the Sharp Aquos line based on what I saw in the stores and what friends had recommended. I eventually want a big-screen for the living room but wanted to test the waters with a smaller one for the bedroom. I had been watching this unit for about a year and had been waiting for the price to come down below $800. Long story short, I fooled myself into thinking it was a new model and wound up paying $949 for it at Best Buy but was later reimbursed $150 when it went on sale for $799 over Thanksgiving weekend so I'm happy. Enough about that...

I hooked up the tv (as stated previously, it's fairly easy and took me about 5 minutes). I plugged in all of my cables and everything and turned it on. I was dissapointed at first. The picture didn't look much better than my 5-year-old standard tv in the living room! The HD channels were slightly better but still not as good as I had seen in the stores and at my in-laws' house. I was using my coax to the tv. After some research, I found out that the coax is the worst cable to use. I know it's old and knew it wouldn't be the best but I still wasn't convinced that it would make THAT much of a difference. I looked up HDMI cables and Best Buy had them for $60!!! I was even further deterred by the price. But I found an HDMI cable at buy.com for $33 shipped so decided to give it a shot. What a difference it made! With the knowledge I have now, I would've paid another $100 for that cable. The HD channels look *INCREDIBLE* and make the standard channels look bad. I know I've heard in my research on HDTV's that the HD channels look good while standard don't look as good. I'm still not sure if it's just my eyes tricking me because the HD looks *THAT* good or because a standard signal on an HDTV really doesn't look as good. I'm begging for more HD channels now! The other thing I'm impressed with is the audio. Even just with the single speaker on the tv, it gives true stereo sound and it verges on surround-sound. It's incredible for the fact that it's only one speaker. I can only imagine how incredible this would sound with a system (I'm almost tempted to bring it out to the living room to check it out!)

One dissapointing thing is that the HD does not work with my Series 1 tivo (won't work with a Series 2 either). The new Series 3 tivo is HD-capable but it costs something like $800 and does not carry lifetime service (unless you transfer it from an existing Series 1 or 2 to a new Series 3 unit). So you won't be able to watch tivo programs in HD. Not a big deal to me but it may concern some people.

Aside from that one gripe (which I knew when I bought the tv) I'm amazed. This is an incredible tv. Plenty of options, functions, inputs, and everything.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.