I hate the Sharp Elite. It is a deceptive and manipulative TV. I refuse to sell this TV.
The Sharp Elite is actually a fairly typical big screen LED
TV. For those of you with a bit of TV understanding, it is a 240hz 1080p LED TV.
It features active 3D, wi-fi streaming, and local dimming. It is offered in 60”
and 70” screen sizes for $5500 and $8000 respectively.
I dislike this TV for many reasons. First, it is deceptive.
Pioneer used to be an industry leader in large HDTVs with their Pioneer Elites.
A few years ago, they decided to stop producing HDTVs and sold the rights to
the “Elite” brand name to Sharp. On this newest generation of “Elite” TVs, they
have copied the look of the TV’s bezel, the shape of the remote, the font that
says “ELITE” on the front of the TV, and even the box the manual comes in. They
have done a remarkable job of copying everything about the old Pioneer Elites
except for the one thing that truly matters, picture quality. Nowhere on the
packaging or in the manual does it say that it is produced and distributed by
Sharp. The makers are trying to convince people that it is still the Pioneer
Elite.
This Sharp Elite TV has literally nothing in common with the
Pioneer Elites. The originals were extremely high quality plasma TVs. This
newest generation is LED. Though the new LED TVs are the highest priced and
newest type of TV, they have inherent flaws that that even the old Pioneers
didn’t have.
First, it suffers from the halo effect. The halo effect is
seen when a brightly colored object is shown over a darker background. With
local dimming LEDs, a faint white box will surround the object and it will
appear to have a white halo. Plasma TVs do not have any backlighting and have
no halo effect. If you want to see this for yourself, watch the Elite demo loop
that is shown at Best Buy. It is most noticeable during the fireworks scene.
Second, it suffers from black crush. Black crush occurs most
frequently during dark scenes. Black crush occurs when, to get dark scenes as
dark as possible, the TV turns down the backlight. When this happens, fine
detail in dark scenes become indistinguishable and instead of seeing dark
shadows and figures, you see one large dark blob.
Third, the Elite suffers from the soap opera effect. The
soap opera effect is the name given to a TVs video processing that makes film
(i.e. movies filmed at 24 fps) look like live video (like a daytime soap
opera). Sometimes customers will say that it almost looks too real. The look
and feel of film is lost.
Fourth, the sound in the TV sucks. It is no better than any
other generic brand TV on the market. To truly be unique, it should have at
least a decent set of built-in speakers like the Mitsubishi Unisen LT-55265
with a built-in 18 speaker dolby digital sound system or the new Bose TV (but I
don’t really like the Bose TV either even though it does have significantly
better sound than the Elite).
Fifth, even though it is one of the most expensive TVs on
the market, it still lacks features that significantly lower priced TVs offer.
For instance, the Samsung UN60ES7500 LED has a full web-browser, built-in web
cam, voice activation, touch sensitive remote, and much cheaper 3D glasses. All
these features can be had from Samsung for approximately $3000 less than the
Elite.
So why do people buy the Elite? For one thing, they believe
that it is somehow related to the Pioneer Elite. People also mistakenly assume
that LED TVs offer better picture quality than plasmas even though in almost
every qualitative and quantitative way, plasma is still a superior technology
(contrast ratio, black levels, light uniformity, color accuracy, contrast
ratio, response time, motion resolution). I also believe that some people buy
the Elite simply because it is expensive. People assume that the most expensive
TV is the best TV and simply like to flex their financial muscle.
So, in conclusion, I really don’t like the Sharp Elite. If
you are interested in a truly high end and excellent TV, look in to the
Panasonic Premier. And, if you’ve recently purchased the Sharp Elite, take a
look at the Sharp LC-80LE844U and ask yourself, why?
