Sharp LC-52XS1U-S 52-inch LED LCD HDTV

Two inches thick and less than one inch on the top and sides, the LC-52XS1U-S is the slimmest set available. It has a silver bezel trimmed in black panel. It can be wall mounted or placed on a stand. It has a set of removable speaker below the panel.

The set has a separate AVC system, which includes most of the sets' connections. A permanently attached power cord and a HDMI cable that links AVC system and panel contributes to slim size of the set. The IR receiver for the remote and the manual control of the set are located below the panel. All the processes like tuning etc are carried out in the AVC system.

The AVC holds no manual controls. The adjustments can be accessed only through the onscreen menus. One problem with this set is while selecting a control for adjustments; unlike other sets, the entire picture menu covers almost a quarter of the image.

LED backlighting and local area dimming. Unlike usual LCDs, the LC-52XS1U-S uses a cluster of LEDs arranged in many zones behind the screen. These zones work as per the requirements of the images improving both black level and shadow detail. The limited edition uses red green and blue LEDs and even filtered white LEDs.

Sharp claims to give 1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, which is much more than what its competitors using same features offer. It provides eight different A/V modes for the input. You can use one for an input or many inputs.
It has an advanced picture setting menu. It hosts additional controls like color temperature, color management system which controls hues and saturation for a color. Unfortunately, it does not have a separate white balance control and a gamma adjustment.

The advanced menu also holds many advanced options like film mode, digital noise reduction active contrast and Fine motion. Fine motion smoothes the picture blur depending on its speed. The other features of the sharp are, it provides interactive control of components linked via HDMI.

You can use limited web access with a high speed connection without a PC by linking the Ethernet port to a home network. USB ports are provided through which you can view JPEG images by connecting a camera. The remote controls four components other than the set but doesn't support input selection. The backlight lights up only half of the buttons. A few page references in the manuals are not correct.

The sets' high definition processing (1080i to 1080p) is excellent. However, tests show that movies in high definition show minor problems from time to time. In the Low setting of the Color Temp control, the picture has a very slight blue shift. The default Enhanced Color Gamut setting is clearly overripe, even the Standard mode appears to be a bit oversaturated. But the set's resolutions of details are remarkable. The Sharp shows no signs of weakness.