Customer Reviews
Sharp Aquos LC46D82U Is A Winner 
2008-01-01
We bought this Sharp Aquos HDTV through Amazon in December 2007 and are very pleased with the quality of the set and delivery service.
Like you, we had to decide whether to go plasma or LCD and determine the appropriate size for our viewing distance. We knew we would get a better price online so we went to Best Buy and Circuit City to look at their selections. We knew we wanted either a 42" or 46" for our 8 - 10 foot viewing distance so we watched the quality of the picture on these sets. Many showed some form of pixelation in fast moving scenes yet this Aquos did not. Other sets showed the glare of the storeroom lighting because of the glass panel (common on plasma.) The matte finish panel on this set did not show any glare. The choice we made was this Sharp Aquos 46" LCD.
We purchased the HDTV through Amazon with free White Glove Delivery and were given a 2 week delivery date. Eagle Global Logistics were the carriers. Once I received the confirmation email with tracking number from Amazon, I began watching the progress. We live in Virginia so I cringed when I saw the initial scan was Reno, Nevada! Received a call from Eagle 7 days later to schedule delivery... 7 days earlier than promised. The carriers arrived at our door in the 4 hour time frame given and brought the TV into the house for my inspection. The box was in surprisingly good condition and the contents looked fresh from the factory floor. Delivery guys were friendly and polite.
We do not use the remote that came with set nor do we use the buttons on top of the set. Our HD cable service provider's HD service kit came with a universal remote control along with the converter. We can turn on the TV, DVD, HD box, and stereo all with one click. The built in speakers do however produce a good sound on their own. Standard channels look very good on the set, DVDs look great, and HD programming is awesome!
So prepare yourself for full HD when buying a new HDTV. Go 1080p, pseudo 120HZ refresh rate, matte finish LCD panel, and size your TV to the room. Bigger TVs viewed at a closer distance do show pixelation.
Shipping difficulties on Aquos - bad customer service 
2007-12-30
I bought this TV two months ago. The TV is great. Amazon is a dead end in terms of customer service.
I ordered the TV, which was shipped by Eagle freight from Sharp's HQ in NJ. It arrived, and I made the mistake of picking it up on the weekend from thier SoCal shipping center (so I wouldn't have to take time off waiting for a delivery truck). Well, I got the TV home, put together and the monitor was damaged in shipping (yes, everyone's fear).
I called Amazon and they told me that a new one would be shipped and that I just had to return the old one in its packaging when Eagle delivered the new one. Eight or nine days later, four hours after the delivery window, it arrived. Eagle unpacked it, it worked, they took the damaged TV, and they were gone.
Then I recieved an email from Amazon stating that if I didn't return the original TV, they were going to charge me. So I logged on to their site and wrote them an email telling them exactly what happened. I got an email saying that they would look for it and there should not be a problem. Well, two months later, they have not found it, so they charged my credit card an additional $2100 for a TV that thier delivery people picked up exactly as I was told by Amazon would happen. Now I have to fight them for the $2100 they billed me.
Amazon sends these notices announcing they are charging you $2100, but you cant respond to thier emails. You have to log on, fill out an email form, put in your order number, and reexplain what happenned. It feels like you are communicating with a black hole, especially when they do not allow you to respond directly to their emails, but have to start the whole process over anew. It reminds me of calling a credit card call center where no one really cares or pays attention to what you are saying.
My advice: Think Globally, Buy (& return) Locally.
Great TV 2007-12-26
This is my first LCD HDTV and I think it's great. It's easy to set up and use.
Fantastic HDTV 
2007-12-21
After reviewing and searching for weeks, this TV came to the top of the list. For the money, this is the best TV. Invest in the 120hz refresh rate, it makes a huge difference for high speed scenes.
Sharp 46D82U 2007-12-10
I have had my 46D82U for a couple of months now.
Initial fears about banding were put to rest when my 705 (serial #) worked like a charm.
I use this TV to watch 1080i over the air HD channels, play Nintendo Wii and watch movies on Toshiba A35 1080p.
1080i over the air look fabulous, Wii looks ok when stretched out to fit the screen, 1080p from my A35 looks very well, but I can't recognize the difference between that and 1080i HD channels with a sitting distance of about 9 feet.
I use the TV speakers only for playing Wii and they are sufficient. Anyone who is serious about TV watching should buy decent speakers, one good choice is Onkyo 908 (1,000 watts) for about eight hundred bucks, a cheaper alternative is Logitech 5500's (505 watts of power) for about two hundred fifty.
I bought Digital Video Essentials to make sure I have the proper calibration, some values had to be changed a little, some significantly. Overall result was a darker picture than before, but my amature eyes can't tell if it looks much better or not. This supposedly how it was "meant" to be seen by directors, what would I know?
I wall mounted it a couple of days ago. Here's a tip, DO NOT do it alone. My hands are still shaking just thinking about it.
I bought the mount that handles 36-50" screens (Peerless ST650P) and it worked great. Here's a hint: use the metal spacers unless you want the screws to fall out (manual says you don't need to...but trust me, I mounted the 42" and 46" Sharp TVs and the screws would barely hold).
Cleaning the screen: I use Monster ScreenClean. Yes, it is expensive. But after you use it, you can't tell that the screen was ever used before. Perfectly glossy surface with no dust, no streaks...nothing. I have used it on my laptop, my PC screen and TV, I have seen nothing better.
If you have any further questions, you can contact me at tkacle at hotmail dot com.
Overall this is an excellent TV and well worth the money.
sharp has saved me as a customer 2008-04-05
I originally owned a 42d62u that developed problems and sharp replaced it with a refurbed 42d64u that came with problems. They replaced that set with a new 46d82u that i received today. It is an 803xxxx serial. I could not be happier having owned sharps with problems i was not expecting to be this pleased with the set. The picture is amazing and looks great with both cable hd and bluray. Sharp went above and beyond what i would expect a company to do when dealing with a warranty claim. My 62u was 2 months over the warranty when they agreed to replace it, which is why they sent me a refurbished 64u and not a new one. When that set had issues they upgraded me to this new 46d82u. Great set that handles everything i've tested with no motion blur, no banding and an overall amazing picture. Do not let sharp's lcd issues scare you away from their lcd's. They have the best customer service i have ever experienced, they stand behind their products, and will make every effort to make the customer satisfied if they have a set with a problem.
great value! 2008-03-16
Compares with top of the line SONY and SAMSUNG. All the bells and whistles but at hundreds of dollars less.
The best purchase I've made in over a year 2008-02-09
I don't know where to start, so I guess I'll go back a couple months. Back in November I had purchased a 1080P 47" Westinghouse from BestBuy, the TV featured blacks which looked like grays, 30 second warm-up period and finally locked up after less than two weeks. I returned it for a full refund and began researching other brands/models. After all of my research it came down to three choices: Sharp Aquos, Sony Bravia XBR and Samsung. In the end I went with Sharp, the CNET review sold me.
So I finally ordered my Sharp Aquos early January, I've never bought from Amazon before and with the exception of my mattress and box spring I've never ordered something this large online before. I have to admit I was somewhat afraid of which could lie in store for me. But all of my worries turned out to be just worries.
I received my LCD TV in less than a week of ordering it and fell in love with it. Blacks look like blacks and the contrast level floors me. Mass Effect for xbox360 is absolutely breath taking. For games like Burnout Paradise you actually get drawn into the game because the color is so vivid and the refresh rate appears almost instantaneously. High definition content looks spectacular too, watching Transformers on HDDVD was almost as good as it was on the big screen.
The only gripe I have with it is that I think that it uses a 6-bot color profile and not an 8-bit color profile. Maybe I'm being too picky, just about everything I've thrown at it has looked flawless. Overall it's a great LCD TV for anyone looking to upgrade or buy their first LCD panel.
Also, I wish all of the LCD TV manufactures would have continued to support the DVI-D interface longer. Most people will just do what I did and use a HDMI-to-DVI-D cable to power my MCE system, but HDMI-DVI cables do not support dual link DVI, so there is less bandwidth in the cable. If companies like Nvidia would release HDMI port equipped cards I wouldn't even mention it, but the only products offering HDMI ports on them are motherboard manufactures using onboard graphics...yuck
One final note, Amazon has made me a firm believer in them after this purchase. With-in 30 days they lowered the price on this TV, so I followed the steps in order to be refunded the price difference. I was on the phone for less than 5 minutes and they green lighted my refund difference. I still can't believe it, it was so simple and hassle free. Kudos, Kudos.
Sharp 46D82U 2008-02-07
We are really pleased with our purchase. The TV was shipped out on 12/30/2007 and delivered to our home on 01/04/2008, considering the New Year's Day holiday. This was actually 7 days before the original estimated delivery date!! Absolutely no problems. Set up was fast and easy. We would highly recommend this product!
Big, Bright, Beautiful Set - Better Than Plasma! 2008-01-29
I purchased this set after my 5 year old 42" Sony Wega Plasma unexpectedly bit the dust. That set cost me $8,000 back in early 2003. Needless to say, I was not very happy. However, my remorse quickly turned to excitement as I began to research new TV's (it's a guy thing).
The first thing that I had to do was to get caught up on the LCD vs. Plasma technology battle as much has changed these last few years. I read about everything from pixel speed to energy consumption to lighting conditions, etc. etc. No doubt you are doing similar research and reading the same things. While there are many important considerations, what mattered most to me in my decision was picture quality.
To tell you the truth, I've never been a big fan of LCD sets. I've seen many at different places, such as friends' and relatives' houses over the years and I have never been very impressed. To me the pictures just looked "grainy" and "cold" like a computer monitor. While the price of my Sony plasma would drop by thousands each year causing me some amount of buyer's remorse (the price of early adoption, I guess) I was still always very proud of my Sony's picture and had never seen anyone with a better looking set.
I was very disappointed to find out that Sony had abandoned plasma technology all together and even their top end XBR series seemed to exhibit the qualities that I always hated about LCD pictures. I'm somewhat of a Sony snob, so this meant that I was going to look elsewhere if I wanted a nice plasma picture. I quickly learned from my research that Pioneer and Panasonic have some of the best plasma sets currently.
During my research I had also learned that Sharp apparently makes the best LCD set. I didn't pay much attention as I was focused on plasmas. However, a friend handed me an HHGregg flyer that had an unbelievable price on the Sharp Aquos D64 series. Sure enough, the price was unbelievable as the store was out company wide. They did, however, have this model the D82 for $500 more (classic bait and switch). As I headed for the front door, the salesman told me he would see what he could do. There aren't too many stores that haggle anymore, but HHGregg is one of them.
A few minutes later I had purchased D82 for the advertised price of the D64 and had a Sharp Blu-ray player thrown in as well (all for $1850). A pretty fair piece of negotiating I thought, but what had I done? What about my research? What about the fact that I hated LCD sets and really wanted a plasma set? I had not read a single review on the Sharp Aquos LC46D82U and now I owned one!
Fortunately, this set has the most beautiful picture that I have ever seen. I've owned a Playstation3 for 9 months and had not been that impressed with Blu-ray, but wow, what a difference the 1080p with HDMI makes! The games on the PS3 look especially good, much better than on my old plasma set. The cable box in 720p with its component hookup looks great too. None of the "grainy-ness" I've seen on other LCD sets. There is very little blurring because the pixels are fast due to the 120 hz refresh rate, the colors are awesome to look at, and the set looks good in any lighting condition. It even automatically adjusts the brightness (the back light) automatically.
This set is twice as thick as the D64 series, but it's got a beautiful piano black finish that matches my PS3 nicely, and its materials make it look higher end than the D64. 3 HDMI inputs seem right. No PC input, but an inexpensive HDMI-DVI adapter takes care of that in a hurry. The Sharp remote is a bit cheap looking, but my cable remote controls everything except the wide/zoom options, so I hardly never see it. The sound on my Sony Wega Plasma was impeccable and this set doesn't even come close. However, I quickly learned that this is the case with pretty much all sets now, so I'm not docking the Sharp any points here. For example, no sets other than the Pioneer Elite Series even seem to come with an output for a powered subwoofer. I guess the industry wants us to buy a separate surround sound package.
Overall, I'm thrilled with this set and would highly recommend it. Even though I did not purchase it through Amazon I see that they have a good price on it (sans Blu-ray player) and would not hesitate to save the taxes next time out. Oh, the Sharp Blu-ray player they gave me with my set? I'm giving it to my father for his birthday next week.
