Official Sharp Elite PRO-70X5 and 60X5 Owners Thread - Page 7

The best part of this exchange was that Winston merely said "noticeably" inferior, a point that was actually conceded in the first sentence of the ensuing reply. Any degree to which he found it noticeable was not even specified by Winston in that post, but only imagined as a straw man to rant against.

I have to say I'm enjoying the dichotomy of reaction to the feedback here. Positive reports are taken at face value & praised, while anyone of the opinion that the Elite does not quite measure up comparatively- in any respect, to any degree- is immediately faced with questions about how much time they actually spent with it; whether it was properly setup & under what conditions; & some were even accused of lying about their experience with &/or ownership of the model! Does make for a good read though.

Sadly, all of AVS is like this now. You can't be the slightest bit negative without getting your head ripped off or accused of all sorts of things. But if you cheerlead for the billionth time, you are clearly right on the money.

Oh, I'll definitely keep the 141 until the new one arrives. I've been wanting a 70 incher for a long time. If the new tv is at least comparable in my livingroom then I'll be happy so we'll see in 48 hours

Holy Crap, the rumors of an 80" Elite next year just might be true. I still don't know how they can have any kind of screen uniformity being edge-lit but the 5K street is impressive. Panny's 85" plasma while superior is double the price. When they finally do release the 80" Elite we will have to give it the nickname Ultimate Kuro Killer.


Sharp Aquos 80" Black LED Flat Screen LCD HDTV - LC-80LE632U


Sharp Aquos 80" Black LED Flat Screen LCD HDTV - LC80LE632U/ Full HD 1080p X-Gen (1920 x 1080) Panel/ Edge-Lit LED Backlight System/ 120Hz Fine Motion Enhanced/ Built-In WiFi Connectivity/ 4,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio/ Vyper Drive Game Mode/ Streaming Video Capable/ Built-In ATSC/QAM/NTSC Tuners/ 4 HDMI Inputs/ Black Finish

This is not anywhere near an elite display. Do a little more homework.....

He needed an excuse for another punchline about the Kuro's......maybe an ego issue he has against inanimate objects

I hate where I live. No Best Buy's have the Elite on display yet. What the h.

You know whats really funny? Comments about this TV are the same for what kuro owners got called fanboys for. And still do.

Weird.


And please drop the "kuro killer" nonsense. The fact that people are dead set on that shows kuro owners made the right choice 3 years ago.

EDIT- Thanks for the video HYMER DAXTER.

@RadTech51

This isn't the full frame (See post #110), so I assume it's in overscan mode. Is there a dot-for-dot mode and have you tried it?

Learn to read, never said it was. I know the difference between edge-lit, full-array, and full-array with local dimming. Rogo and others have pointed out the 70X5 Kuro Killer uses the same glass as their 732 line. So combining the fact that they now have the ability to produce 80" glass along with Robert's rumor of an 80" 80X5 Elite in the pipeline next year, seem to confirm the potential for an Ultimate Kuro Killer sometime next year. More good news it that the dealer cost for best buy is closer to 4.5K. Which leads you to believe the cancelled the 925 series that was supposed to be FA with LD, because they believe they can get cost down once volume ramps up. Either way, Sharp has laid down the gauntlet to dominate the emerging 70"-80" market and the other manufactures are going to have to step up their game.

Thanks Rad for all your hard work. I know you post on at least 3 different forums, so it must take you a lot of time. If you every find the time for a total white screen shot to check uniformity and a shot of football in a brightly lit room, it would be appreciated.

Rad, you're killing me! Sunday morning seems like FOREVER to wait lol I think The Dark Knight will be my first movie watched on Sunday. I'm busy today comparing the PRO 141 dimensions to the PRO-70X5FD and noting how much higher I need to move up the wall bracket, etc. I already set up my new Panny 310 3D player but will get the new Pioneer Elite BD player when it ships next month.

The largest BestBuy near me has the 70 inch Elite on display. Avatar looked quite impressive. $8k with price protection whatever that means. As an owner of the Kuro g9 60 inch I'm not in any rush but this new line from Sharp looks promising.

Low and behold, my local Best Buy had one on display when I went in to buy X-Men First Class.
I watched Gladiator on it for 30 mins in THX Movie mode (started at beginning of Gladiator). It was the 70" model. And yes, it was the Elite.

My impressions:
- In the low lit Magnolia room light reflection on the screen was bad. Yes, it was definitely better than any of the other models in the room, but it was very distracting especially during a movie with such dark color tones as Gladiator at the beginning battle.
- Off axis did not seem to be an issue. Not sure if I'm not as critical as others but I didn't see anything complaint worthy.
- Blacks were very good, though I found that during scenes containing all black and mostly black objects next to each other detail was lost. Nothing horrible, but too me and what I am used to with black level/detail, I was slightly disappointed...professional calibration would most likely fix this issue.
- Colors were accurate, though I found the overall pop in THX Movie to be unimpressive, especially for it being an LED TV.....a professional calibration would definitely fix that.

All in all I am impressed, especially at the thought of what this set could do once it is properly calibrated and viewed in ideal conditions. However, at 5 grand I am not wowed enough to feel like this TV is the second coming of Christ.
I'm sure I'll be criticized up and down since I was as subjective and unbiased about my review as possible just because I currently own a Kuro ......I'll get the marshmallows ready for the fire.

I currently have a 60 inch Kuro wall mounted. Will the same wall mount be big enough for the new Elite. ie How far are the holes on the back of the new Elite apart?

I just checked and it looks like the holes on the back of the 70" Elite are much closer to the center of the tv. I'll have to adjust my bracket in as the holes are more towards the outer 4 corners on the Pro141. I read the spec sheet and it shows the bracket holes as 15 3/4" apart.

There is a fair amount of evidence that the 80" glass for the 80" panel is actually being made on an older 40" fab, using the equivalent of 4 panels worth of substrate. The fact that it's such a lower-end model lends credence to this.

To bring it up to modern standards, a number of things would have to happen. First, the backlight array and electronics would have to be added. This has nothing at all to do with the actual fabbing of the panel which mean's it's certainly realistic to bring that tech to the 80" display, even if it continues to get made in the older fab.

The next tricks, however, will involve bringing the panel up to modern standards and those will be trickier. Not impossible, but trickier as enough has changed in the production of the panels that 73x panels and 63x panels are generationally different. If Sharp is committed to an 80" Elite, they'd have to invest to make it happen. My guess is that investment would be millions, perhaps low eight figures. It's inherently a low-volume product, but one I think they could sell for good money -- figure at least $10,000, even if the 70" Elite gets cheaper next year.

Honestly, though, the ROI on such an investment isn't that amazing. And Sharp will have to ask itself a serious question: Does it believe the sales volume of such a TV is really much different at say, $15K, $12K or $10K. I would expect it honestly isn't that different. Unless Panasonic plans on mainstreaming the 85" plasma next year (which is possible), Sharp would own the 80" category. Samsung could compete the same way Sharp is making them -- using an older fab -- but would be stuck with Samsung "quality". So they'd be able to compete with the 632 but not a hypothetical 80" Elite.

Anyway, these are musings. I'm sure we'll learn much more in January.

I had the chance to view a Elite PRO-70X5 today at Best Buy in Hunt Valley, MD and it is a beauty. I did most of my viewing in THX mode as I found it to be the best looking of the preset modes. The content was Inception on Blu-ray and just looked amazing. This set has the best picture quality of any TV I've seen including my old 111FD and my current 55HX929. However, there is a little something called price. Right now I can't justify the fact the 60X5 is twice the street price as my 55HX929. It's better but not by a lot and certainly not worth twice the price. If these sets drop in price and I'm sure they will, I might pick one up a few months from now. If money is no object this is clearly the best TV on the market.

Hello all,

Well I went to Best Buy today and got to spent an hour with the 70'" Elite. My take?

No doubt in my mind that it is the best looking display I've seen to date. So congratulations to all who have taken the plunge and made their purchase!

I hope to join you soon, hopefully the prices will come down a little with time.

best,
Tom

I have no dog in this fight and merely wanted to give someone's perspective of what I saw. The Elite was playing a well-known film to me - BD version of the Dark Knight.

Let me give a little more detail on what I saw positive, negative, and neutral:

Once again, the black levels were impressive. It's impossible to make too accurate a common about relative "black-ness" of the MLLs, but I will say they were very dark and appeared darker than the VT30 across the room. Lighting was different as was source, so I do not mean that as any conclusive statement about relative MLL, but do think i can pay it a nice complement anecdotally.

The shadow detail in the Dark Knight appeard to be lost with blacks being crushed. I sat with the Magnolia manager and confirmed it was in fact in THX mode. There are variables here (like colorspace on the bdp), but I perceived shadow detail levels lost, which might artificially create a "blacker" black to a naked eye browsing the showroom. This probably could be corrected with callibration.

Noise reduction was excellent, in particular mosquito noise.

There was aliasing in some scenes, which appeared attributable to frame interpolation. For example, if someone moved quickly, some ghosting or tearing of the lines of the image could occur. This is something that was not noticeable constantly, but this hobby has trained me sadly to look for flaws in many cases. That said, the soap opear appear of frame interpolation in 120 and 240hz tvs was almost non-existent.

Off axis viewing was better than a lot of LCDs. Then again, a 70" tv offers one wide axis in real life!

Overall, the tv was impressive, but that does not mean it was not free of foibles (just like everyother tv i have owned or seen including Pioneer PDPs and Sony XBRs).

The 70" isn't 5 grand, it's 8 grand. Nor is the 60" 5 grand. How does 5 grand come into the discussion? Are you saying that the picture isn't worth 5 grand to you?

Same impression I had when watching Gladiator. Again, not a huge knock on the TV since it is more or less to do with THX mode (as the salesman I was talking to also conceded) and will most likely be corrected with competent calibration.

I noticed during my viewing that the blacks seemed crushed in THX mode. It was something I figured could be worked out via calibration.

My point exactly. Then why is it ok to compare the 735 in Dynamic mode to the Elite when in its perfectly calibrated mode?
It make no sense but this is what is occurring at Magnolia.

It stayed in THX Movie at the MHT I went to.

This is why I'm following this tv so closely this year. I'm not buying this year. I have a 60 inch Kuro Elite PRO151FD and the jump to 70 inches just isn't quite the size increase I want. It is about a 36% increase. Minimum would be 75 but man oh man 80 would be great.

If they come out with 80 next year and hopefully make even more strides in picture quality I could definitely see an upgrade. Then I could move my 151 to just being a bedroom tv.

Gah, I wanted to concentrate on an audio upgrade but if the elite comes out in 80 inches next year I won't be able to resist.