Why You Can Trust CNET Sharp Aquos LC60LE630X review: Sharp Aquos LC60LE630X
This 60-inch LCD TV should fill the viewing space in most rooms, but with its washed-out blacks and prominent edge-lighting splotches, it's difficult to recommend, especially for those who like to turn the lights off.
Design
There's nothing particularly mind shattering about the LC60LE630X's looks, but neither is there much for us to grumble about. It's a reasonable-looking black-framed TV in the mould of oh-so-many other TVs out there right now.
Sharp Aquos LC60LE630X
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Flick the 630X on, though, and that sense of apathy disappears. The on-screen font is thin and wiry, much like the Modern vector font that dates back to Windows 3.1. This slender font allows for plenty of options and information to be displayed on the one screen, but it also cheapens the impression of the Sharp, and, more crucially, may be difficult to read for those hard of sight.
Compounding this are the remote control's foibles. The layout of which could do with a quick spell at finishing school, with a particular focus on ease of use, and the look and feel doesn't befit an accessory accompanying a piece of electronica retailing for just shy of AU$2.5K.
Features
Disappointingly, in this age of portable entertainment devices there are no inputs on the side of the Aquos, although there's space on the right-hand side for a set of controls. On the back of the screen you'll find three HDMI ports, two sets of composite inputs, one component input, a USB port, a D-Sub jack and a RS-232 port.
DivX and MKV files stored on a USB drive play back rather nicely on the LC60LE630X. So it's unfortunate that if you stop playback and return to the file later, the TV can't resume where you left off. Nor will it allow you to skip across to a particular point in the video, forcing you to re-watch the file at a maximum fast forward speed of 16x.
Performance
While this Aquos' matte screen can catch and disperse light, making certain patches duller than the rest of the screen, it's still preferable in well-lit environments to a glossy screen that's (almost) good enough to do one's make-up in.
The trade off is that colours lack a certain punch and this is difficult to rectify, as calibration on the 630X is tricky. Knock particular settings one increment across and you can be greeted by a big change, not a small one. In our case, we had to settle for slightly paler colours than we'd like, as nudging the colour setting across one notch oversaturated the image.
Via the built-in high-definition tuner, the 630X ably handled high-definition sports — well, what little of it remains. On Formula One and American football broadcasts, the 60-inch Sharp kept most of the available detail and ensured that the action wasn't lost in a whirlwind of compression artefacts, although there is a hint of choppiness when dealing with panning shots.
Sliding our overworked Mission Impossible 3 Blu-ray disc into the Oppo BDP-93, the Aquos suffered a bit when viewed side-by-side with our benchmark Panasonic Viera VT20. Not only is Sharp's complexion slightly wan, but the Aquos lacks the pin-sharp detailing that the very best TVs exhibit.
Despite our criticisms, the Aquos is a reasonable performer with the lights on. Turn them off, however, and things take a turn for the worse. With nothing on display, along the top of our review unit's screen there were two large splotches of light seeping from the edge LED backlight. There are also less significant splotches in the sea of LCD that is not quite black. These imperfections are still quite visible when watching any video source in the dark.
Conclusion
This 60-inch LCD TV should fill the viewing space in most rooms, but with its washed-out blacks and prominent edge-lighting splotches, it's difficult to recommend, especially for those who like to turn the lights off.