Sharp LC-52LE700E 52in LED backlit TV

Viewing it large

Sat 5 Jun 2010 // 08:02 UTC

However, this set is definitely at its best when it’s working with HD material, such as movies on Bluray, as this is when you get to see just how crisp and sharp its pictures can look. Unfortunately, its performance with standard definition content, such as channels on Freeview, was relatively poor.

The menu system offers comprehensive picture controls

Pictures look rather noisy and the set tend to draw attention to weakness in the signal rather than managing to hide them away. Also, although this telly’s 100Hz processing does a decent job of reducing judder, sadly, some motion blur does make it’s presence felt during sports, especially fast pans during footy matches.

Another slight problem area is sound. Usually, the bigger the set, the better the speakers. However, the speakers on the LC-52LE700E lack oomph compared to those in similar sized TVs from the likes of Sony and Philips. They’re not all that loud and the bass response, although never great on flat panels anyway, is rather poor for the size of the screen.

On the power front, however, the TV performs admirably. Running in Cinema mode it uses a modest 64W or so and while this does jump to around 143W in the Dynamic mode (largely due to the boost in brightness), it’s still not that bad for a screen of this size. It’s easy on the gas in standby mode too, where it draws just 0.9W.

Verdict

The 700E offers a lot of screen for the money and its performance with HD sources is impressive, thanks to its ability to produce natural colours and inky black levels. However, it has a bad habit of highlighting the negative aspects of standard definition broadcasts, rather than smoothing them over, and its sound performance is a little below par. ®