Strengths: It turns on when I press power every time.

Weaknesses: Banding started approximately 15 months after purchase date. There's a hum that made me think I had tinitus for a few days.

Summary: I bought mine brand new in February 2007, and noticed the banding in December '08. Also it sometimes makes a high pitched sound that can be constant for days. I did a google search to see if any others had experienced similar problems and I couldn't believe it - there must be hundreds, if not thousands experiencing the same issues. Search for yourself. So I called Sharp today, to simply see if it was fixable or if I had to buy a new TV and they said they don't recognize banding or any other issues issues with any of their televisions! I almost laughed at this dude in disbelief! What a crock. It was a $2300 purchase at the time and is now a very expensive tv with one vertical band down the left side, one on the right side of the TV... and a couple squiggly horizontal lines just below center. I will never buy a Sharp again after that Sharp's customer service response and the TV going bad in less than 2 years. I knew I should've taken it back when I bought my second LCD two weeks later (Samsung 23"/720p model) and it had a MUCH better picture than the 42" 1080p Sharp.

Strengths: great picture, good remote, good sound too. have home theater sysem hooked up and panasonic blue ray player..

Weaknesses: when you press the mute button there is no closed captioning like most sets. i called up sharp hqs and they said that model didnt have that setting. most unusual.

Summary: i bought it at circuit city(now no longer in business) for 2 grand back in 2006. much cheaper now but still a good buy...now they make one with a blue ray attached to the back. great idea...

Strengths: Picture is ok quality

Weaknesses: Red dots on the screen and VERY poor customer service!

Summary: Don't waste your time and money. Stick with Samsung. Red dots appeared on the screen and customer service won't do anything to fix it. These dots are very annoying. I have another Samsung hdtv that has never given me any problems. I'm giving up on sharp.

Strengths: Picture - ON Screen Menu

Weaknesses: Built in speakers non HD shows

Summary: No technical stuff from me it\\\\'s just simply a great picture. Anything on the HD side in either 720p or 1080i looks crystal clear. I\\\\'m not too keen on the built in speakers but that is probably true for all HD sets but when you plug in the Surround Sound or Speakers witha good Stereo system it\\\\'s just as I said awesome.

Strengths: Good picture for 42" LCD, easy settings, and standard remote.

Weaknesses: Alot of factory defects in this series, typically serial numbers starting with 6. Learned that dynamic contrast of less than 10k:1 is not a good thing when viewing analog programs.

Summary: I really enjoyed this LCD flatpanel when I got it in Dec 2006. However, a few months later the entire display would pulse for a few minutes after power up. Eventually, it would pulse all the the time. Also, heard alot of squealing noise from the back of the unit and eventually it developed a dark 1/2" vertical line on the right side of the display and a light 1/2" vertical line on the left side of the display. Note, I never saw banding, as reported elsewhere on the internet. I called Sharp, they asked if I could email digital pictures of what it was doing. I emailed a 10 second mpeg of the pulsing and jpegs of the vertical lines. Sharp emailed back that they would exchange it, by me returning it to the original store I bought it at. But the store was out of 42" Sharps, so I paid the difference and upgraded to the LC-46D82U. See my 5 star review on the 46". Note, I was not too worried about this 42" having problems. Most of the other brands available in December 2006, like Sony's XBR had clouding issues, along with Samsung (i.e. they co-own the LCD factory). I believe Sharp has fixed their production issues by now.

Strengths: Beautiful TV, worth every penny

Weaknesses: Don't get it delivered

Summary: The first one I received had dark smudges in the lower left hand section. This looked like an obvious manufacture defect, and I was able to return it to the local warehouse chain for a full refund (including shipping). I then ordered a second one. The box it came in looked beat up and had obviously been mishandled. I just opened it up to find the display completely shattered. Now I am going to have to return it a second time. It's really to bad that such a beautiful TV must experience so much trauma on the way to my house.

Strengths: picture is excellent, stylish design, 2 HDMI inputs, digital audio output, nice cord routing, menu is easy to navigate

Weaknesses: the factory picture settings are not good. within minutes I was able to get it looking great though. could use another S-video input but no biggie

Summary: overall this is the best TV I could find for the price. other than having to tune the picture settings out of the box it was easy to setup. Ive only watched DirecTV in non-HD and DVD in 480i sofar but even that was good. im sure once I can feed it a 1080 signal it will really come to life.I really like the audio output. when you switch between dvd, satellite, ect the audio comes out the dedicated audio out to your amp.would highly recommend this TV

Strengths: 1080p, Not too expensive, Looks great

Weaknesses: No PC Input, Automatic brightness can be annoying, Colors not realistic

Summary: The Sharp Aquos is a great TV but not without some shortcomings. The price is good for a 1080p LCD but the colors aren't the most realistic. Even after tweaking, they seemed a bit to harsh. Also, the TV does not have PC input so you might have problems connecting your PC to it. I tried using a VGA to DVI to HDMI cable but it wouldn't accept the signal. If you need 1080p this might not be a bad way to go. I'd recommend going to a local store, checking it out and seeing if you like what you see.

Strengths: Crystal clear picture.

Weaknesses: It now does not work.

Summary: 1.5 month after I purchased this TV it went dead. No picture. It has been in the shop now for three weeks and the repair parts are unavailable form Sharp. Sharp also will not replace the TV even though it cannot be fixed at the moment. I have gotten no help from the Sharp customer service and they state that there is nothing they can do. While the picture is great ,the service I have received from Sharp is questionable. Something to consider before purchasing a Sharp product.

Strengths: Sensational picture, good sound, and the piano-black finish is elegant.

Weaknesses: Picture fades at certain angles; picture adjustment required.

Summary: I've had this TV over a month, and it was my first widescreen/flat-panel/hi-def set, so I was taking a major step up. Since I don't have a blu-ray or HD-DVD player I still have never seen a 1080p image on this set, but broadcasts on the HD channels like HBO or Discovery HD look simply phenomenal. Yeah, if you sit too close you can see the pixels working, but that's true of almost any hi-def set--my father has a huge 1080i projection TV, and the only really good place to watch it from is practically in another room. Watching standard-def pictures, though, will definitely require some adjusting of the picture. I used the Video Essentials DVD to help me methodically change all the color and sharpness settings, but the excellent menus make that pretty easy; and once the adjustments were finished, even standard-def looks pretty good. My only real complaint is that if you look at the screen from almost any angle other than straight-on, the overall picture fades (something about the black levels only really working in the one direction). But at least the level of fade is consistent, so it's not like the problem gets worse the wider (or higher) you go. All in all, I'm thrilled with my new TV, and a friend of mine is about to go out and get exactly the same set.

Strengths: Excellent picture quality

Weaknesses: Needs calibration out of the box

Summary: Just an amazing TV, I've had it for a week now. Piano finish styling just adds that extra touch. Picture quality especially HD is excellent. I was considering the samsung 4096, but for about the same price you get an extra 2". I've seen both of them side by side and I couldn't see the difference. As many other review mention the factory calibration needs to be adjusted especially the backlight as it is set to the maximum for showroom demo purposes.

Strengths: Great Color and Resolution, No Glare, Sexy and Sleek Look

Weaknesses: Could have more accessible inputs on front or side, Poor Factory Settings, No HDMI cables included but can buy for low price online at Monoprice or other

Summary: The factory settings on the Sharp are terrible with oversaturated colour and a cold blue tint affecting white objects on the screen like white shirts, documents etc, Fortunately with some considerable adjustment I warmed it up, adjusted the colour, contrast etc. Appearance : Yes, it looks beautiful. The "fingerprint friendly" glossy black bezel gives it a subtle classy look without becoming too garish. The downside to that... you'd have to put in some effort to keep it clean, not that big of a deal though.. just like if you have shiny black car. Even the smallest bit of dirt/dust gets accentuated because of the shiny black background. Also, since the LCD screen is anti-glare, the reflections from the bezel COULD get distracting if you're sitting in a well-lit room with multiple light sources. This hasnt been a problem for me since the lamp for my living room is on top BEHIND the TV, but if your light source is behind the viewer, you might want to give this some consideration. All in all, nothing particualary flashy/different about the looks of this model versus the multitude of other LCD TV's out there. The speakers are mounted at the bottom (as with most TV's this size), and are not detachable. The remote is the standard Sharp remote, nothing fancy about it. The clicker can also be programmed to command your cable box, VCR and DVD player Features : 1080 p (isnt that the reason you are looking at this review?.. LOL) ATSC-NTSC tuners to catch over the air HD/SD broadcasts 2 HDMI input ports No PIP mode, (though in my opnion, PIP is highly overrated) No cable card slot (until the time bi-directional cable-cards become the norm, cable card slots are really not that useful) No DVI input. If you want to hook up your PC, you'd need to use a DVI-to-HDMI converter and use one of the HDMI input slots on the TV. Its not that big of a deal to me, but it might be to some. Of course, it would have been NICE to have a DVI input slot, other manufacturers have it, so why cant Sharp? I attribute it to cost-cutting measures. Performance (HD) : Out of the box, the HD picture was stunning. Watching the Rutgers-Louisville game last night on HD, I could see clearly the individual faces of spectators sitting many rows back in the background. Very nice. But.. moving closer to the TV (about 3 feet. Yeah, I know its too close, but I HAD to check), I could see quite a bit of pixelization in the lighter areas of the image. This pixelization affected even the NON-moving parts of the image. Furthermore, the pixelization blocks were not constant, which give the image a grainy, shimmering look (the kind you get on your PC games if you set Anisotrpic filtering too high, and Anti-aliasing too low). Of course, moving further away from 3 ft, this effect wasnt noticable, and pictures looked great. Anyway, since I was in the "critique" mode, I took my TV to my neighbor's who has Dish Network (I have Time Warner Cable), navigated to the same HD channel, and Bingo, the pixelization is gone..!!! This leads me to belive that the problem lies with the quality of HD signal provided by Time Warner. I think, to carry as many channels as possible, TWC might be compressing their signals too much, and when the time comes for my cable settop box/HDTV to de-compress the image, it has to do too much guesswork to fill in too many blanks left due to data rejection (not data loss... but data rejection, the data that is INTENTIONALLY left out to compress the signals). To read more of my ramblings on compression, see the "HDMI - Is it really that big a deal?" section at the bottom of this review. Performance (SD) : Out of the box, not so great. Significant artifacting and pixelization. Rather disappointing, in fact. A few tweaks later (Noise reduction turned off, Sharpness reduced, backlight intensity reduced, Cable box configured to output 4:3 channels in 480p instead of 480i), a much better picture. Still SOME artifacting and pixelization, and of course not as good as the HD channels (naturally.. lol), but definitely watchable. Hardly any artifacting/pixelization visible from our normal seating distance of 8-10 ft. This finally got my wife's seal of approval ... "OK, we will keep this TV" ... ;-) Performance (DVD) : Well here, I was pleasantly surprised. I KNEW beforehand that DVD's look rather good on HDTV's, but my DVD player is a 4 yr old, no-name, el-cheapo, only 480i output model which I got for free for signing up for a Bank of America chekcing account. YET, the picture quality was only mariginally less than what I saw on my HD channels. I have no plans of buying an HD-DVD or a Blu-Ray DVD players, but I WAS contemplating buying an upconverting DVD player. But looking at what my current DVD player is giving, I think I'll hold off on that purchase.. :-) Comparison with other brands : I spent many an hour in Circuit City looking at this and other models, and harassing their sales staff into cycling thru a myriad of input signals, and settings on these TV's. In my opnion this model is best compared to Sony 40V2500 and Samsung S4095D (or S4096D.. they're identical for all practical purposes, and circuit City had the 4095D), both 40 inch, and both 1080p. Sharp v/s Sony - I felt the Sony had a slightly better picture quality. The image was sharper, and the colors looked more natural. However, the Sharp showed slightly more details on close-ups of people's faces (perhaps due to the fact that the Sharp has 2 inches more of real estate). Also the Sony was about $250 more expensive (for a size 2 inches less), but hey, its a Sony.. :-) Sharp v/s Samsung - Virtually identical picture quality. Yet Samsung was priced about 300 more than Sharp (for a size 2 inches less). Out of the three, Sony seemed to have the best picture quality (both HD and SD) and most natural colors, but only marginally. I believe the extra $250 would be justified if it was the same size as the 42" Sharp. The Samsung is just plain over-priced. It should actually be cheaper than the Sharp. Of course, if you're looking for absolute best, then look at Sony XBR2 40", but that one is WAY over-priced.. lol. You buy that one, your wife might make you sleep on the couch for the next 2 weeks. But considering that the couch would normally be in front of your new XBR2, that might not be such a bad deal... ;-) About banding : I looked and I looked and I looked.. till the cows came home to party. No banding on my unit.. :-). I have read quite a few reports of banding on the Sharp D62U series (even CNET mentions it), but most all of them are about the 46" (and 52") models. The 42" model has slightly different specs from 46 and 52" models (even though they are a part of the same series), so its possible that this model is not affected by the banding issue. But thats pure guesswork and I cant be sure about that. So if you plan to purchase this (42D62U) model, my advice would be to buy it from a local store, which have more generous return/exchange policies.

Strengths: Wonderful picture, good sound, easy to set up, Black Finish Looks Good

Weaknesses: Black finish attracts a lot of dust, the remote is huge

Summary: My biggest complaint about this TV is the black cabinet it comes in. The minute we had it out of the box the dust started collecting. The remote is very large but not because it has a lot of buttons, there just seems to be wasted space. The resolution and color are great we haven't had any problems. The TV is not very heavy and 42 inches is a good size. The sound is fine, and setup was easy (we have the dish, it was a matter of connecting and tuning the channels). We also have an indoor antenna to get local HD channels and the clarity is amazing. I would highly reccommend this TV to anyone.

Strengths: Excellent 1080p picture in terms of clarity when using Blu-Ray media. Very nice looking piano finish case. Packaged well at the factory for truck-line shipping.

Weaknesses: Questionable initial build quality. Questionable initial quality control and testing at the factory. Blacks are not as sharp as Plasma displays. Obvious dots in picture if sitting to close.

Summary: I purchased this item through an online retailer and had it delivered via a truck line. The exterior of the box looked as though it had been handled somewhat roughly, however the packaging from the factory is so good that the television inside was completely protected. However, upon setting up this television for the first time, there was immediately a thin blue line running from top to bottom in the screen about 6 inches from the left side. The line was present regardless of the input and it was even visible in black bars. This was an obvious initial manufacturer's defect in the actual LCD panel intself. Since the television is larger than 20", the retailer would not exchange the set and required that I contact Sharp for warranty work. Sharp immediately realized that it was probably a panel problem that could not be fixed and requested digital photos to be sent in showing the problem. After 3 days, Sharp decided to replace the television. Processing time is an additional 3 days and then replacement time is an additional 7 to 10 days. In the end, it will have taken 1 month from purchase date until the date of having an actual television that works properly. This problem is 100% the fault of the manufacturer as this is an initial quality issue and it shows a lack of quality control at the factory. Just turning the televsion on at least one time and looking at the screen would have been enough for the factory to see the problem. I have heard nothing but good things about this television and it is on several top 5 lists for all LCD televsions on the market. However, the price is too steep to be encountering the type of problem that I came across with this manufacturer. My only other LCD HD television is a 23" Samsung and it has been great from day one without any problems whatsoever. I wish I could say the same for my new Sharp AQUOS.

Strengths: Crisp, clear HD picture

Weaknesses: Not the TV's fault, there's just not adequate HD content. Can't just change aspect ratio and expect full-screen size of non-HD content to look as good as HD content itself.

Summary: Make sure all pixels are there. Even one pixel out impacts the picture. Needed a replacement after 1 day (or we just didn't notice initially). Would definitely purchase again.