Sharp LC-40LE821E (LC40LE821E)

They contain a unique feature, which is a fourth coloured pixel, which is a yellow pixel.  On any other TV you have three coloured pixels making up the entire image, which is a red, green and blue pixel; on this one you have got the addition of a fourth pixel, which is a yellow pixel.  What that does is not only bring through a more natural yellow colour tone to the screen so if you are watching anything that is yellow onscreen, it is portrayed better; but it gives you far more gradiation from one colour to the next, so you get a more fluid flow from sort of the reds, the greens, the blues and every other colour that is in the spectrum, because of this addition of the yellow pixel that is on there as well.

You have also got a set here which is full HD.  It will cope with 720p, 1080i and 1080p resolution.  They are 100Hz scanning.  What that means is you basically take a standard TV picture made up of fifty pictures per second; you have got 100 pictures per second making up your image on the Sharp Quattron, giving you a more fluid control of any fast movement that may be on there as will.

This particular range, on the 821 series, also has an 8 gigabyte disc drive built in.  So, if you are watching the programme on here now and somebody comes to the door, or the phone rings, you can actually pause what you are watching here; it will continue to record the information that is onscreen there for you, so you can come back to it.  So you can do what they call “time shift recordings” internally in the TV because of this 8 gigabyte disc drive that is built into the set itself. 

They come on a swivel base.  The set is an LED-sourced-lit TV, so you have got LED lights behinds the panel to illuminate the screen.  What that does is make the panel extremely slim.  So we are only looking at 39mm in depth.  So, as I said, it is on a swivel base; if we spin this round - okay, so as I stated before the TV is only 39mmin depth, so it makes it ideal for wall mounting.  The sockets on the side of the TV are all recessed.  The sockets underneath are all recessed as well.  So, 39mm in depth - ideal for wall mounting.

If we go through these sockets now:  At the top here you have a USB socket.  Underneath that you have an Ethernet connection.  Coming down from there you have also got Audio Out and you have also got AV Input here as well.  You have got a VGA socket, so if you want to plug, say, your PC into here you can do so via the VGA socket.  And you have then got four HDMIs; you have got 1, 2, 3, 4 running down there in a row.  And you have also got a CAM slot down here as well, so if you want any pay per view channels, just underneath here you have got a CAM slot there as well. 

Underneath the TV, if we just pan the camera down just for a second, underneath here we have also got a recessed aerial socket.  Now this TV has got the HD tuner built into it so you can get BBC HD, ITV HD and Channel 4 HD just from your standard TV aerial.  You have also got a Digital Audio Output - so you have got an optical socket underneath here, so if you want to feed the sound digitally out of here through an external source like an amplifier you can do so as well.  And that pretty much completes the array of sockets that are on the set itself.

Okay, so here we have the Sharp Quattron.  The picture quality is absolutely stunning.  If you can get into our showroom to have a look at this, please call in.  The product is probably one of the best TVs that I have ever seen - picture quality and sound quality; superb sound system in this TV as well.

We will go through some of the picture settings now, to show you what is available.  The TV, as I said, is full HD; HD tuner built into it - so BBC, ITV and Channel 4 HD.  It has got a very good scaler built into the TV, so if you are watching a non-HD programme, just standard BBC / ITV - whatever it may be, it will actually upscale those programmes to a pseudo high def picture quality for you.  It works really well - so it has got a very good scaler built into this TV as well.

The remote you get with the TV has a button here which says Menu.  If we press the Menu button, it gives you a very extensive menu system.  If you like your menus, then to be quite honest with you there is a lot to play with on this TV.  First of all, we are on Channel List.  It gives us all the list of programmes.  At the moment we are on BBC HD, so that is the first one that comes up on the screen here.  We can click along on there to the different menus.

We have got the EPG guide; if we go into the EPG guide, which is the Electronic Programme Guide, it will give us all the listings for the various different programmes - Channel 4 HD and so on down the scale on here as well.  We can go up and click through all those programmes.  We are now on BBC HD, and various others; as we go through there it takes us through all the different programmes that are built into the TV.  As I said, it does have an HD tuner built into it which is a Freeview tuner as well, so you have got all the Freeview channels as well as your HD channels.