Our Verdict
While the contrast ratio and black screen uniformity of the Sharp UB30U 4k LED TV are great, the poor gray uniformity and very limited viewing angle is a deal breaker. Even if you sit directly in front, you can see discoloration on the left and right side of the screen due to the incident angle. It is also not a good choice for gaming, because it has the highest input lag that we measured so far in 2015.
- Great native contrast ratio with deep blacks.
- Very limited viewing angle.
- Poor gray screen uniformity.
- Very high input lag, even in game mode.
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We buy and test dozens of TVs yearly, taking an objective, data-driven approach to deliver results you can trust. Our testing process is complex, with hundreds of individual tests that take over a week to complete. Most of our tests are done with specially designed test patterns that mimic real content, but we also use the same sources you have at home to ensure our results match the real-world experience. We use two main tools for our testing: a Colorimetry Research CR-100 colorimeter and a CR-250 spectroradiometer.
Test Results
While the bezel of the Sharp UB30 is thin, the TV itself is thick. The build quality is also sub-par (more details here).
When viewed from directly in front, this TV's contrast ratio is impressive. The blacks are great.
Unfortunately, the gray uniformity is not as great as the black. There are multiple darker lines across the screens, which can be seen on panning shots.
The viewing angle of the Sharp UB30U is limited, and it loses saturation very quickly off-axis. It is even a problem if you are directly in front of the TV, assuming you sit close enough. For example, you can see slight discoloration on the left and right edges in all our pictures in this review.
Update 01/06/2017: We have changed the methodology of testing. Since this is an old TV which we don't have anymore, we extrapolated the results from 2016 TVs.
It has the best black uniformity that we have seen so far. No noticeable issue at all.
This Sharp keeps the reflections under control.
It can get pretty bright, so you can put this TV in a fairly bright living room.
The motion blur trail is short. However, the transition from mid-white to full-white is long, which is why you can see a little bit of yellow in the letters of our moving logo.
It doesn't support 24p playback, which means movies have constant, small judder.
The input lag of the Sharp UB30U is 79.7 ms, which is very high. You will notice this when playing fast games, so do not buy this TV for gaming.
The frequency response isn't too bad for a TV, and it remains consistent even when the TV is pushed hard. However, there's not a lot of bass present and it doesn't get very loud either.
The sound is relatively clean at lower volumes, but under load, the TV will produce significant distortion. There may also be some aliasing present in the high frequencies.
