To try to better understand how long a TV should last, we're running 100 TVs through an accelerated longevity test for the next two years. We've just posted our results after eight months, see our latest updates.
The Sharp LE653U LED TV is a good basic TV with a great contrast ratio and good black screen uniformity. The main downsides are the loss of color saturation at an angle and the poor gray uniformity.
Our Verdict
The Sharp LE635U is a good budget TV. It is pretty basic, both in terms of design and functionality. The picture quality is quite good, especially in terms of the contrast ratio, but the viewing angle is quite narrow, and it has noticeable dirty screen effect due to its direct-lit backlight.
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Great contrast ratio.
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Limited viewing angle, with poor colors off-axis.
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Poor gray uniformity.
- 6.4 Mixed Usage
- 6.2 Movies
- 6.3 TV Shows
- 6.6 Sports
- 7.2 Video Games
- 5.1 HDR Movies
- 4.1 HDR Gaming
- 4.6 PC Monitor
- Updated Mar 01, 2017: Review published.
- Updated May 30, 2015: Our testers have started testing this product.
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Test Results
The contrast ratio is really great. The blacks will look nice and deep in a dark room.
The gray uniformity is always a bit more problematic with direct lit LED TVs like the Sharp LE653. The LEDs behind the screen create a grid, which produces the dirty screen effect.
The colors shift rapidly as soon as you move out of axis. You shouldn't buy this TV if you have multiple seating positions.
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.
The black uniformity is great. It doesn't have any real issues.
Its semi-gloss finish doesn't reflect a lot of light, which is good if you have a few lights on.
It doesn't get very bright, with a maximum luminosity of 233 cd/m2. It should be good enough for one or two windows, but not ideal for more than that.
The amount of motion blur is pretty poor on this Sharp LE653. It is a 60Hz TV without motion interpolation.
The input lag varied a lot on the Sharp LE653U LED TV, from 30 ms to 40 ms. It was more often than not in the mid-30 range, hence our 34.7 ms measurement. Overall, it is a good gaming TV.
This TV does get relatively loud, but the frequency response suffers as the volume increases. There will be noticeable pumping at higher volumes. The bass extension is rather poor.
This TV sounds clean at very low volumes, but there will be a significant increase in distortion at moderate volumes and higher. Especially in the Mid-Bass range.
The basic remote gets the job done, and it is better than the one included with the pricier Sharp UB30U.