Sharp Aquos LC37XD1E review

The menus on the LC37XD1E are very well designed. It's nice to see so much thought going into making a user-friendly user interface. On the downside, the television is quite slow to respond to remote commands sometimes. The Freeview EPG also looks quite messy, which jars somewhat.

Inputs are located at the rear but offset to make wall mounting easier

While there are generally enough inputs to satisfy most people, it's a shame that the only audio input option for the component in is a headphone-style jack. Most people using this to hook up their DVD player are going to find they need an extra converter to make this work.

Performance
High definition on the LC37XD1E looks corking. The picture is clear, with very little motion-blur. Happy Gilmore on HD DVD looked excellent -- colour reproduction was very good indeed and there was plenty of detail in the picture.

Standard-definition pictures from Freeview suffered from some jagged lines -- these are a result of the set displaying an interlaced picture on screen. We've seen better Freeview pictures on televisions from Sony and Toshiba, so we were disappointed with this Sharp. While the picture isn't perfect, Sharp has clearly opted not to simply soften the whole image to disguise the inherent problems with Freeview on LCD screens. So while the picture does have some problems, it is at least sharp and detailed.

It is very disappointing to see that, via the VGA input, the LC37XD1E can only support resolutions up to 1,280x1,024 pixels, despite having a panel that should be able to display up to 1,900x1,080 pixels. This is sure to annoy people who would like to hook up their Media Center PCs or games consoles via this connection. Plus, the only way to get true 1080p out of this set is to use HDMI, which is far less common on computers than it is on next-generation DVD players.

Sound may be lacking in the bass department, but dialogue sounds fine. If you're spending this much money on a new telly, though, you'll probably want to invest in a separate surround-sound system.

Conclusion
This is a smart, well-designed television that can do fantastic things with high definition. It would be a great buy for anyone with Sky HD, or a Blu-ray or HD DVD player.

But the jagged lines when watching Freeview are less than impressive -- the Toshiba 37WLT68 deals with the digital signal better -- and the breakout cable it uses for component is just weird.

So if you aren't too bothered about 1080p and are likely to end up watching a lot of Freeview, you'll be better off saving a bit of cash and going for something like the Toshiba 32WLT68.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Kate Macefield