sharp lcd panel reviews made in china

Japan"s Sharp Corp. plans to produce liquid crystal display (LCD) panels in China through a partnership with a major Chinese electronics manufacturer, according to the Nikkei daily.

The electronics giant has been hit by the global slowdown and by the yen"s rise against the dollar, which has made exporting panels to LCD television plants around the world less profitable.

Sharp now intends to focus on producing panels using cutting-edge technologies at home while making older-generation panels abroad by joining forces with major foreign firms, Nikkei said.

Having swiftly approved Samsung’s and LG’s requests to build cutting-edge LCD manufacturing plants in China last year, the Chinese government is having some reservations about giving the go-ahead to a similar application from Sharp Corporation, the Japanese national newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun has reported. This is due to the Osaka-headquartered TV maker’s reluctance to disclose sensitive details on its latest technologies to Chinese organisations, for fear of intellectual property (IP) theft and the effect on the output of its own Sakai factory.

Sharp had initially intended to construct an eight-generation (G8) LCD panel factory in Nanjing, but Yomiuri‘s sources have revealed that Beijing is applying pressure on the Japanese HDTV manufacturer to deploy its tenth-generation (G10) LCD display technology instead in China. With each progressive generation of LCD manufacturing plant, larger sheets of “mother glass” (from which a number of panels are cut) can be handled, therefore boosting production efficiency. Eight 46-inch LCD TV panels can be made from a G8 mother glass, whereas a G10 sheet – boasting a total surface area of 8.7m2 – can be divided into eight 60-inch panels.

Currently, Sharp’s G10 LCD TV panels are produced in the conglomerate’s Sakai plant in the Osaka Prefacture, which is primed for the export of large-sized LCD television panels. However, with Sony seeking to procure cheaper LCD TV panels from Taiwanese manufacturers rather than investing more capital into the Sakai plant as originally agreed, Sharp is worried that the opening of a second Gen 10 plant will lead to an unwanted scenario of excessive manufacturing capacity unless the output from the Sakai factory is scaled down (which in itself is inefficient too).

Sharp’s request to set up a G8 LCD panel factory in Nanjing was submitted as a joint venture with a Chinese electronics firm. The Japanese corporation is also concerned that if it upgrades the Nanjing LCD-making facility to G10 as demanded by the Chinese government, there is a possibility its most advanced technological blueprints may be compromised by data leakage.

The Sharp LC-37G4U 37-inch LCD TV impressed with its size-to-brightness ratio, as well as its well-appointed set-top NTSC tuner box with latest and greatest in inputs: DVI and HDMI. This Sharp LCD TV doubles as a computer monitor, and comes with ample-sounding detachable speakers that pump out 10W apiece. With excellent image scaling and processing, this LCD display is sure to wow even the most die-hard videophile.

The Sharp LC-37G4U 37-inch LCD TV is designed by Toshiyuki Kita, an internationally renowned product designer, and manufactured in Sharp"s brand-new, state-of-the-art LCD glass factory in Kameyama, Japan, which came online in January 2004. This 4th-generation LCD display features Sharp"s new Quick Shoot video circuit, which is said to achieve sub 16ms response times -- among the fastest in the industry -- and minimize motion lag in fast-moving scenes. The LC-37G4U LCD television also utilizes Sharp"s proprietary Advanced View/Black TFT Panel with anti-glare coating for increased brightness levels and viewing angles. Sharp has also worked to expand the viewing angles on its next-generation LCD TVs by tightening up the pixel pitch (i.e., the space separating the red, green, and blue sub-pixels in a pixel) on its LCD screens.

The black levels on Sharp"s LC-37G4U LCD television were surprisingly good for an LCD display, particularly one of this size. At 37 inches, this Sharp LCD display is fairly sizeable, certainly large enough to be the principal display in a home theater environment. The problem is, the larger LCDs get, the lighter their overall brightness levels and contrast ratios get. And so it is with the Sharp LC-37G4U LCD TV: Its brightness levels simply could not match up to those of a well-made plasma unit, though, in general, the Sharp"s black levels were above-average for an LCD TV -- probably the best we"ve seen from an LCD display, in fact. One might not notice any particular deficiency in the LC-37G4U"s blacks unless one were watching the very same material side-by-side on a plasma display (which we did in the Panasonic Plasma vs. Sharp LCD TV Review).

Sharp does a couple smart things to enhance the black levels on its LC-37G4U display. First, they include a first-rate anti-glare/darkness-enhancing coating on the LCD screen to counter excessive light emissions, which tend to dull blacks on the screen. Second, Sharp enables the user to adjust the intensity of the backlight powering his or her unit. Since LCD technology operates by blocking, rather than reflecting or emitting, light, being able to manipulate the amount of light that has to be blocked by the liquid crystals greatly enhances one"s prospects of obtaining really good black levels from this unit.

As for the coloration on the LC-37G4U LCD monitor, we were generally pleased with it, despite the fact that the display"s white balance leans toward pink, lending warmth to flesh tones. Such tendencies bother some people. Fortunately, this Sharp LCD TV"s TINT function can be adjusted. With the TINT bumped up to 4 (on a scale from -30 [red] to 30 [green]) and the COLOR set at -2, the Sharp LC-37G4U was very acceptable in color performance.

For those people who obsess over coloration, the Sharp LC-37G4U includes its own C.M.S (Color Management System), which can be accessed by selecting ADVANCED under the PICTURE menu. This takes the user into a screen where he or she can adjust the hue, saturation, and value of the unit"s reds, yellows, greens, cyans, blues, and magentas.

As far as viewing angles are concerned, the Sharp LC-37G4U LCD television dimmed considerably when we sat about 60° or 65° off its central viewing axis. It did the same thing when tested vertically.

Count on watching TV within the 120° to 130° viewing arc extending in either direction from the center of this LCD screen. Any further out, and one is likely to be watching an unpleasantly degraded picture.

When it came to displaying a non-native resolution like 480p at its native resolution of 720p, the Sharp did not miss a beat. The opening scene of Veronica Guerin, where the camera floats over Dublin"s port as a shipment of heroin comes in from sea, literally shone with detailing. This was also evident in the characters" faces throughout the movie. This tells suggests that the Sharp LC-37G4U has excellent scaling technology.

This LCD television did a great job "fitting" a 480p signal to its 720p native resolution. It also performed well with 480i broadcast signals, which it upconverted to 720p. Of course, the Sharp LC-37G4U LCD television performed spectacularly with HDTV signals. We forced ourselves to watch The Young and the Restless (CBS) to determine that much, and we must admit we were blown away by how obvious the makeup looked at 720p.

The Sharp LC-37G4U LCD display did not suffer much in the way of false contouring, pixelation, or ghosting. We were especially pleased by the Sharp LCD TV"s handling of our Ultimate DVD test disc and its tortuous Rodeo Clown sequence. Even with the unpredictable bucks and head thrusts of a raging bull, the Sharp kept its cool, depicting no ghosting or pixelation that we could see. Finally, the Sharp LC-37G4U LCD TV displayed the race scenes from Seabiscuit true, with no noticeable pixelation around the horses" galloping legs. There must be something to Sharp"s Quick Shoot circuitry, because when we watched the same material with it turned off, we found there was some obvious motion lag on the screen, especially in the rodeo sequences.

The only thing we noticed with respect to the Sharp"s handling of action scenes was an ever-so-slight fuzziness that appeared as the scenes changed repeatedly. This will hardly be distracting to the average viewer, though real video sticklers will notice this -- and probably complain about it, as sticklers are wont to do.

The Sharp LCD television ran whisper-quiet, even though it has two recessed fans on its back panel. Much of this quiet operation no doubt has to do with the minimal amount of power necessary to operate this unit. When a display requires such a paltry amount of electricity, chances are, you won"t be able to hear it from even a foot away -- much less the six to eight feet of viewing distance recommended for a display of this size.

The considerable brightness of the Sharp LCD television convinced us of its fitness for daytime viewing. This LCD TV is ideal for situations where ambient light is a concern. The Sharp"s high brightness and excellent anti-glare shielding work to fend off contrast dulling ambient light.

The Sharp LC-G4U is ultra-svelte, just 3.5 inches deep with its speakers attached. These speakers have a bit of heft to them as well as a hint of curvature, which proved a nice departure from the unnatural flatness of most integrated audio systems. Moreover, the speakers can be detached and placed on their own stands for a different look and perhaps to adjust the sound slightly. (Note: Sharp doesn"t give you a whole lot of speaker wire to work with, so you"ll have to dream on a slightly restricted scale when it comes to situating these speakers.) We chose to attach the speakers to the LCD display itself, and have to admit this was something of a chore. Trying to thread the screws into the back of the unit was trying, especially since the threaded area of the receptacle hole on the back of the unit was set down so as to be almost invisible to the eye.

And then there was the matter of the speakers" actual connections, which were the thread type rather than the pre-terminated, RCA-input type. Which gave us pause to wonder: Why wouldn"t Sharp just have utilized the usual RCA-type input for these speakers? Perhaps they didn"t expect people to use them much; or maybe it had to do with the fact that the speakers were made in Indonesia rather than in Japan like the rest of the unit. Whatever the rationale, such an oversight proved disappointing in a display of this caliber. It surely results in some lost audio quality from these otherwise good-sounding 10W speakers, which are capable of putting out 20W total sound.

The Sharp has all rear-facing inputs, in considerable quantities: 2 component video inputs, 3 composite video inputs, an S-video input, a DVI input, an HDMI interface, 3 RCA-type audio inputs, and a PC audio input. You can utilize your new LCD display as a computer monitor by connecting your PC using the DVI connection, and Sharp even includes a mini stereo plug to route your PC"s audio through the Sharp"s speakers. The LC-37G4U is also equipped with a Memory Card slot. The set-top box itself runs quietly, and it comes with a stand, which, when attached, situates the tuner box in a vertical position.

The remote included with this unit was made in China and seemed unusually long, though functional nonetheless. This is a universal-type remote, which is backlit and has a special hinged panel at its base that covers the buttons for making more obscure A/V adjustments (e.g., TWIN PICTURE, FREEZE FRAME, CLOSED CAPTIONING, SLEEP, etc.). We figured this was a handy way of getting certain superfluous -- or less-frequently utilized -- buttons off the remote proper.

In the end, the Sharp LC-37G4U LCD TV would have scored higher in the Value category were it not for a couple things. One, Sharp does not include an ATSC or high-definition tuner in its otherwise thoughtfully-equipped set-top box. Two, this 37-inch flat panel display comes with a hefty price tag. You can find on it on the "street" for around $4000, considerably less than its MSRP of $5,999. Still, that"s quite a bit of money to pay for a display of this size, though not especially pricey for an LCD display of this size. The problem is, you can find a comparable plasma screen display for substantially less.

The good news is that, while it requires a fairly substantial up-front investment, this TV that will serve you for years to come. Sharp claims that the LC-37G4U"s bulb has a 60,000-hour lifespan (provided BACKLIGHT is set at "standard" or 0 on a scale from -8 to 8). However, the actual effective life of the florescent backlight in this LCD television will be about 30,000 hours. The 30,000-hour discrepancy occurs because of the bulb"s inability to maintain the same brightness over time, which alters and dims the white balance of the display.

Sharp claims that for about $270, the cost of a replacement bulb, the Sharp LCD TV can be returned to "like-new" performance levels with a simple bulb change out. ( Sharp further states that this bulb replacement can be done by the user without technical assistance -- a really money saver. Thus one can re-vamp one"s investment ad nauseam. That is certainly something to cheer about, as if the Sharp LC-37G4U didn"t give us enough performance-wise.

Poised to benefit are South Korea"s twin electronics giants Samsung and LG, along with California-based Vizio and Chinese manufacturer Hisense. In fact, Hisense has bought the rights to Sharp"s brand and manufacturing plant in Mexico for $23.7 million, and will sell televisions under the Sharp name.

Sharp TVs are perhaps most notable for their "Quattron" technology, which introduces a fourth sub-pixel into the traditional RGB matrix. In recent years, Sharp has also experimented with effective upscaling—as seen in the company"s "Beyond 4K Ultra HD" TV—and a moth eye screen that diffuses light. Sharp also produced one of the best-received LCD televisions of all time, the Sharp Elite.

At this time, it"s unclear whether Hisense will continue to invest in Sharp"s more eccentric innovations, or will simply continue to produce and sell the company"s broadly successful entry-level models.

OSAKA -- Japanese electronics maker Sharp has been reaping big gains from its strengthened ties with U.S. tech giant Apple, the key client of its liquid-crystal display panels.

Sharp"s group net profit rose 290% to 53.2 billion yen ($487 million) in the 12 months to end-March, from a year ago. That growth is expected to continue, with the company forecasting a 43% expansion in net profit to 76 billion yen this fiscal year.

Hisense, a large Chinese manufacturer licensed the Sharp name in June of 2015. Hisense is not a well known brand in the U.S., but it is in China, where the company has the number 1 market share in units sold. It"s also reportedly #3 globally in units sold with over 16 million TVs produced. Hisense is focusing on low priced models as well as high quality featured TVs all the way up to THX certification in its bid to gain U.S. Market share. Hisense purchased the Sharp brand and the Mexico assembly facility in a $23M deal. The Sharp models will purportedly still use the Sharp LCD panels in their production.

The LED backlighting in this little Sharp TV are impressive and black levels are well saturated. Once calibrated, color rendition was good though not of the best caliber when we tested with our standard Fifth Element BluRay disk. Light flow through was also a very strong element of this TV. For a TV in this price, I was very pleased with contrast. Dark shadow detail during Noah needed some work during several very dark scenes. There was some false contouring noted during Fifth Element when some dark areas looked splotchy.

Drawbacks are typical Sharp LED TV negatives, starting with a flattish picture with little depth, side angle viewing contrast reduction noticeably starting at around 20 degree off center, and some backlight uniformity issues.The picture is better than almost anything in its price range though with competition only from Vizio as a reliable alternative.

The Sharp Roku Remote is really a Roku manufactured remote. Roku is good at operation, and I like the speed with which the small simple remote controls everything. The audio/volume buttons are located on the right side of the remote. It"s easy to accidentally press the mute button. The picture and other menu settings are accessed from the asterisk wheel button. Conveniently, there are buttons for Netflix, Amazon instant, Mgo, and rdio on the remote face.

(A note about our reviews. Our professional reviewers begin our reviews with our initial impressions about quality of picture and features inclusion, then we add specifications, then value and pricing information, and finally strengths and weaknesses and ratings. When our reviews contain an overall rating, you know they are complete. Thank you for reading!)

This time the victim is Sharp, which plans to sell its manufacturing plant in Mexico and license its brand name to Hisense for the Americas, Reuters reports. The news follows an especially rough quarter for Sharp, in which it posted an operating loss of nearly $232 million.

“Sharp has not been able to fully adapt to the intensifying market competition, which led to significantly lower profits compared to the initial projections for the previous fiscal year, and has been suffering from poor earnings performance,” the company said in a statement.

Sharp is also considering a wider overhaul of its consumer electronics and LCD panel divisions as it tries to turn its fortunes around. While the company is best known for its Aquos televisions, it also sells home speaker systems, and has dabbled in U.S. smartphone sales with the bezel-free Aquos Crystal handset. Its IGZO display tech has also appeared in phones and tablets from other companies.

Sharp isn’t the only Japanese electronics maker to bail on the TV market. In January, Toshiba announced that it would stop making TVs in North America and license the brand to Taiwan-based Compal Electronics. Panasonic also abandoned the U.S. market last October, handing its Sanyo TV unit to Japan-based Funai Electric.

The impact on you at home: The average shopper probably won’t notice much of a change. Both Sharp and HiSense use Roku software for their smart TVs in the United States, though Sharp has also used Android TV, and it’s unclear whether HiSense will continue to do so. As for hardware, TV makers’ inability to distinguish themselves is one reason once-proud brands like Sharp are struggling in the first place. Sharp’s exit is just the latest sign of how hard it’s become for TV makers to succeed as prices fall, and new technology like 3D and 4K fail to spur sales growth.

Apple has made clear its intent to support ultra high-resolution displays with the latest Mac and OS X products, but without a 4K display of its own (yet) the company sells only one UHD monitor as a go-along with its flagship Mac Pro: Sharp"s PN-K321.

From resolution to color gamut, these ultra high-definition monitors — specifically the 32-inch Sharp PN-K321 — offer specs far surpassing those of mass produced displays, and for that you pay a premium. They are tools, not consumption devices.

Being a monitor targeted at professionals, the Sharp puts function over form. This is not to say the display is ugly, but its unassuming exterior design and no-frills construction may make it less appealing to the average user accustomed to flashing lights and glossy screens.

Where a Dell or Samsung product would have bright front-facing LEDs or a polished bezel, the PN-K321 makes do with matte finishes and a muted color palette. The bezel is neither ultra-slim, nor is it unduly thick, but just the right width to adequately provide support for the 4K panel below.

For those users who prefer portrait orientation, the Sharp can be mounted upright by removing four hex screws on the back of the unit. The setup is more permanent than other products as there is no way to easily switch between landscape and portrait, though we don"t imagine many users will need to do so with such a large screen.

An official number for panel life expectancy is not published, but because it is a professional product, Sharp tells us lifetime is one step below tolerance for a 24/7 duty cycle. Basically, it is more likely that a new resolution standard will be adopted before the monitor needs replacing.

For anyone who hasn"t seen a 4K monitor in action, the Sharp is quite the spectacle. Even for pros accustomed to working with super high resolutions, this display is special and what we would consider best in class.

Sharp was the first manufacturer to successfully roll out efficient indium, gallium, zinc-oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistor technology, which lets more light generated from the LED backlight to pass through the LCD and onto the user. Combined with bright, even edge-lit backlighting and a matte LCD panel, the IGZO PN-K321 offers startling results.

We can"t help but imagine what a full-array backlight with local-dimming would do for color consistency and brightness, though adding such components would no doubt increase thickness, thermal levels and power requirements. As it stands, the IGZO panel, manufactured by Sharp"s Seibi factory in China, grossly outperforms the competition.

Product specifications claim an output of 350 candelas per square meter (cd/m2) and a contrast ratio of 800:1. Compared to other high-density screens we"ve seen (and even some 1080p monitors) the Sharp is noticeably brighter and can easily be viewed even in sunlit rooms.

Perhaps more important than sheer brightness, Sharp did a great job in enhancing backlight transmission without degrading color accuracy, something that has been troublesome for other brands. Without the correct color saturation — and a wide color gamut — a bright display is not even worth looking at for most professional applications.

We ran the usual battery of tests when trying out the Sharp, connected to the all-new redesigned Mac Pro and late-2013 MacBook Pro with Retina display.

As for apps themselves, Final Cut Pro X and Photoshop are joys to use at high resolution. As expected, working with native 4K footage on the Sharp is significantly better than lower resolution displays. Intricate details and flaws are easy to spot, while the huge pixel count offers a large easel on which to work.

Put simply, if you"re in the market for a 4K monitor, Sharp"s PN-K321 is the one to get. Even Apple chose the display to showcase the new Mac Pro"s abilities in its retail locations and is the only 4K display option to "add to cart" when purchasing the new pro-level desktop from the Online Apple Store.

While we did not experiment with older Macs, the PN-K321 takes a powerful graphics card to drive. As noted by Apple, only the new Mac Pro and late-2013 Retina MacBook Pro can officially handle 4K output. As with many cutting-edge products, the display is not built to be an all-around general purpose device and is unlikely to work perfectly with older software and hardware. If you do have the right equipment and suite of professional software, however, Sharp"s monitor is highly recommended.

Overall, after spending some quality time with the PN-K321, we came away with the impression that Sharp"s pro A/V team poured a majority its R&D money into panel tech rather than creature comforts; in bleeding edge display technology, not modern design. Whereas other brands cobble together parts from various manufacturers, Sharp tells us the technology in the PN-K321 — from the IGZO chip to the LCD array — was developed entirely in-house. And we are more than OK with the results.

As a side note, Sharp has just announced a touch-enabled version of the PN-K321, dubbed the PN-K322B, that we are told is shipping out to distribution channels. With an edge-to-edge glass design and funcitonal rocker/slider stand, the multitouch version looks to have a lot of potential. Pricing is set at $4,675.

Sharp"s PN-K321 has a manufacturer"s suggested retail price of $3595 and it"s currently available at only a handful of select online electronics stores. As of press time, the lowest prices we could find were $2,990 from B&H Photo (tax-free outside of NY) and $3,088 from Amazon.com (tax-free outside AZ, CA, KS, KY, MA, NC, NJ, NY, ND, PA, TX, and WA.). It"s also available at MacMall for $3,079.99 (tax-free outside of CA, NY, IL, WI, MN, CO, TN, NC and GA).

For example, RCA, an iconic TV brand, now appears on sets produced by Curtis International, a Canadian company. Sharp TVs? For the past several years they’ve been manufactured by the Chinese TV brand Hisense, but the brand recently changed hands again (see below).

Consumer Reports has seen a wide range of quality in televisions carrying licensed brands. For instance, some Hisense-made Sharp sets have done well in our TV ratings—its higher-end sets even rival some of the top models from the dominant brands—while others didn’t do as well. Meanwhile, several RCA- and Westinghouse-branded sets are near the bottom of the list.

SharpNo company did more to develop and commercialize LCD TV technology than Japan’s Sharp Corp. But in 2015 it yielded to market pressures here in the U.S. and licensed its brand to Chinese TV manufacturer Hisense, which also purchased Sharp’s TV plant in Mexico. Subsequently, a majority share of Sharp was bought by Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn, which reclaimed the rights to the Sharp brand from Hisense in 2019. The company recently announced a return to the U.S. TV market in 2022.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s Sharp Corp, a leading supplier of displays to Apple Inc, said Thursday it will form a $2.9 billion alliance with state-owned China Electronics Corp that includes an agreement by Sharp to license its advanced power-saving IGZO screen technology.

The new venture will be 92 percent owned by China Electronics, also known as CEC, which supplies equipment to China’s military. The venture will set up a an LCD plant with the goal of mass-producing panel displays for televisions, notebook PCs and tablets in 2015.

Licensing IGZO, or indium gallium zinc oxide displays, fits into a strategy by cash-strapped Sharp to leverage its technology to bolster its finances. Sharp, in December, signed a pact with Qualcomm Inc, selling the U.S. company an equity stake for $120 million and agreeing to develop new screens based on IGZO technology.

IGZO screens boast power consumption as low as a tenth of conventional LCDs, high resolutions and faster reaction speeds. While an agreement to license the technology to a Chinese military-linked state company may raise eyebrows, Sharp does not exclusively own the technology, only being the first to commercialize it.

The agreement, which is a revised version of one agreed to with CEC in 2009, may instead represent a retreat by the Chinese company to win access to Sharp’s more advanced tenth-generation LCD manufacturing techniques. CEC is planning to build an 8.5 generation facility.

Sharp is the only panel maker in the world to have built a tenth generation factory able to fabricate liquid crystal sandwiched in glass sheets thinner than a credit card that are 3.13 meters long by 2.88 meters wide. Smaller 8.5 generation sheets measure 2.2 meters by 2.5 meters.

CEC in November blamed deteriorating ties between Japan and China over their territorial spat in the East China Sea for shelving cooperation with Sharp to build a tenth-generation facility. Sharp, which sold a stake in its advanced LCD plant to Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry last year, says no such agreement ever existed.

A Sharp spokesman declined to say how much in royalties the company expected to receive for the technology transfer. A portion of those proceeds will be used to fund Sharp’s 8 percent stake in the joint venture, the spokesman said.

The new joint-venture will represent a total investment of $2.9 billion for Sharp, which was rescued in October by its banks. To rebuild its business, Sharp has also sought closer ties to Samsung Electronics, selling it a 3 percent stake for $103 million and pledging to supply it with small display screens.

Sharp is reportedly in talks with a major Chinese electronics maker SVA (Group) Co. to jointly produce in China liquid crystal display panels used for TV sets, according to the Nikkei daily.

The move could boost Sharp"s competitiveness. The electronics giant has been hit by the global slowdown and by the yen"s rise against the dollar, which has made exporting panels to LCD television plants around the world less profitable.

China-based Hisense and Sharp America are big names in the TV industry. The history between the two companies includes back-and-forth brand and asset ownership, litigation, and more. Here"s a look at some of what"s transpired between Hisense and Sharp.

In what was a major development in the consumer electronics industry, Hisense, one of China"s largest TV makers, acquired the North American manufacturing assets of Japan-based Sharp and secured brand name rights for the U.S. market.

In 2015, Hisense began manufacturing all TVs bearing the Sharp brand name in the U.S. This license for Hisense to use the Sharp brand name had a five-year term with an option to extend.

The Hisense-Sharp 2015 deal wasn"t unexpected. Sharp"s TV business had faced financial difficulties. Still, it was a sad moment for Sharp because of the company"s legacy as an LCD technology pioneer. It was the first TV maker to introduce LCD TVs to the consumer market.

In 2017, Sharp sued Hisense because Sharp was upset about the quality of the TVs that Hisense manufactured that bore the Sharp name. Sharp felt strongly that its name and brand license rights were used inappropriately. While Sharp dropped the lawsuit in 2018, it quietly continued its comeback plans.

In 2019, Sharp regained its licensing and brand, buying back its assets from Hisense. Sharp-manufactured Sharp TVs have been back on the market since late 2019. The company is promising to incorporate new technology into its Smart TV line as it enters more markets.

Foxconn’s acquisition of Japanese display-maker Sharp looks likely to help Apple reduce its dependence on Samsung as it prepares for a transition from LCD to OLED displays.

Sharp can springboard off its existing technology to develop the screens, says Alberto Moel, a technology analyst for Bernstein Research. The two types use the same backbone, but OLED screens are topped with a layer of organic compounds instead of the liquid crystal layer for LCDs. “The first part of the production process is similar,” he said.

In an old seaport city near its Osaka headquarters, Sharp Corp. is building a $9 billion factory complex the size of 32 baseball stadiums to make liquid-crystal-display panels and solar panels. The complex, which Sharp broke ground last November, will be the world"s largest LCD and next-generation solar panel plant when it is ready sometime in the next fiscal year, ending March 2010. It will house most of its major suppliers on the same premises. Sharp itself will invest about $4.3 billion.

While Apple Inc. is leading a trend in the electronics industry to outsource hardware manufacturing and focus on design and software, Sharp is making a huge bet that keeping manufacturing of LCD and solar panels in-house will give it a big competitive advantage.

Japan"s Sharp Corporation is a century-old brand known worldwide for many electronic products, particularly televisions. And while the firm also makes smartphones, it would not be an overstatement to say they are niche products, catering to collectors and enthusiasts rather than the mainstream. After all, Sharp smartphones are sold only in Japan, and even in its home country, they account for 1.77% market share as recently as May 2022 according to results from multiple research firms.

But in the Android space, in which mainstream releases are all becoming very good and similar, niche often means interesting. Sharp has, in fact, a history of pumping out very interesting phones with a lot of industry firsts, but the phones" near non-existent international marketing and presence means they are often overlooked.

The same fate will likely befall the Sharp Aquos R7, a phone which comes packed with the same camera hardware that was garnering Xiaomi plenty of tech headlines the past few weeks.

The Sharp Aquos R7 is available now but only in Japan. You can buy it straight up for ¥189,360, which converts to around $1400. Thanks to reporting by my colleague Timi Cantisano, we know that carriers in Japan are offering a 48-month installment plan.

About this review:this review was written after testing a Sharp Aquos R7 sourced from Hong Kong importer Trinity Electronics. Neither Sharp nor Trinity Electronics had input in this article.

The biggest selling point of the Sharp Aquos R7, in my opinion, is its main camera: a 1-inch Sony sensor with Leica optics. Does this sound familiar? These are the same selling points of the Xiaomi 12S Ultra camera, which has been garnering praises in the tech media space, including yours truly.

Sharp"s camera, in fact, uses the exact same Sony IMX989 sensor -- which Xiaomi said it co-developed with Sony, splitting the $15 million R&D bill. The fact that Sharp is also using this same camera should be more newsworthy, but as my colleague Timi Cantisano wrote last month, Sharp has a history of letting other brands take the shine for hardware innovations.

The cameras being so special deserves its own section, which we"ll get to in a bit. The rest of the phone is an odd mix of familiar and new. The 6.67-inch, 2,730 x 1,260 OLED panel uses Sharp"s IGZO (Indium, gallium, zinc, oxide) technology, which means the screen is layered with ultra thin-film transistors that offer lower power leakage. It also refreshes at a maximum of 240Hz. Yup -- twice that of any modern Android flagship.

The screen definitely looks great, and animations are very fast and smooth, but I"d be lying if I said I noticed any area of superiority over a "typical" 120Hz OLED panel in a top Android device like the Galaxy S22 Ultra or OnePlus 10 Pro. In fact, Sharp"s panel doesn"t seem to get as bright to my eyes as the Galaxy S22 Ultra"s even though Sharp advertises a 2,000 nits "peak max brightness." There"s also a bit of thin bezel that"s thicker than other 2022 Android flagships.

The sides of the phone are wide and flat, but unlike a recent iPhone, the corners aren"t sharp thanks to chamfered edges. It"s a comfortable phone to hold, with the 208g weight evenly distributed. Sharp"s tendency to zig where others zag is also apparent at the top, where the SIM tray is located, plus a headphone jack.

Let"s get to the cameras. The Sharp Aquos R7 has one camera on each side of the phone: the aforementioned 1-inch main camera, and a 12MP front-facing selfie camera. The omission of a secondary lens for ultra-wide or zoom photography is very unusual for a flagship, but I think by now we know Sharp phones are unconventional products. (That smaller lens you to the left of the module is merely a 1.9MP depth sensor that doesn"t really count as a real camera.

Although the Sharp Aquos R7 uses the same IMX989 sensor, Sharp actually crops into the sensor to use a smaller lens format, (thus this is why Xiaomi was still able to claim its phone to be the "world"s first"), and Xiaomi"s main camera has an extra layer lens (eight layers) to the Sharp"s 7P lens. Both of these lenses were designed by Leica (apparently), but Xiaomi"s lenses are newer and developed specifically for the Xiaomi 12S Ultra.

I"ve snapped over 60 photos with the Sharp Aquos R7 alongside the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, and I can say that, when things go right for Sharp, its camera often exhibits all the awesome strengths of the Xiaomi 12S Ultra main camera: creamy bokeh, excellent light intake ability, and contrasty shots with deeper shadows for that Leica look.

In the above photos, you can see both Sharp and Xiaomi produced great-looking photos with similar color profiles and degrees of bokeh. In the second set of the drinks and food, and the last set of the construction tools, you can see Sharp"s photos exhibits the same "depth" that Xiaomi photos have, with natural, progressive focus dropoff as we move from objects in the foreground to background. A camera with a smaller image sensor would have produced a flatter image.

But Sharp"s cameras miss every now and then, producing washed-out colors, and slightly blurrier shots due to a slower shutter speed. In the third set above, of the street posts and plant, Sharp"s colors and sharpness are soft compared to Xiaomi"s.

Moving to low-light photos, the Sharp Aquos R7 will turn on light mode automatically much earlier than the Xiaomi 12S Ultra. This explains why the first set of the French wine bar looks so different. Sharp"s shot is artificially enhanced via night mode, but as a result, the colors are too warm and don"t look natural. Xiaomi"s photo looks not only much closer to the real-life scene, it"s just a more pleasing shot.

The second set is a virtual tie, both cameras produced beautiful shots, although we can see Xiaomi"s HDR exposes the lights in the building in the right frame just a tad better. In another set below, we can see similar photo quality outside of the first set, in which night mode again played a factor. I do like my skin tone better in Sharp"s selfies, but the photo is noticeably softer on details.

Overall, Sharp"s camera is really good and produces shots with shallow depth-of-field and that heavy bokeh look that makes it feel more like a real camera photo. The shutter speed is noticeably slower than Xiaomi 12S Ultra, and the lack of an ultra-wide or zoom lens means the system is still a bit lacking overall, however.

The Aquos R7 runs Android 12 with Sharp"s Android skin on top. Aesthetically speaking, the Android skin doesn"t stray too far from how Android looks until you dive into the menu, that is. That"s when you see this cartoonish settings page designed to teach those new to the phone how to take advantage of all the software features.

Most of these special features that Sharp made a whole cartoon illustration for are just rather common features like a dedicated game mode, or using finger gestures to grab screenshots.

You can assign specific refresh rates for specific apps, including motion smoothing in video, which in my opinion should never be used. There are a few bloatware apps that come with the phone, including Amazon Prime and Japanese apps from carrier Softbank and other Japanese firms. The homescreen and notification panel looks a bit like Pixel"s version of Android, with wide oval shortcut toggle buttons and a Google Search bar at bottom of the screen that cannot be removed.

Despite the 5,000 mAh battery, the Sharp Aquos R7"s battery life was less than stellar during my testing, offering about just four to four-and-half hours of screen-on time per day. If I take the phone out all day, it can go about 10-11 hours before the battery dips below 5%. It doesn"t help that Sharp used the older Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC instead of the more efficient Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, which has managed to give the likes of the Asus Zenfone 9 and Xiaomi 12S Ultra superb battery life.

The packaging also doesn"t include a charger or charging cable, and due to an almost complete lack of English marketing material, I do not know the official wattage the Sharp Aquos R7 can be charged at. Using my MacBook"s 96W USB-C charger, I was able to charge the Aquos R7 from 0% to 100% in a little under an hour.

In terms of regular smartphone use, the Sharp Aquos R7 performed absolutely fine (except for the mediocre battery life). Apps launched without issues, the stereo speakers sound loud and full, and haptics are even solid, unlike the mushy mess of last year"s Aquos R6. Because the phone is for the Japanese market only, I was unable to get 5G in Hong Kong where I tested the phone -- and I doubt any reader outside of Japan would be able to get 5G connectivity either.

The Sharp Aquos R7 is a very interesting phone that brings a superb 1-inch camera that, through sheer image sensor size alone, differentiates itself from most phone cameras on the market. The display is also technically brilliant, even if you won"t be able to notice where it"s superior to a "lesser" 120Hz panel.

However, even more so than the China-only Xiaomi 12S Ultra, the Sharp Aquos R7 is a very niche phone that most readers should not consider. Even if you were to import, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra is just a better option, as it"s lower in price, has a better processor, and a better overall camera system.

But this doesn"t matter, does it? As mentioned at the beginning, Sharp doesn"t seem to care about marketing its phones outside of Japan, nor does it seem to care too much about overall sales numbers. Japan is essentially an iPhone country (iPhones have a near 65% market share in the country, and this figure jumps much higher in Tokyo from my own personal anecdotal experience ). Even beloved local giant Sony"s phones are a distant, distant second place (10.8% market share). Sharp"s 1.77% in Japan (and virtual zero % anywhere else) really make the phones beyond obscure.

Japan has always been a land of quirky, unique gadgets, and the Sharp Aquos R7 fits that definition more than an actual phone that mainstream consumers should consider.

Flat-panel displays are thin panels of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying text, images, or video. Liquid crystal displays (LCD), OLED (organic light emitting diode) and microLED displays are not quite the same; since LCD uses a liquid crystal that reacts to an electric current blocking light or allowing it to pass through the panel, whereas OLED/microLED displays consist of electroluminescent organic/inorganic materials that generate light when a current is passed through the material. LCD, OLED and microLED displays are driven using LTPS, IGZO, LTPO, and A-Si TFT transistor technologies as their backplane using ITO to supply current to the transistors and in turn to the liquid crystal or electroluminescent material. Segment and passive OLED and LCD displays do not use a backplane but use indium tin oxide (ITO), a transparent conductive material, to pass current to the electroluminescent material or liquid crystal. In LCDs, there is an even layer of liquid crystal throughout the panel whereas an OLED display has the electroluminescent material only where it is meant to light up. OLEDs, LCDs and microLEDs can be made flexible and transparent, but LCDs require a backlight because they cannot emit light on their own like OLEDs and microLEDs.

Liquid-crystal display (or LCD) is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. They are usually made of glass but they can also be made out of plastic. Some manufacturers make transparent LCD panels and special sequential color segment LCDs that have higher than usual refresh rates and an RGB backlight. The backlight is synchronized with the display so that the colors will show up as needed. The list of LCD manufacturers:

Organic light emitting diode (or OLED displays) is a thin, flat panel made of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. OLED panels can also take the shape of a light panel, where red, green and blue light emitting materials are stacked to create a white light panel. OLED displays can also be made transparent and/or flexible and these transparent panels are available on the market and are widely used in smartphones with under-display optical fingerprint sensors. LCD and OLED displays are available in different shapes, the most prominent of which is a circular display, which is used in smartwatches. The list of OLED display manufacturers:

MicroLED displays is an emerging flat-panel display technology consisting of arrays of microscopic LEDs forming the individual pixel elements. Like OLED, microLED offers infinite contrast ratio, but unlike OLED, microLED is immune to screen burn-in, and consumes less power while having higher light output, as it uses LEDs instead of organic electroluminescent materials, The list of MicroLED display manufacturers:

LCDs are made in a glass substrate. For OLED, the substrate can also be plastic. The size of the substrates are specified in generations, with each generation using a larger substrate. For example, a 4th generation substrate is larger in size than a 3rd generation substrate. A larger substrate allows for more panels to be cut from a single substrate, or for larger panels to be made, akin to increasing wafer sizes in the semiconductor industry.

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