While the Sharp UH30U 4k TV is not exceptional at anything, it is an all-around good TV. Its main flaws are the oversharpness of upscaled content and the loss of color at an angle.
Our Verdict
The Sharp UH30U UHD TV is a good overall TV, especially if you don't mind the over-sharpening on upscaled content or the limited viewing angle.
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Wider color gamut
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Good overall picture quality in both a dark and a bright room
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All upscaled resolutions are over-sharpened.
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Limited viewing angle
- 7.2 Mixed Usage
- 7.2 Movies
- 7.0 TV Shows
- 7.1 Sports
- 7.7 Video Games
- 7.8 HDR Movies
- 5.7 HDR Gaming
- 5.8 PC Monitor
- Updated Mar 01, 2017: Review published.
- Updated Jul 17, 2015: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Jul 16, 2015: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
Test Results
The bezel is very thin on the Sharp UH30U 4k TV. However, even if it is Sharp's highest-end model, it feels a bit more like a mid-range TV from a build quality standpoint.
The two feet stand can be used in two positions.
We used the closer stand position, which had a footprint of 34" by 14.5" on our 70" LC70UH30U.
The TV has a feature named 'AquoDimming', but it isn't local dimming. Instead, it is simply a software-only smoothing feature.
The gray uniformity is decent, for an LED TV. It has no major vertical banding or dirty screen effect problems.
As usual for most LED TVs, the colors lose saturation when you watch it at an angle. You can still see the picture, but it doesn't look as great as directly in-axis.
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.
When we first got it out of the box, it had major flashlighting in the corners. Fortunately, they mostly disappeared after a few days.
The THX mode has good calibration by default, although nothing exceptional. See more details here.
The white balance is really easy to calibrate, but the colorspace controls are not as accurate.
Low resolution content doesn't look too soft but is over-sharpened when upscaled to the native 4k resolution, even when the sharpness setting is set to the minimum. Some people might like this, but it is unfortunate that you cannot remove it
Cable TV and other 720p content looks okay on the Sharp UH30U. Unfortunately, 720p content is also over-sharpened.
The upscaling of 1080p content is as good as with other brands. Blu-rays also suffer from the over-sharpening, which shouldn't need it.
You cannot control the color gamut directly with this TV. 'Movie' and 'THX' modes are based on the limited Rec.709 standard, while the other modes have the wider gamut.
Its semi-gloss finish is good at handling direct reflections. There is no rainbow or glare around bright objects.
It can get brighter than the average TV, and should be good enough for any type of room.
On one hand, the response time of the pixels is really fast on this TV. On the other hand, the overshoot is really long on dark to bright transitions. Therefore, on average, the motion blur on this TV is good, but not exceptional.
To enable the reverse 3:2 pulldown without interpolation, set 'Film mode' to 'Standard'.
Under Game or PC mode, the input lag of the Sharp UH30 is 46.2ms, which is average. It shouldn't be a problem for most gamers.
Chroma 4:4:4 is supported in PC mode. For 4k @ 60hz @ 4:4:4, set the input HDMI range to 'Full'.
The Sharp UH30U also have a 3.5 mm audio In port not mentioned above.
The frequency response is good at lower volumes, but progressively worsens as the volume increases. At maximum volume the response is poor and pumping may be present. However, the loudness and low-end are pretty good.
Good distortion levels at low volumes, however there is a significant jump in distortion under heavy load.
The Sharp UH30U has the Android OS, with a very similar build as the one on Sony TVs. The OS needs a bit more work to catch up to the competitors, but it is improving fast.
