Hasta La Gadget!

From Sharp comes the latest from its AQUOS line with an emphasis on compatibility and coordination with smartphones – the MX Series LC-24MX1, due to be released on May 30. It comes in 3 colors: green, orange and silver.

Sharp announced the release yesterday and the LC-24MX1 was reviewed by ASCII.jp which I would like to share with you.

Strictly in terms of viewing specs, there is nothing special here. It’s a relatively small size 23.6 inch with standard 1366×758 dot resolution. There is 1 built-in tuner and is compatible with USB HDD and can record for a long period of time.

The best characteristic of the TV seems to be the built-in 2.1ch speaker. When the TV is in standby mode, they speakers can be accessed through the user’s smartphone and automatically come alive to play music from the smartphone.

The speaker unit is 5W+5W output, with a 10W subwoofer, built by Pioneer. When connected to a smartphone, it turns to “music mode” which will make better high pitch and low pitch sound than regular TV audio play mode, which helps make the TV audio better to listen to.

Also when playing Blu-ray, surround-sound mode can be employed.

So, despite its small size and and basic resolution, the viewing experience is fairly enjoyable.

Through its Miracast functionality, images from your smartphone can be wirelessy broadcast to the TV screen, and it can be used as a custom remote control device.

Another big feature of this TV is introduction of the specialized “AQUOS Connect” application. The TV screen and your smartphone screen can simultaneously show the same content.

It will automatically compensate for the horizontal TV screen interacting with the vertical smartphone screen to properly show content on both. And interaction of sound between TV and smartphone can be adjusted by waving the smartphone.

AQUOS Connect also gives “Keyword Search” functionality. Keywords related to a TV program currently on air are automatically extracted, and you can search further information by selecting a keyword you want to know about.

AQUOS Connect can be used through both wireless Miracast and wired MHL, but when you use wired MHL you need to have a wired internet environment.

AQUOS Connect provides an Android version and iOS version, however iOS devices are not compatible with Miracast or MHL. So in that case, a wired internet connection is needed for Miracast and HDMI output adapter is needed for MHL.

The bottom line assessment by Ascii is that it is useful for (mainly younger) people who are used to accessing and viewing content through their smart device and wanting to use the TV as a larger, viewing aid, with better audio, for their content.

Estimated price: 69,800 yen
Display: 24 inch (1,366 x 768)
Size: 56.5 × 17.5 × 41.8cm
Weight: 7kg
Tuner: Digital terrestrial broadcasting, BS/CS, analog broadcasting
Audio output: Max 20W (5W＋5W＋10W)