Sharp FQ8 vs LG QNED80A6A (VA)

The Sharp FQ8 achieves a maximum brightness of over 450 nits, which is commendable for its price range. While this level might not be groundbreaking, it places the television among the better-performing models in its class. At this brightness, the image appears vivid and detailed, and the HDR metadata functions effectively, offering a more immersive viewing experience compared to dimmer devices.

The television supports the advanced Dolby Vision HDR format, enhancing the depth and richness of the content. It also includes Dolby Vision IQ, which adjusts the image's brightness and colours based on ambient lighting. However, the implementation of this feature on the Sharp FQ8 is suboptimal, introducing artificial brightening and noticeable distortions. For this reason, it is advisable to disable Dolby Vision IQ for the most accurate picture quality.

With quantum dot technology, the television achieves a colour gamut coverage of approximately 94%, resulting in vibrant and realistic colours. This combination of features ensures the Sharp FQ8 delivers an engaging and detailed visual experience, even with some limitations.

Let's talk now about how this TV shines. If you’re expecting dazzling light effects, we need to cool your enthusiasm. The LG QNED80A is a moderately bright television. Our measurements in most film scenes indicated values around 350-400 nits. That’s not enough to speak of a full, cinematic HDR experience and the feeling of that famous “high dynamic range” that flagship products offer. However, brightness is not everything. Although the QNED80A is not a “light monster,” it makes up for it in another key category: colours. This is where PFS technology comes into play, which LG marketers hide under the name QNED/NanoCell. With this trick, the TV offers a significantly wider colour palette than classic LCD constructions. In our tests, the coverage of the cinematic DCI-P3 palette reached a solid 93-94%. What does that mean for you? That even at lower brightness, when watching films in HDR, the colours will be vibrant, deep, and properly saturated. The image is not washed out but juicy, which is a significant advantage in this price range.

The Sharp FQ8 was evaluated for colour reproduction in its movie mode, which provides the best default settings for achieving realistic visuals. While it performs adequately, certain issues impact the overall image quality. Tests on HD content revealed significant white balance problems, with a marked dominance of red. This is evident in the colour graph, where the red line noticeably rises above the others, and in practical tests, such as a movie scene featuring a child, where the image appears overly warm and unnaturally red. Similar issues persist with 4K HDR content, where an excessive red tint detracts from the accuracy of colour reproduction, an important consideration for viewers prioritising faithful visuals.

For SDR contrast, the gamma graph displayed an unusual anomaly at the start, highlighting reproduction issues. The remainder of the gamma curve lies below the reference line, indicating suboptimal brightness and contrast levels for standard content. In 4K HDR, the EOTF curve also deviates significantly, suggesting inconsistencies in brightness reproduction. These fluctuations can result in less enjoyable viewing experiences for HDR content, particularly in scenes requiring precise light and dark balance.

It might seem that since the QNED80A is one model, it should offer the same picture regardless of the version. However, practice shows something completely different. Analyzing the variant with the VA panel in the best factory setting – that is, in Filmmaker Mode – we noticed a specific characteristic. This TV "out of the box" delivers a picture with a clear dominance of red and a deficiency of blue. Overall, it is very warm, almost hot. Many users might describe it as an "overly cinematic" picture, leaning towards sepia. Additionally, there is the issue of gamma curve – the TV has a tendency to slightly and artificially brighten scenes (gamma is too low), which causes the picture to lose some of its plasticity. The good news is that these are not panel errors, but merely software issues. As always in our tests, we performed professional calibration, which completely eliminated these drawbacks, restoring natural white balance and correct saturation.

After calibration, the Sharp FQ8 shows notable improvements in its performance for SDR content. The white balance has been significantly refined, with all lines approaching the reference line. While the lines are not perfectly straight, the results are impressive for a TV in this price range. This adjustment enhances the naturalness and accuracy of colours, contributing to a more enjoyable visual experience. However, the gamma chart still displays the peculiar jump at the start, though the remaining line now aligns much closer to the expected outcome.

For HDR content, the white balance also sees meaningful improvements compared to the pre-calibration state, although it doesn’t perform as well as in SDR mode. This refinement results in more consistent and visually appealing colours, despite some remaining imperfections. On the downside, the EOTF chart reveals limited progress in contrast due to the lack of control over dynamic tone mapping settings, which hampers uniform brightness representation in HDR.

Despite these limitations, the calibration significantly elevates the Sharp FQ8, particularly in SDR mode. The improved white balance and colour reproduction deliver a more natural and pleasant viewing experience. While HDR content still leaves room for improvement, the TV achieves a respectable level of performance, solidifying its position as a strong contender in its price range.

Was it worth spending time on calibration? Definitely yes. We managed to tame the initial, overly warm white balance and, most importantly, correct the gamma curve. The television stopped artificially brightening scenes, resulting in a deeper image. The biggest gains are visible in SDR content, such as when watching regular television, YouTube, or playing games without HDR. Here, the QNED80A shows its class – colour reproduction errors (DeltaE) fell below a value of 2. In technical terms, this means the errors are essentially invisible to the human eye. The image in everyday use has simply become very attractive, natural, and correct. The difficulties start with HDR content. Although we managed to improve the white balance, the EOTF curve (responsible for brightness at various levels) shows that the television still "interprets" the image in its own way. This results from the nature of the edge-lit backlighting with local dimming and the fact that LG gives the calibrator very little control over this parameter. In short: the television struggles to hide its hardware shortcomings, sometimes ignoring our commands. Nevertheless, the final image is significantly more accurate and pleasant to view than the factory settings, even if it still lacks a bit compared to studio perfection.

The Sharp FQ8 performs adequately with its 10-bit colour reproduction feature, providing smooth transitions between grey shades in the light bulb photo. For optimal results, setting it to medium is recommended, as it avoids issues like grain smoothing or blurring key elements. The "low" setting also yields good results without introducing unwanted visual artefacts.

In terms of upscaling, the Sharp FQ8 TV handles video without overscan, making full use of the screen. The jagged edges of branches are noticeable, but the edges of trousers appear without any clear jaggedness, contributing positively to the overall image quality. Additionally, the TV's AI Super Resolution feature enhances clarity by artificially sharpening jagged elements, further improving the viewing experience.

In this category, the QNED80A turns out to be a true "dark horse". It's a fantastic, affordable television for those who often watch lower quality content – for example, from traditional cable TV. The processor used here handles upscaling incredibly well, enhancing low resolutions to native 4K. The image after processing is natural, smooth, and most importantly – it is not overly jagged or artificially sharpened. In the menu, we also find a dedicated option for smoothing tonal transitions in low-quality content. This feature works really effectively, eliminating the annoying "banding" of colours during heavy video compression. However, we must remain vigilant. Remember, we are not dealing with the top-tier processor known from flagship OLED models. In more challenging scenes, the system might struggle and introduce minor artefacts or distortions. Nevertheless, it's definitely worth giving this feature a chance, because in the majority of cases, the quality improvement is visible to the naked eye.

The Sharp FQ8 features a 120 Hz panel, able to support playback at 144 Hz when connected to a PC, which should theoretically provide smooth motion rendering. The TV includes features designed to enhance film fluidity and reduce motion blur, crucial for more dynamic content. However, in the absence of Black Frame Insertion (BFI) technology, the panel's average response time leads to less-than-ideal results. This results in slight motion blur, which may be particularly noticeable when watching sports or during intense gaming sessions.

We move on to a topic that may be crucial for many. Unfortunately, here we must point out the biggest "Achilles' heel" of the QNED80A model. This television is equipped with a panel that has a native refresh rate of 60Hz. There’s no denying it – at this price, we were hoping for more as we know that Chinese manufacturers can offer 120Hz screens for similar money. Due to this parameter, dynamic scenes in sports or fast-paced games are not the strongest point of this screen. Fortunately, LG has equipped the television with a proven smoothing system called TruMotion. It works quite well with film material (24 frames). We suggest playing around with the De-Judder slider – from our experience, setting it in the range of 2-4 provides the best compromise: motion becomes smoother, yet still looks natural, without the artificial "television theatre" effect.

The Sharp FQ8 offers several features that cater to gamers, enhancing the overall gaming experience. Firstly, the television is equipped with HDMI 2.1, which brings several advantages. ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) automatically switches the TV to a low-latency mode when a gaming device is detected. VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) helps reduce screen stuttering by adjusting the screen’s refresh rate to match the number of frames generated by the console or PC, providing smoother gameplay, especially in dynamic games. Additionally, the TV supports G-Sync, which synchronises the image with the graphics card, preventing stuttering and screen tearing.

Despite these advantages, the FQ8 has some limitations. The lack of support for HGiG (HDR Gaming Interest Group) means the TV does not optimise the dynamic range for HDR games. Furthermore, while Dolby Vision mode can improve picture quality in supported games, it suffers from very high input lag.

Since we've already established that the QNED80A is a 60Hz TV, we must say it straight: we won't be gaming here at 120 frames per second at any resolution. Does this disqualify the device in the eyes of gamers? Not necessarily, especially for those "casual" players. LG decided to sweeten this technical limitation by packing in quite a few useful features. We have support for VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) in the range of 48-60Hz and an automatic game mode ALLM, which instantly reduces input lag upon detecting a console. We manage all of this via a very convenient, purple Game Optimizer menu (Player Panel), which has become LG's hallmark. The manufacturer deserves big points for consistency regarding HDR. Although the TV does not support Dolby Vision in games on Xbox consoles, LG adds a well-implemented HGiG standard. Thanks to this, even on a screen with moderate brightness, playing in HDR is clear, and the details in shadows and highlights are accurately rendered, rather than being "clipped".