Sharp JP7, HP5 and HP6: what they ship with and what can come off

If you are coming from the other Sharp pages on this site, unplug the soundbar before you read on. On the JP7 and on the HP the eARC sits on HDMI 2, not where its catalogue siblings keep it.

The eARC moves from range to range#

Going through the official sheets, Sharp's "HDMI eARC" field says different things depending on the model:

• JP7, HP5 and HP6: Yes (HDMI2).
• GP6 and GP7: Yes (HDMI1).
• GR8 and HR7: Yes (HDMI4).

Three ranges, three ports, and no rule that predicts it: you have to read the sheet for the exact model. If you plugged the bar in where it lived on your previous television, it is probably in the wrong place.

Four HDMI, and none goes past 60 Hz#

Here the sheet is short and clear: "HDMI 4K @ 60 Hz (2.1): x4". All four ports are the same and all four stop at 4K and 60 Hz.

It is worth underlining, because the same catalogue holds 144 Hz models and the "2.1" label is on both. The GR8 and the HR7 declare 4× HDMI 2.1 [4K@60Hz (HDMI1,2); 4K@144Hz (HDMI3,4)]. The JP7 and the HP have no second half. They have no VRR field either, which the 144 Hz sets do carry.

What they do have is ALLM, automatic low latency mode, and that is where these televisions' gaming offer ends.

The regulated sheet adds a number that misleads if read quickly: item 20 of the official document, "Image refresh frequency rate (default)", says 50 Hz. It does not contradict the 60: it is the default frequency, not the ceiling. In that same box, the HR7 declares 144.

What separates the JP7 from the HP#

The JP7 is the first television in this European Sharp catalogue with local dimming. Its sheet puts it among the headlines: MiniLED with Precise Local Dimming, and the "Backlight" field says MiniLED.

The HP5 and the HP6 declare, in that same box, "LED with Global Dimming". The word that changes is the one that matters. Global dimming means the set raises and lowers all of the backlight at once: it can darken a whole scene, but it cannot darken one corner while lighting the other. It is what lifts the black across the whole panel on a night shot with subtitles.

Both carry a Quantum Dot layer, both accept HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision, and neither takes HDR10+ or the Dolby Vision IQ variant that the GR8 and the HR7 do carry.

Sharp publishes not one nit of brightness on any sheet in these two ranges.

The HP5 and the HP6 are the same television#

If you are comparing references, save yourself the trouble. In the European register, the 65HP5265E and the 65HP6265E share an EPREL number: 2355909, under one model identifier, 4T-C65HPx. The same holds at the other diagonals: 55 inches is registration 2351337 for both series, 50 inches is 2355904 and 43 inches is 2351329.

And within each series, the four references Sharp lists for one size (265E, 465E, 665E and 765E) are also the same set: the trailing x in the registered identifier is exactly the digit that tells them apart.

The only thing the HP6 lacks is size: the HP5 is also sold in 70 and 85 inches, with registrations of their own. The JP7 runs from 50 to 75.

The sound, and a Harman/Kardon that comes and goes#

Both declare 2 × 12 watts with Dolby Atmos, except the 43-inch HP, which drops to 2 × 10. There is no DTS:X on either.

The odd detail is in the "Sound Technology" field. On the JP7 it says Harman-Kardon at all four diagonals. On the HP it only appears on the 70 and 85 inch sheets; at 65, 55, 50 and 43 that line is simply not there, and neither is the Harman/Kardon headline. Same watts, different small print.

Eight years of updates, and the site does not say so#

This is the most valuable figure on the whole sheet, and it is not on sharpconsumer.

The regulated sheet for the 75-inch JP7, registration 2540265, declares under item 21 a "Minimum guaranteed availability of software and firmware updates" of 8 years from the end of placement on the market. Item 22 gives another 8 years of spare parts, and item 23 two years of support and guarantee.

It is not a one-off. Downloading Sharp's European register page by page returned 206 distinct records out of the 231 the search itself declares (pagination repeats blocks: between page one and page two, 13 records overlapped, so it cannot be called complete). Of those 206, 205 say 8 years and one leaves it blank. It is the exact opposite of Nokia and Thomson, where that field comes back empty.

The product page, meanwhile, never once mentions how many years of updates the television will get. The figure exists, it comes from the maker and it is mandatory: it is only in the place nobody looks.

Neither RAM nor storage#

As with the rest of the brand, there is no memory figure anywhere: not on the site, not in the manual, not in the regulatory declaration.

And it is the figure that decides how many years the set really lasts, because eight promised years of updates are worth little if the storage fills up and the television cannot apply them.

You can find it out yourself. With ADB connected, df -h /data tells you how much there is and how much is free, and cat /proc/meminfo | head -1 gives you the total memory. Without ADB, Settings → System → Storage shows you at least the free space.

Who answers if it breaks#

The brand is Japanese, but whoever answers in Europe is not. The manual for these models (SHA/MAN/0569) ends with Sharp Consumer Electronics Poland sp. z o.o., Ostaszewo 57B, 87-148 Łysomice, Poland, and the television warranty card repeats it country by country: "This warranty is granted in the territory of Spain by Sharp Consumer Electronics Poland sp. z o.o.", with 36 months in Spain and 24 across most of the rest.

In EPREL that same company appears as registrant and manufacturer of the televisions. There is another Sharp in the register, Sharp Electronics GmbH, but its 48 records are monitors and professional displays, not home sets.

In Google Play's official device list, Sharp appears with 19 platforms and not one is exclusively its own: it shares SW6H with Haier, Daewoo, JVC and Thomson, umeda with Haier and Thomson, and SW4H_FF with Daewoo and Haier. The set comes from a shared factory, like almost everything in this bracket.

What ships from the factory#

Sharp publishes the list, which almost nobody does: Netflix, Youtube, Google Play Movies & TV, Google Play Store, Prime Video.

On top of those five sits Google's layer: the launcher (com.google.android.tvlauncher), the recommendation engine (com.google.android.tvrecommendations), voice search (com.google.android.katniss) and the services (com.google.android.gms).

The remote ties four things down#

The manual describes the remote for these models with dedicated keys for NETFLIX, PRIME VIDEO, YOUTUBE and a SHARP key that opens the "SHARP Smart Portal". Uninstall one of those apps and its key is left with nothing to open. It breaks nothing, but it is better known beforehand.

What comes off and what does not#

Netflix and Prime Video are the clear candidates if you do not use them, and Google Play Movies & TV, which is a rental store, the third. They reinstall from the store in two minutes.

Google Play Store stays, because it is where everything else comes back from. Google Play services too: without them the set boots and little more. The launcher, only if you already have another one installed and working.

The recommendation engine is the one to think about: taking it off leaves the home screen clean, but it also empties the "continue watching" row.

And before touching any package, go into the privacy settings and look at what the television is sharing. It can be cut back a fair amount from there, with no ADB and no risk. On these models the apps menu also offers Uninstall directly, with nothing to connect.

How to tell whether this page is yours#

Checked on the official sheets: HP, JP7, HL, HR, HF, GR, GP and GF run Google TV; HD and HJ run Roku TV; HE and JE run TiVo OS. Under Settings → System → About you have the model and the Android version.

If you own one#

What is still missing most is the output of df -h /data and cat /proc/meminfo. With two or three answers, this page will finally be able to say how much memory a Sharp with Google TV carries, which is the one figure neither the site nor EPREL publishes.