Move over LG, Sharp is getting into the QD-OLED TV game

The new Sharp OLED TV in a living room in Japan.
(Image credit: Sharp Corp.)

Sharp has announced its intentions to release a new OLED TV and its first-ever QD-OLED TV, following in the footsteps of Samsung and Sony, current producers of some of the best TVs in 2023

The TVs from Sharp will be available in two different series: the FS1 range of QD-OLED TVs and the FQ1 line of OLED TVs, both of which will use Sharp’s new AI processor. 

According to a press release, the AI has learned to detect people's faces and the sky with high accuracy by viewing over 1 million images. It says that “colors, brightness and detail are automatically adjusted according to detection results” and can even detect genres such as movies, dramas and sports. 

So when will you be able to buy the new models? If you live in Japan, you can buy them starting today. The rest of the world, however, will have to wait as Sharp says that they’ll only be available in Japan for the time being.

Meanwhile, at Sharp USA… 

While Sharp Home Electronics Company of America (SHCA) isn’t experimenting with QD-OLED or OLED panels anytime in the near future, it is still making its own TVs. The company’s brand-name was briefly licensed to Hisense from 2015 to 2019 before Sharp re-acquired the name after a short legal battle with the Chinese-owned TV manufacturer.

These days, Sharp Home Electronics is producing its AQUOS line of TVs for the North American market — though, compared to what the Japanese market is getting, they’re nothing to write home about. For the most part, they’re 60Hz models with HDMI 2.0 ports. They are usually pretty affordable, though.

Unlike its Japanese counterparts that use Google TV for their smart platform, the US Sharp TVs all use Roku TV with support for Google Assistant. In practice, both of these platforms are good, but we find Google TV to be slightly more aesthetically appealing.

If you want something with similar picture quality to the new FS1 QD-OLED and FQ1 OLED TVs, check out the Samsung S95C OLED that uses the same panel as the FS1 and the LG C3 OLED that has a similar panel to the FQ1. 

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Nick Pino
Managing Editor, TV and AV

Nick Pino heads up the TV and AV verticals at Tom's Guide and covers everything from OLED TVs to the latest wireless headphones. He was formerly the Senior Editor, TV and AV at TechRadar (Tom's Guide's sister site) and has previously written for GamesRadar, Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer and other outlets over the last decade. Not sure which TV you should buy? Drop him an email or tweet him on Twitter and he can help you out.