Although Sharp's best-known for its AQUOS line of HDTV sets, the company's area of expertise also extends to digital signage monitors, those high-end, ultra-wide displays designed to work 24/7 and display either important information or various commercials. And the company's latest announcement regarding this particular field is quite an interesting one, since Sharp has decided to unveil two wide-screen LCD monitors that allow users to browse the web without requiring any additional hardware.

The new family of products, which comprises the 52-inch class (52.03-inch diagonal) TL-M5200 and the 46-inch class (45.9-inch diagonal) TL-M4600, offers a set of features which makes these devices a very good solution for teleconferencing, CAD/simulation, digital signage, corporate, educational, training, hospitality, sports arenas, entertainment and house-of-worship. Nevertheless, their advanced features will most likely make even home installers raise an eyebrow (or two).

Hence, the TL Monitor series has a two-megapixel 1920 x 1080 HD resolution and uses Sharp's proprietary Advanced Super View (ASV) panel, which offers a fast pixel response time (less than 6 ms), as well as high brightness and wide 176 degree viewing angles. Additionally, in order to accommodate just about any lighting conditions, the monitors feature 1500:1 (TL-M4600) and 2000:1 (TL-M5200) contrast ratio, while the advanced image processing technology delivers crisp and clear images.

Since these displays are intended especially for commercial use, the connectivity options represent a very important issue. So, it's no wonder that the monitors have been equipped with an array of input connectors to show all types of content, from DVD to varying PC resolutions from both analog and digital (DVI-D) sources. Furthermore, they feature an HDMI input (for accessing HD content), as well as an Ethernet (RJ-45) connector and a built-in web browser, which allows users to browse the content of various Internet webpages directly.

As you might have guessed already, these devices are not exactly the cheapest in Sharp's lineup. The TL-M5200 is available as we speak for around 5,000 US dollars, while its smaller sibling, the TL-M4600, will arrive in stores at some point in June for an MSRP of around 4,000 US dollars.


We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is .