Sharp Aquos LC-46D64U LCD HDTV Review - Power Consumption

Power Consumption (8.5)
The Sharp LC46-D64U is not a power sipper, but it's not exactly a power guzzler either; we found that it used a pretty average amount of electricity for a HDTV of this size. In our tests, we found that this display would cost about 57 cents a week, or $29.94 to run for a year, assuming that you watched an average of 5 hours of TV a day, and that the display was calibrated to produce a peak luminance of about 200 cd/m2,  the standard level we use in this test. We use this because it's a pretty good general setting for use in both daylight and a darkened room. We found that setting the backlight to -4 produced this light level.

The backlight setting makes a big difference on how much electricity LCD HDTVs use, and the LC46-D64U is no exception. It used an average of about 152 watts in our calibrated setting tests, but this fell to 95 watts when the backlight was at the minimum, which would take the cost down to $18.71. But if you take the brightness up the other way and crank it right up to +16 the display sucks down a bill-busting 275 watts, which would cost you $53.44 over a year. Although these figures are not bad for a display this size, they do underline how it makes sense to run the display at the minimum brightness level you need to save some energy.