****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I had read a review that talked about a conflict between focus and keystone, so I was a little concerned that I would not be pleased with this projector. Well, it arrived today and I quickly set it up, using a not quite white, more like yellow, bed sheet draped over a 5 ft x 5 ft frame as a temporary screen. I put the projector 72" away from the screen at a level about even with the bottom of the screen. I fired it up and input an HD source at 1080P (FOX news). The image gave me a 67" diagonal 16:9 rectangle. I had it hooked up just in time to see the Pope's plane arrive and the Pope deplane. It was the middle of the day with no direct sunlight coming in the room, but we have plenty of windows, so there was quite a bit of ambient light. I had no trouble at all seeing the image, as it was plenty bright. I was surprised at the quality of the sound from the tiny mono speaker. There was no problem with keystone or focus. My first impression was 100% positive. I plan to make a better screen, maybe a bit wider and not so tall, and hook up a PC speaker system. I expect this will come close to a true home theater system on the cheap. It is a work in progress, and if anything significant develops I will update this review. Bottom line for now is I am glad I bought this projector.Update: After using this projector for a while I have some observations. First, the keystone correction is accomplished digitally. I can see a faint image of the overall shape of what is projected and can see the keystone affect around the edge. But the actual image is perfectly rectangular. It appears to me that the leg that raises the front of the projector lets the projector know how much keystone effect to put in, which you can fine tune with the buttons. There is a limit as to how much you can raise the front, and I discovered that I had to get the projector up to the height of the bottom of the screen to be able to use just the leg. Otherwise I would have had to prop it up even more. I became a bit disappointed with the speaker. For some frequencies there is some distortion, and it is going to need an external speaker system for the sound to match the picture. This is something I have been planning to do even before I bought it. There is some slight fan noise, but it's not bad. It does take a few seconds before an image appears, but other TVs are also slow to turn on, so that's not a problem. The only difference is that other TVs at least show some kind of image or logo while they are coming on line. The projector's bulb doesn't come on until it's ready to project, and then it needs several more seconds before it is at full brightness. Overall I'd say it takes about 2 minutes before you see the image you expect. So far I am happy with my purchase.SECOND UPDATE: I have been using the projector for quite a while now. I am still pleased with its performance. From the menu you can have it display important information including how many hours the bulb has been in use. This is important because it does have a life and you can anticipate when it might need to be replaced and get a spare before you need it. I have this projector located in a room with a lot of east facing windows without curtains. So the picture is washed out during the day. I bought a computer sound system and use that instead of the built in speakers. This gives a very nice theater effect. There are only two problems with this. When I select "mute" not only does it turn off the sound, it also turns off the bulb. So you can't tell when a commercial is over. I have to just turn the volume all the way down. Which brings up the second issue. The volume control is not continuous but changes in steps. This is not a big deal but is just not what I am used to. Bottom line, I would buy this projector again.
