|
Epson Home 10 Review
Hello Home Theater Forum Readers:
I recently purchased the Epson Powerlite Home 10 Projector.
The reason why I’m writing this review is because there were little or no reviews out in cyber-space for this projector when I was looking to purchase it about a month ago, so hopefully some of these findings will be helpful to anyone out there currently looking at it.
The main reason why I purchased this projector is that it was the only projector in the sub $1500 price category with an extremely large image size that has a short throw distance. I recently moved and my new home theater room is a lot smaller. I previously had a 19 to 20 foot throw distance and my old NEC VT540 (XGA resolution), gave me about an 8 foot wide by almost 5 foot tall theater wide image. My new home theater room is only about 9 feet long so my NEC’s new image fell considerably short of what I was used to. Its new dimensions were about 3 and three quarters feet wide by about 2 feet tall. You completely loose the theater experience with this small of an image. So the search for a solution began. I first looked into replacement lenses for the NEC. It would be about $1,500 for a high-grade name brand or comparable replacement lens excluding labor. I then looked into the mirrors option, but that soon went out the door since I didn’t have the space for setting up mirrors. I then decided to go back to ProjectorCentral.Com and put in my search criteria. Up popped the Epson Home 10 and the Hitachi Home 1. I was a little more familiar with Epsons versus Hitachis. The price was about $500 less for the Epson. Plus I wasn’t able to find anything about Hitachi’s customer service (i.e. phone numbers, warranty policy, etc…), but knew Epson’s was easy to find & contact so I started researching the Home 10 quite extensively. It was pretty much the only projector in my price range that could give me roughly the image size I was looking for (roughly 8’ x 4’) in the shortened 8-9 foot throw distance I now had to work with. This projector is truly amazing. It does this with a 1.54:1 zoom lens versus the older NEC’s 1.20:1 lens. More projector companies should get the hint.
My basis of comparison will be mainly with my old NEC VT540 unit, but some referencing to the Epson 713c I use at work. Both the VT540 and 713c projectors have the better XGA resolution, which provide roughly about 550 and 750 lines of resolution respectively versus the Home 10’s WVGA’s 480 lines.
The Home 10 is a WVGA projector. The “W” stands for Wide VGA. Its native screen mode is 16:9 versus the other two projectors’ older 4:3 native screen mode. Epson projectors have extremely nice images. We have the Powerlite 713c where I work. I was originally going to purchase one of these a several years ago; but the 713c’s are mainly a 4:3 presentation projector, and are fairly noisy @ about 42db. When it comes to home theater viewing though the quieter the projector is the better the experience is. I ended up opting for the NEC VT540 at the time due to its rave reviews as a home theater projector, its specs, and I also had two friends with them. The NEC in regular configuration was rated for 37db in standard mode @ 1,000 lumens and an estimated 2,000 lamp hours. In quiet eco-mode it was rated at 35db @ around 700 lumens and an estimated 3,000 lamp hours. In comparison, the Epson Home 10 rates at around 34db in the regular three lamp modes with about a 2,000 lamp hour life rating @ 1,000 lumens, and 29db in Theater Dark mode with around 3,000 estimated lamp hours @ 700 or 800 lumens. It is almost whisper quiet when viewing a movie. It only sits about a foot or so behind and above the viewers, and you can hardly hear it during the movie (only barely during a quiet scene).
Its contrast ratio is 700:1 vs. the VT540’s or 713c’s 400:1 ratios, and it has a nice digital keystone correction, as did the VT540’s. All three projectors have manual zoom/focus. It’s replacement bulbs appear to be quite reasonably priced at a street selling price of about $200 versus the VT540’s $350 - $450 bulb or $400 for the 713c’s bulb.
Video Compatibility is excellent. It has capabilities for NTSC/PAL/Secam and many others listed on their spec sheet. The Epson has a nice synch & tracking feature for its image. It also appears to handle my HTPC’s ATI Radeon 8500DV All-In-Wonder’s TV tuner image a lot better than the NEC ever did. There is also a very useful Zoom and Squeeze image resize feature so if you want to scale the image accordingly you can.
I would have to say that this is an excellent entry level WVGA projector. It does have the noticeable screen door affect, but so do most LCD projectors. That is where an XGA or better projector helps minimize or reduce this trait with these projectors. But for a $1,300 entry-level home theater projector you really can’t complain.
It is a little light on the adjustment features though so if you like tweaking your projector’s image to the point of perfection then this projector definitely falls short in that area. There are no RGB (Red, Green, Blue) color settings to configure, but the projector does have a pretty good color setting out of the box. So if it is hooked up to a standard DVD player and you want to tweak the colors a bit, you’ll be out of luck. You’ll have to do it through your TV’s color settings. If you’re hooking it up to a Home Theater PC (HTPC) like I did then you can have some more color tweaking options through your computer’s video card and/or video player software.
It does have all the proper connections on the back compared to my older NEC. It has S-Video, Composite Video, 15-pin VGA, Separate RGB (sort of lacking on the NEC), and a left & right audio input. It also comes with an RS-232 connector. Fit and finish are excellent on this projector. Its footprint is fairly large. It is a bit larger than the NEC or the other Epson projector, but it’s about the size of a small VHS player.
The remote control is small (credit card like) and almost identical to the NEC’s. This projector is also HDTV compatible like the NEC. I haven’t had a chance to check it out in HD mode so I am unable to provide any review in that area.
On the down side though it took me 3 different projectors before I got one that didn’t have dead pixels and/or a ghosting problem. It also took several phone calls to get Epson to properly activate the PIN number to the preferred customer service card for their 2 year immediate overnight warranty/service program. It was around Christmas though so maybe that was a factor that played in the delay. Their Custom Service though has been Great. They are very courteous, knowledgeable, helpful, and on the ball. This played a large factor when I was looking at projectors. I also like their zero tolerance for dead pixels. Other manufacturers aren't as stringent. When a customer pays anywhere from $1,000 up to $10,000 for a projector there should be zero tolerance across the industry board for dead pixels. As mentioned earlier I wasn’t able to find anything (customer service info) out there for Hitachi’s Home 1 projector, which is supposedly suppose to compete against the Epson Home 10, and NEC’s customer service appears to have dropped off a notch or two from when I originally purchased the VT540 projector two years ago.
All-in-All I think Epson has a winner with this projector. Now if they could put the same zoom lens on to their TW100 and drop it’s price a bit that would be an even better hot seller.
In conclusion all of my friends always rave about their big screen TV’s until they come over to my place and see my setup. Their wives’ jokingly hate me, because their husbands then want a projector too. I usually try to tell them that it can be less expensive than a big screen tv, it takes up less room, and their kids would love them even more for having such a large screen to watch movies on. So what do they do??? They send everyone over to my place. LOL!!! It’s great for bringing family and friends together again in today’s fast paced world.
PS:
I still have to spend some more time with it to see what other capabilities and features it has. Also best of luck to all of you out there jumping into the projection world for the first time or if you’re upgrading. There are a lot of choices and information out there. If you can afford it always go for the higher resolution projectors. Just take your time and do your research first so you’ll be happy with your end results.
|
