(Almost) half a year later - a slice of opinions about Epson EH-TW610 and Epson EH-TW650 budget home projectors. And another poll

In the line of home projectors of any manufacturer, not so much “cool” flagship models of technology are always interesting, but those low-end devices that the manufacturer is able to put “on the conveyor”, retaining as many features as possible from older models of the same line or the same direction .

In other words: is the manufacturer able to debug the production process so that time after time to reduce both the cost of production and, in fact, the final cost of the product itself, while maintaining or even improving its performance?

Earlier, I already talked about the most cost-effective home-made full-hd projectors in the Epson line - Epson EH-TW610 and Epson EH-TW650, which appeared on sale in the CIS countries relatively recently - around February of this year.

To date, detailed reviews of these projectors have been posted on the websites of CHIP , Obzor.one and Projectorworld.ru online publications .

In this post I briefly summarize the opinions of reviewers, as well as conduct a survey of the opinions of our readers on Habré.

Immediately on the case - video review

One of the first to make a detailed review-comparison of the Epson EH-TW650 in Russian was the reviewer from the Projectorworld.ru website, publishing a comparative testing of the Epson EH-TW650 projector with its closest competitor (in terms of cost and, to some extent, on the use of ) from BenQ. If there is a desire and about 12 minutes time, I recommend reading

Note: TW610 / 650 projectors are almost identical, so everything said in the review is valid for both models, in fact.

Interesting observations

In some cases, in the above-mentioned reviews the measurement data may not quite converge (slightly different levels of brightness and contrast are given), but the authors periodically pay attention to such details that even Epson employees are interested to learn about.

Wireless Media

For example, not everyone knew that Epson EH-TW610 and EH-TW650 projectors, similar to our business models, are able to display the contents of the smartphone screen using iProjection . Previously, the functionality of this application was limited to transferring only certain types of documents and images to the projector. In the new version, you can show presentations, websites and even video from the camera device.

Screen brightness uniformity

It was also nice to get confirmation that the brightness uniformity across the screen of the Epson EH-TW650 (and TW610, respectively) turned out to be even better than that in comparison with longer-focus competitors, and this with a shorter focus lens (that is, the projector is noticeably closer to the screen). Those of you who have experience with short-focus lenses are probably familiar with the “vignetting” effect, which is especially noticeable along the edges of the image.

One thing is the official figures of the uniformity of brightness in the specifications, and quite another is the verification and confirmation of these values ​​on the serial sample.

Color rendering in the brightest mode

In addition, the fact that reviewers began to pay attention to such a nuance as the balance between the maximum brightness of the projector and the quality of color in a bright mode is encouraging . Cheers, comrades!

In a publication from Obzor.one, it is written about the brightest (“Dynamic”) mode of the Epson EH-TW610 projector, which says: “the image gets a barely noticeable greenish tint”. Projectorworld.ru comes to a similar conclusion regarding the brightest mode - “The mode gives a bluish tint at brightness of about 50% and greenish - at 100%. Nevertheless, even in the dark, the white balance remains within the bounds of decency, which is not true of some other projectors in bright modes. ”

At this point, the author stops in some detail when comparing the Epson EH-TW650 with a projector from another manufacturer, in fact, disqualifying the brightest mode of the latter due to too strong a green tint.

The fact is (and there is no secret here) that the maximum brightness of the projector is limited by the manufacturer’s conscience. The peculiarity of lamp technology projectors is that the green color of the lamp can be obtained more than is necessary for the correct balance of colors (R, G, B) .

Thus, the manufacturer can leave some green supply to enhance the brightness in a lit room with a more or less tolerable loss of color in a bright mode of the projector.

Or the goal of the manufacturer may be strictly formal achievement of high brightness, on which, however, no one will obviously want to watch anything, because ... Well, you can see in the photo below:

Photograph of an image from Epson EH-TW650 (left) and from a “competitor projector” (right) at maximum brightness. Photo "of the camera." The picture on the right is, in fact, so green!

At maximum brightness (we declare and really reach 3000/3100 lumens), Epson EH-TW650 and Epson EH-TW610 projectors give a moderate green tint . This means that the most accurate (but less bright) mode will still be bright enough to use it in a lit room.

The presence of such a reserve of brightness also allows you to safely switch to the power saving mode, extending the life of the lamp and making the projector even quieter, and this is just a great option to use the projector in the living room.

Photo projector in a lit room. The brightness margin allows you to visually "increase" the contrast of the projector by creating a larger differential of the dynamic range of the lighting in the room.

Color brightness. Again

The attentive reader might already start worrying - “How is that? Is Epson still not saying a word about their favorite color brightness ?! ”

Indeed, in the home theater projector segment, the color brightness of Epson projectors becomes less noticeable (though still noticeable) due to the fact that for a completely darkened room the projector does not need prohibitive brightness indicators: 1000 lumens, for example, is enough for a screen in 100 inches.

Nevertheless, the superiority of three-matrix technology 3LCD in terms of the efficiency of using light from a lamp has not gone away. This means that, with the same brightness, the 3LCD based projector will:

• work longer (lamp change less often);
• work quieter (because it is not necessary to squeeze the maximum out of the cooling system);
• turning on / off the projector will be much faster (in our case - almost instantly);
• “Eat” less electricity in the end.

The above concerns more projector work in an almost completely darkened room .

But in the illuminated room, manufacturers of one-matrix projectors have no other methods left except to resort to the above-mentioned excess of green color in the brightest mode in order to achieve at least passport brightness indicators within the “budget” of brightness lumens.

As ProjectorCentral.com wrote , “color brightness” cannot describe this type of color inaccuracy. It's a pity! Because I personally heard more than once the surprised questions of owners of one-matrix projectors who first turned on the device at home, switched to maximum brightness mode and could not understand: it’s a marriage, or is it intended that the picture is “filled with green paint”.

To our happiness, testers publish white balance charts and other information in their reviews, allowing the reader to make a correct impression of the most essential features of the color rendition of each projector.

Your opinion?

It's clear that I conceived this post not only with the goal of once again “promoting” this line of projectors. The fact is that, judging by sales statistics, to which we have access, these models have become very, very popular with buyers from the CIS countries.

Perhaps, on Habré, too, will meet the owners of the 610th or 650th? If so, can you share the experience of using the projector and in general, in general, give feedback (or even tips and recommendations that we will give to the engineers)?

At the same time we will conduct your first survey: