Whats coming next??

My next few post will be reviews. I will be reviewing the MK Bradshaw smartwatch and the VoYo Deca core tablet.
So watch this space.

XuanPad Projector review Part two. The Nitty Gritty

So can a £64.99 (mind you if you hurry you might be able to get it at £48.99 from Amazon) be any good. Well lets find out shall we.

I have been toying with the idea of a cheap projector for some time. But until recently the native resolution was awful and there was no keystone correction. That has all changed with quite a few budget projectors now giving better resolution and keystone correction.

 So lets look at the specs.

Projection Tech: LCD

Lamp life time: 55000 hrs

Contrast:2000:1

Projector consumption: 50W

Correction Optical: ±15 degree<>

A single continuous use time: <24hour

Projection size: 32-170inch

Projection Distance: 1.5-5m

Brightness 2400 lumens

Max display resolution 1080p Full HD

On paper it looks quite good, but as explained in part one things may not be what they seem.

The native resolution is actually 800 x 480 this is what they call WVGA (Wide Video Graphics Array ) this gives an aspect ration of 15:9 so its almost 16:9.  

The manufacturer claim its brightness is 2400 lumens but after a couple of my own tests with a light meter I reckon the ANSI lumens are about 600 to 800. 

The continuous use time is an interesting one, but at least is doesn't say 4 hours which I have seen on some. 

So what's it like to actually set up and use. 

It feels fairly solid for something that's made out of plastic, the projection lens is solid so no wobble when you try to focus. Nothing worse than a loose projection lens. 

It has a small tilt adjustment screw at the front, which is useful. 

Focus is manual as is the keystone correction.  Both work fine for a manual system.

The imstruction manual is useless. It basicaly says you have bought a projector and this is what the buttons do, with little if any actual usage instructions. I found out most of the functions by playing around with the menus.

Another menu option is for timer functions so you can set the projector to come on/off at a preset time. Or the sleep function which can be set to say go off after 30mins right up to 6 hours. 

The remote has various buttons for on/off, arrow keys for navigation, you can flip the picture, so you can mount the projector upside down, or allow for back projection. The zoom button just switches between Auto, 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios. I found the remote needs to be pointing directly at the front or back of the projector. I use an ir repeater and the remote works much better. So if your projector is behind you or above you then consider getting an ir repeater, I bought mine a few years ago on ebay for less than 10 euros.

Size of image depends on projection distance, so at 1.5m its about 32inch. At 2.3m the picture size is about 73 inches. There is an option in the menu to reduce the picture size by up to 25%. I would say optimal image size is about 70 to 100 inches.

There are various inputs VGA, HDMI, composite video and USB. The USB is great for inserting a USB stick with films on it. It handles most formats, but struggles with some mkv files.  

Picture quality I think for the price is great. Its somewhere between VHS and DVD. Don't sit too near to the screen as you will be aware of the pixels.  I have tried the projector on a 4:3 DaLite screen and on a smooth plastered wall. To me the flat wall gives a slightly better picture. Mind you my DaLite screen is at least 15 years old, and needs a good clean. 

Fan noise is audible but as long as you don't sit next to it its not really a problem. Amazingly it doesn't get that hot even after 4 hours of use. Some  cheaper ones I have tried get very hot indeed.

The sound from the built in speaker is ok, though can be a little trebbly at times. So external speakers would be a better option. 

The specs from the manufacturer say not to be used for power point presentations or spreadsheets. I would agree the picture quality for these is not fantastic, and the text can be unreadable at times if its small. If you had to you could use it, but you would need to change font sizes to make it more readable, ok for a one off I guess.

 So to wrap up. 

Pros:
I think its a great piece of kit for the price. 
Would I use it as a main TV source probably not. But it would be ideal in say a bedroom. My kids loved watching, films in the bedroom.
Its great for occasional / temporary home cinema use especially if you don't have a dedicated room. 
Its ideal to use outside at night for alfresco picture shows.
It would also make a great back up or second projector for a small school or work place environment especially if its used more for showing videos rather than spreadsheets or PPT presentations. 

Cons:
Not to be used on a daily basis for spreadsheet or other computer based presentations. 
 I wouldn't recommend it for a purpose built home cinema room ( I would want  better picture quality).
Only manual keystone correction and focus (but at the price it is you wouldn't expect anything else).

Important question: Would I buy one ? 
Answer: Yes and I already have. 

Its in my bedroom projecting on to a wall. So I now have a 75inch TV for less than £50.00 . 

XuanPad Projector Review Part One. Projector Terminology

There seems to be a plethora of cheap projectors from various manufacturers and suppliers, but are they worth the money, or is it better to splash out a little more cash.

 Before I start the review I think it is necessary to explain a few things about projectors in general.

And they are;

Native resolution this is the true resolution of the projector. Just because the blurb says HD compatible, HD support, maximum resolution or you can watch HD movies. Means it might not actually be a proper HD projector.  But what a non HD projector does is to convert the HD signal (often referred to as downscaling) to its native resolution.  I know a few people who have bought so called HD compatible projectors only to find out that the native display resolution is only 320 x 240 (often referred to as QVGA). Basically the higher these numbers are the better the picture quality.  Full HD is 1920 x 1080 and HD is 1280 x 720. See Wikipedia for more information.

Aspect ratio is something to also consider this is usually stated as 4:3 or 16:9. 16:9 (often called sixteen by nine) is the industry standard format when it comes to widescreen TV. Which when converted to what the cinema industry use is 1.78:1  (the most common cinema format is 1.85:1) So ideally you want a display resolution that gives you something close 16:9 or 1.85:1 To work out the aspect ratio you divide the first number in the resolution by the second. So a resolution of 320 x 240 = an aspect ration of 4:3 or 1.33:1 and a resolution of 1920 x 1080 = 16:9.

Contrast ratio this is the ratio of reflected light of a white image compared to an all black image. The higher the value the better. Again the higher the value the better. So a ratio of 2000:1 is better than one of 800:1. 

Brightness measured in lumens. This is how bright your picture will look. and you've guessed it the bigger the number the better. But some manufacturers incorrectly measure this value to give their projectors a higher value. The lumen is based on distance from the light source. Sometimes its referred to as ANSI lumens, this is the standard for projectors (American National Standards Institute). But lumens aren't the same as ANSI lumens. ANSI lumens are an average of various measurements taken across the light source. If the projector doesn't state ANSI lumens but just lumens you can guarantee the ANSI version will be lower. Searching online I found many use the ratio of 6:1 or 4:1 to calculate ANSI lumens from lumens. So a projector claiming 2000 lumens may only have an ANSI lumen figure of between 333 and 500 ANSI lumens . So if a supplier is claiming 2000 lumens and another is stating 700 ANSI lumens the higher figure might not be the best. 

Keystone correction.The keystone effect is the distortion of an image either being projected on to an angled surface or the projector being angled and displaying on a flat surface, giving you a trapezoidal shaped image.  A projector that has keystone correction will correct this effect.

XuanPad Projector

In Part two we will review the £64.99 (As of December 2018 Amazon currently has it on offer at £48.99) XuanPad projector, will it be worth the money or should you splash out for a more expensive one.