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.
No comments:
Post a Comment