HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2012: Editor's Choice - Part 1
Best 3LCD Portable Business Projector
Best 3LCD Portable Business Projector
Compared to DLP projectors, 3LCD projectors tend to produce sharper images and punchier-looking colors. Most of them also sport longer zoom lenses. And since they always display the primary colors (red, green, and blue) simultaneously, 3LCD projectors don’t suffer the ‘rainbow’ effects like single-chip DLP projectors do.
Here, we look at three business-oriented 3LCD projectors that are priced no more than S$1,500. They all have a native resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels (XGA) and brightness of 3,000 ANSI lumens. A 3.5kg weight cap is also enforced to ensure they remain reasonably portable.
Nominees:
- Canon LV-7390
- Epson EB-905
- Panasonic PT-LB3
And the Winner Is...
In addition to having the longest zoom lens (1.6x), the Epson EB-905 is capable of manual horizontal keystone correction; most projectors in this class can only do vertical keystone correction. It’s also the only projector here that sports a USB port if you wish to do your presentation sans a PC (file conversion tools are provided). A WLAN unit is available as an optional purchase, or you could opt for the 'Quick Wireless Connection USB Key' that plugs to the PC for a quick wireless projection. The other two projectors have no such options. Also, you can do away with an external speaker since the EB-905's on-board 16W speaker goes pretty loud. The only downside is that at 3.35kg, it’s the least portable of the trio. Image-quality-wise, it's hard to fault the 3,000-lumen-rated EB-905 as well. It’s the brightest of the lot, at least on par with the Panasonic PT-LB3, even though the latter has a higher 3,200-lumen rating. Text is sharp and colors are well-saturated. It even excels in video, something that we didn't expect from a data projector. The EB-905's lamp is rated to last for 5,000 hours under normal use, or 6,000 hours under Eco mode.
Canon LV-7390 | Epson EB-905 | Panasonic PT-LB3 | |
---|---|---|---|
Physique | 8.0 | 8.0 | 8.5 |
Features | 8.0 | 9.0 | 7.5 |
User-friendliness | 8.0 | 8.0 | 8.0 |
Performance | 8.5 | 9.0 | 8.0 |
Value | 8.0 | 9.0 | 7.5 |
Overall | 8.5 | 9.0 | 8.0 |
Price | S$1,299 | S$1,499 | S$1,499 |
For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.