Epson EH-TW5300 Home Cinema Projector Review: Ideal For Home Entertainment

Epson EH TW5300

The Epson EH – Tw5300 Home Cinema Projector is for people who are trying to bring a big screen experience home on a meaningful budget. It is a device that will be ideal for a first time home entertainment experience buyer. We spent time with device. Here is our review of this projector

Epson EH TW5300

The design is very practical and does not hurt the eye at all. The device comes featuring a glossy white plastic outer shell, with a lot of curves to keep it pleasing to the beholder. There’s a small opening in the top where you’ll find the 1.2x zoom and manual focus controls, plus a slider for controlling lens shift (which you’ll need if you have the projector at an angle).

Setting the projector up is quite literally child’s play. Connect the HDMI from your player or stick in a USB stick, power up and you are ready to go!  Zoom and focus settings are manual, given the price point, that is fair enough and manageable! The pair of levers near the lens help you to set these up at the optimal values, once you get used to it, it is a breeze! To get an image that is properly rectangular, you can use the keystone setting. To get this done, there is a slider near the lens for horizontal keystone adjustment. For vertical keystone adjustment, there are need to use the buttons.

It comes with two HDMI inputs (one with MHL support for smartphones),and the usual options for VGA, composite video and USB. There is a single audio out for shifting sound away from the built-in 5W mono speaker. We connected it to our handy speaker systems and the output was pretty neat and clean.

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The Epson EH-TW5300 comes in really portable dimensions of 297‎ x 245 x 114 mm, and weighs a very manageable 2.9kg. The throw ratio varies between 1,22 – 1,47:1. That means that you can get a picture of width 2,5m with only 3m between projector and screen. The device can be used as a ceiling mounted projector, or on the table in your living room.

It has three LCD panels (one each for red, blue, green) and each of these panels has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The light from the lamp passes through all the panels to create an image which is then projected using the lens system. When said like that, it may sound really simple, but in reality, implementing it with circuitry is very complicated and Epson excels here. Absolutely brilliant colors, brightness and brilliant contrast. Very crisp and perfectly clear.

The menu of the projector is accessible with the remote control and also through the top panel of the projector. The projector can be coupled with RF glasses for 3D viewing. The Epson 3D RF glasses come with a micro USB input for recharging the integrated battery. The glasses can be recharged extremely fast: 5 minutes of charge is enough to watch a whole movie.

The EH-TW5300 also packs some rather impressive specs for its price,a  2,200-lumen brightness, 35,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and a lamp life of up to 7,000 hours. That lamp life figure is rather impressive given the price of the projector. This one will run long and serve you well.

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The nice thing about this projector is the sheer number of options you have, you can plug it into a myriad of sources ranging from your average DVD player to a Blu-Ray player to your computer and even a USB stick. Please note that the USB stick should be NTFS format and not FAT32.

There is the very wonderful and awfully entertaining option of watching 3D movies. You have two ways of doing this, the first one is to convert an existing 2D movie or video into 3D using the projector and watch it. The other option is to hook the projector up to a 3D DVD or 3D BR player and use it. And the device excels in both. Most devices that we have seen tend to lose out on the brightness or contrast when 2D is converted to 3D, this one does a brilliant job.

We hooked it up with the home audio system and found that the sound quality delivered was also theater quality, absolutely nothing to complain there. The most important feature is the fact that the lamp has a long life and being the most important part of the projector, this is a great deal.

For us, the key USPs of this device are it’s high-brightness, 3-LCD technology, 3D capability, dual HDMI with MHL input, the fact that it is small & lightweight, comes with a built in lens cover, features an ultra-long 7,500 hour lamp life. It would have been great if the 3D glasses were part of the package, they cost about 6399 to buy separately

The price of Rs 76,279/- is a big brilliant stroke. Anyone who can’t spend one lakh and above to get a projector installed at home can now easily get this one. Out of the box, this is a very good first time projector. Even with very little changes to settings, it delivers quality! This is definitely a good value for money buy! If it’s in your wheelhouse, go for it!

 

About Shakthi

I am a Tech Blogger, Disability Activist, Keynote Speaker, Startup Mentor and Digital Branding Consultant. Also a McKinsey Executive Panel Member. Also known as @v_shakthi on twitter. Been around Tech for two decades now.

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