Optoma EP753

The Optoma EP753 provides a level of performance and features that easily justifies its price.

Although Optoma might not have as high a profile in the UK as projector manufacturers such as InFocus or ASK Proxima, it's been producing and selling products worldwide since 1991.

The latest addition to its range is the EP753, a compact data projector with considerable appeal.

It might not be a sub-2kg ultraportable, but it's still very compact, weighing only 2.9kg thanks to a lightweight magnesium alloy chassis. It's driven by a single-chip Texas Instruments Digital Light Pipe engine, which provides a native resolution of 1,024 x 768 pixels.

What's even more impressive is the level of brightness provided by this product's lamp, which is rated by the manufacturer at 1,600 ANSI lumens and is more than enough for presentations in typical ambient office lighting.

Its larger form factor also allows for more effective cooling, making it much quieter than most ultraportables.

A wide range of connectivity options are provided, with both 15-pin VGA and DVI-I ports for analogue and digital PC connections, as well as S-Video and composite for standard A/V equipment.

There's a VGA pass-through for driving an additional display, as well as an RS232 port for connecting a mouse. The projector's 1.2X zoom lens provides a throw range of 1.1m to 12.4m, with an equivalent screen size of 22 to 305in., respectively.

The projector's single 3W speaker provides audio output where external amplifiers are unavailable.

The primary controls are located on the top of the projector, with dedicated signal select, auto-calibration and volume controls sitting alongside a cursor-style menu interface that provides quick and logical access to additional settings, such as brightness, contrast and keystone correction.

Image quality is very good indeed, with excellent uniformity and none of the misconvergence between colours that can affect LCD-type projectors.

The benefits of a contrast ratio of 600:1 are clear, with good tonal reproduction. Our only criticism would the auto-calibration feature, which left slight noise (phase jitter) on our test images which manual adjustment failed to correct.

Price: £2,126 (ex. VAT)

Specifications:

Display: Digital Light Pipe
Native resolution: 1,024 x 768
Contrast ratio: 600:1
ANSI Lumens: 1,600
I/O: VGA, DVI-I, S-Video, composite, RS232

Contact: Optoma 01923 691 800
www.optomaeurope.com