Epson Home 20 Projector Review - Overview

Posted on June 20, 2006 by Art Feierman

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Epson PowerLite Home 20 Specs
Price	999
Technology	3LCD
Native Resolution	854x480
Brightness (Manufacturer Claim)	1200
Contrast	1,000:1
Zoom Lens Ratio	1.5:1
Lens Shift	Yes
Lamp Life	2000 hours, 3000 hours in Theater Black 1, 2 modes
Weight	7.8 lbs
Warranty	2 years parts and labor, with overnight replacement

Epson has been the world leader in designing and building poly-si LCD panels for projectors, for quite some time. They provide these LCD panels to most of the world's LCD projector manufacturers. It's no surprise, therefore that Epson's entire projector lineup uses LCD technology, while many other manufacturers offer product lines with both LCD and DLP technology and in some cases LCOS technology.

The Epson Home 20 home theater projector is no exception. The Home 20 is Epson's very affordable entry level home theater projector.

As of this writing, it is also (I believe) the least expensive dedicated home theater projector on the market. With a normal selling price of $999 or less, and a current $200 mail in rebate, users can purchase an Epson Home 20 for less than $800! And if that wasn't enough, it also currently comes with an 80" diagonal screen, for that price!

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In many ways, the Epson Home 20 shares features and capabilities of their more expensive Cinema series projectors, but it is a lower resolution (480p) projector with 854x480 resolution (WVGA), typical of entry level projectors. It is also the leading LCD "powered" entry level projector, in an entry level market that more and more dominated by DLP projectors.

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The Epson offers particularly good color out of the box, and appears to be solidly built. (Epson is known for exceptional reliability, and also excellent customer support. On the downside, being a lower resolution LCD projector, it has more visible pixel structure than the competition, which we will explore in depth, thoughout this review.