Epson Home Cinema 3010e Projector
I didn't see the sample Home Cinema 3010e in action the other day, just the standard 3010. As a result, I'll repeat much of the First Look, that I wrote for the 3010e here, but discuss the differences.
9/2/2011 - Art Feierman
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Epson Home Cinema 3010e
The Home Cinema 3010e has a price of $1799, $200 more than the Home Cinema 3010. WirelessHD is the fundamental difference between the two versions. With the Home Cinema 3010e, Wireless HD is in addition to 3D capabilities.
The Epson is a good looking projector, even before turned on. It's mostly white, as are all Epson Home Cinema projectors, but the large front vents are dark gray, which looks good, and also limits any reflections of light from bouncing back to the screen.
I've been writing about, and screaming for wireless HDMI which is essentially what the WirelessHD consortium has provided. There are a great many companies in the consortium, including Sony, LG, Panasonic, and Visio to name some familiar brands. Just imagine, if you are ceiling mounting your projector, or rear wall mounting it, if you use WirelessHD with your sources, all you'll need to wire to your projector is power. This can bring about drastic savings in your installation. In my last house, it cost me well over $2000 paid to installers to run all my wires. Had I been able to use WirelessHD instead, my costs probably would have dropped to about $600 - $800!
The Home Cinema 3010e, also offers sound - the two 10 watt speakers easily filled the conference room we were in, and since the Epson has an audio out, you can easily add a small powered subwoofer, to fill out the low end, and "rock the house".
- Brightness: 2200 lumens
- Contrast: 40,000:1
- 2D and 3D
- 480hz LCD panels for that extra brightness and other benefits
- WirelessHD - can save a lot of hassle and expense
- Split screen capability - two side by side images (2D only)
- 7 total color modes, including 2 for 3D (Cinema and Dynamic)
- Two year warranty with replacement program
- Two built in 10 watt speakers - handy if you are moving it around, and if I recall correctly, an audio output so you can plug in a nice powered sub-woofer to rock the house
- Shipping in October, being reviewed in Sept.
- 13.2 pounds
Here's a paraphrased version of some of what I said about the Picture Quality of the engineering sample of the 3010, which should apply precisely to this 3010e as well:
Home Cinema 3010e Projector - Picture Quality
I'll need to see the 3010e in my theater, to make a better assessment. Based on the 3010, the color should be pretty good, but I'd really like to have it calibrated and compare the before and after.
While 2D viewing was brief (on the 3010), and only on an 80" screen,both are capable of a dazzlingly bright image, even in its "best" mode. I don't know if the Epson Home Cinema 3010e will deliver the 2200 lumens claimed, but based on the fact that the Epson uses the same Epson panels as the twice the price Panasonic, I'm looking for the Home Cinema 3010 to deliver at least 2000 lumens.
Just want a good looking picture, and don't care about calibrating it? I wouldn't worry. I expect the out-of-the-box picture quality to be pretty good. For those who will want to tweak it, Epson typically provides very good color controls.
At the very least - this is a step up from the Epson 8350, which I believe Epson says is the best selling home theater projector in the US (I can't confirm that), and which lacks speakers, lacks split screen technology, and so on.
Take your pick: 3D on the 3010, or for $1799 ($200 more) the the Home Cinema 3010e will deliver 3D and the WirelessHD.
Bring it on Epson, Mike's waiting to calibrate it, and I am ready to see how good an even better pre-production model will perform. Since I'm expecting a review unit in Sept, and first shipments are called for October, I conclude that my first review projector will still be pre-production.