InFocus IN26 Projector Menus
Many years ago, InFocus was one of the first projector manufacturers to popularize menus that heavily relied on graphical icons. Over the last year or two, they seem to have moved back toward basic menus, with an emphasis on smaller, less obtrusive menus that are text oriented. That works fine by me. I can think of a few projector brands that use graphics in their menus, that I can't figure out what they represent, and if I can't, how about a novice projector user.
InFocus starts with a very small main menu, shown above, with 3 primary menus. The Picture menu shown to the right, handles the usual brightness, contrast, and color settings (advanced).
In addition, this menu also houses keystone correction controls, selection of Aspect ratio, and the selection of the multiple Presets.
The Presets menu offers users a choice of three main presets - one for Presentations, and one each for Film and Video.
In addition, the InFocus IN26 offers three savable User presets, found on this menu.
That brings us to the third sub-menu; Advanced.
The first grouping of options deals mostly with technical control of the image, things that are normally taken care of automatically, but this menu provides manual control.
Of more interest to users, are the color related controls: Color Space, Color Temperature and the individual Color Controls. The color control menu is shown below.
InFocus IN26 Projector Menus
Shown to the right, is the Color Control menu, offering the usual Gain and Offset controls. Moving right along, the IN26's 2nd primary menu, is the settings menu, immediately below. The IN26's settings menu includes control of source selection, audio, setting up a Startup Logo screen, a custom key, and access to the projector's service menu (not for end users please.) Lastly, the third primary menu is the Info menu, which provides various information about the projector's status - current source, etc.
InFocus IN26 Projector Menus
InFocus IN26 Remote Control
The InFocus remote is very basic. Unlike most other projectors, whos remote's have plenty of buttons to allow quick access to the more widely used controls, InFocus relys almost completely on the menu system.
In fact, the only conrtrol you have besides power and access to the menu system, is the source select button.
In addition, as I noted on the first page, while discussing the InFocus IN26's control panel, InFocus uses a different method of navigating menus, than most other projectors. Whereas most projectors use a four arrow system, and enter key (select), InFocus uses only up and down arrows.
As a result, when you are in a lower level menu, to move back up a level, instead of simply hitting the left arrow which is customary, you need to scroll to the top item on the menu, and then press the Select button.
This definitely adds a few keystrokes. It's not a bad system, and you get used to it quickly, but, ultimately, the traditional four arrow system does save "keystrokes."
Lens Throw
The IN26 projector has a 1.1:1 zoom, basically a minimal zoom. You set the projector up about where it needs to be to just fill your screen perfectly, and use the zoom to fine tune the image size, since you only have a total range of 10% which on typical conference room screens means less than a foot of placement adjustment. For a 100" diagonal screen, the front of the projector can be as close as 13.2 feet to 14.5 feet.
Light Leakage
The InFocus is essentially free of any significant light leakage, definitely among the best of the recent projectors reviewed.
Audible Noise
The IN26 is fairly typical, it claims 35 db in eco-mode. We found the noise levels to be about the same as the Dell 2400MP, Optoma TX700 and the Mitsubishi HD4000 that were all part of this six projector review. Definitely its noisy enough to be easily noticed in a small conference room, but not so noisy that you feel you have to "talk over it". No issue here.
Lamp Life
InFocus publishes a single lamp life spec, regardless of what mode the projector is in. There is no formal "low power" or "eco-mode". They rate the lamp life as 3000 hours. Most competing projectors tend to claim 2000 hours at full power, and 2500-3000 hours in "eco-mode". As a result, the lamp life of the IN26 should be better than the average projector's, yielding a lower cost of operation.
