LG CF181D: Bottom Line Sharpness

Posted on February 20, 2010 by Art Feierman

About as sharp as LCoS or 3LCD projectors get. I was generally very pleased when watching movies. On 1080i sports, I could have wished for a touch more perceived sharpness, but I'm not complaining. If you want a projector that appears to be sharper, you are going to have to stick with single chip DLPs. Bottom line, no issue here!

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Light Leakage

No issues to report. Very little light detectable anywhere but a fan vent, and not enough to even remotely be considered an issue. Through the lens leakage is extremely minimal, better, than, say, the leakage on the JVCs, which do typically leak a bit of light. Of course, it's more noticeable on the JVC's since their blacks are so much blacker. Still, nothing to be concerned with here.

LG CF181D Image Noise

General image noise has not been an issue. However, strange flickering has been ocurring, most notably while watching several of the Olympics segments. Further investigation...

LG CF181D Audible Noise

The LG is fairly typical of LCoS projectors. Noise levels are acceptable, but a good deal noisier than the quietest projectors (such as the Panasonic PT-AE4000, and the Mitsubishi LCD based projectors), but still quieter than any of the DLP projectors out there, and perhaps, a touch quieter than some other LCoS projctors At full lamp power, some of those folks especially audio noise adverse may not be happy with the audible noise, but it should not be an issue for the vast majority.

LG claims 23 db in low power (eco) mode. I put full power noise (estimated) at 27 to 29 db.

Bottom line on noise - few will have any issue with the LG, and for those really, really noise adverse, well, the LG's 23 db in eco mode, would be considered very quiet, and the LG in eco mode is still brighter than all but a very few projectors running at full power. Not to worry!