Epson Home Cinema 1080 and Pro Cinema 1080 Projector Reviews: Summary, Pros, Cons - 1

By the way, some local dealers will install projectors you buy elsewhere, but, don't you worry, if they are doing your room, they will almost certainly recoup most of the savings you made shopping online. It's logical, and it's fair. Also, if you buy your projector elsewhere, and there are issues with it, the local dealer, who primarily works on an hourly basis, is going to be charging you for all the extra time, working with the defective product. When you buy the equipment directly from them, their obligation is to check everything out in advance, so if, say a projector is defective, they would be expected to replace it, without charging you for the lost time. Ultimately you make the call. OK, time to summarize - remember, we only tested the Home version, but, from a technical standpoint, the two projectors have the same "engine", so even though they have different menus, and some other differences, from a performance standpoint they should be close to identical.

Epson Cinema 1080 Pros

• Lowest Cost 1080p projector (Home version)
• Brightest1080p projector (both versions) under $10K (so far) in brightest mode
• Very good brightness in "best mode"
• Very good black level performance
• Very good warranty (2 years) for the Home Cinema version (includes overnight replacement program
• Industry best warranty for the Pro Cinema version: 3 years with overnight replacement program
• Lots of user savable settings (both)
• Very good color out of the box (but best modes should have color temp set for 6500K, instead of defaults)
• ISF Certified, and support for ISF Day Night modes (Pro Cinema 1080 only)
• Tremendous placement flexibility (both models), including 2.1:1 zoom lens, and vertical (with lots of range) and horizontal lens shift
• Good remote control
• Very good menu system
• First affordable 1080p projector to support HDMI 1.3, which means more color depth, and more shades of colors for smooth images, noticeable in skin textures, sky color, etc.
• Support for 1080p 24fps
• Excellent price performance (Home version)
• Better than average physical appearance (generally - a good looking projector)
• 12 volt screen trigger

Epson Cinema 1080 Cons

• Noisy when lamp is in full power mode (note no noisier than a couple other "loud" 1080p projectors
• If ceiling mounted, projector must be unmounted to replace lamp
• Only one HDMI input
• Although sharpness is definitely acceptable, room for improvement compared to competition.