Epson Powerlite 1735W Portable Projector

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Art Feierman

Epson Powerlite 1735W Remote Control

The 1735W’s remote is well laid out, allowing easy access to the most used functions. There is an on-screen pointer can be brought up by a button push on the remote and then moved around with the arrow keys. Similarly, other buttons control the electronic zoom, presentation pages and speaker volume.

If external speakers are connected to the audio out, the remote’s Volume control will control them as well. The buttons are not backlit, but that can be distracting during a presentation where the remote may be in constant use.

If I were to complain about anything, it would be that the buttons for the various functions mentioned above are all the same size, making it difficult to locate them by touch. In a darkened room, it can be an issue selecting the correct button unless you’re very familiar with the remote’s layout. Fortunately, this is a 3000 lumen projector, and if the room is really dark, it's probably because the projector is handling a room and screen suitable for 150 plus people.

The numbers on the remote are used for security, and for configuring networking as needed. Each of those buttons has other functions as well.

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Lens Throw

The 1.2:1 throw range of the Epson Powerlite 1735W is rather typical of lightweight, sub-five pound projectors. If you need more placement flexibility, you'll most likely need to go to a larger projector in the 6-8 pound range, and even there, many only offer 1.2:1 throw ratio. A limited zoom like this is more to let you exactly fill the screen, once you have placed the projector approximately where it needs to be.

The manual, for some reason, does not provide precise measurements from lens to screen, and even its one attempt, is only for a 4:3 aspect ratio screen.

For a 100" 16:9 diagonal screen (16:10 screens are rare), you can place the front of the projector as close as 86 inches as far back as 105 inches. For a 4:3 100 inch screen the ranges are 95" and 115".

Mac users planning on installing one of these projectors take note, the user manual does not provide precise placement information. To get this information I had to call the dedicated "Private Line" support number. Epson does provide a downloadable throw distance calculator, but so far, it's only available for Windows not Mac.

Lens Shift

We are not aware of any lightweight portable projectors with lens shift, and this Epson is no exception. Use keystone correction as needed to get a rectangular image. Since keystone correction does slightly distort the information, best not to use it when displaying really small type (under 12 points), and suffer a slightly trapizoidal image. For those long in-house meetings, better to have razor sharp text, and a slightly non-rectangular image, than softer, harder to read small type.