Epson PowerLite L400U Installation Laser Projector Review – Hardware 2

Epson PowerLite L400U Projector Review – Hardware 2: Control Panel, Remote Control, The Menus

The Epson PowerLite L400U Installation Laser Projector comes equipped with a simple control panel, locate at the rear of the projector. When the included cable cover is attached, the control panel is not accessible and the projector must be controlled via the remote control, Crestron or Control4 command and control systems.

The control panel is fairly basic, consisting of only 10 buttons. There is a power button on the left side of the panel, four buttons and a circular directional keypad. Starting with the bottom and moving clockwise, we find a button for A/V Mute, which turns off the light source and mutes audio. Next, we find Source Search, which detects and switches to active media sources.  In the 10-11 o’clock position we find Menu, which pulls up the full menu system this projector has to offer. In the 1-2 o’clock position, lives the Escape button.

The directional keypad consists of four arrow keys and an Enter button in the center. The Up Arrow doubles as a shortcut to Quick Corner Geometric Correction, the Right Arrow accesses the Information menu. The Down Arrow is quick access to the large compliment of built-in test patterns, assisting in achieving optimal color and fitment to your screen, and the Left Arrow doubles as a shortcut to the Security menu.

The six LED indicator lights are located on the top of the projector toward the front – pretty much the opposite corner from the control panel, and not always seen clearly when manipulating the control panel. They’re designed to be clearly visible when ceiling mounted, to assist with troubleshooting a maintenance concerns. These indicator lights are laid out in a single row, and are, bottom to top, On/Standby, Status, Laser, Temperature, Filter, and WLAN.

The remote control included with the Epson PowerLite L400U is the same remote Epson uses for their other PowerLite series projectors, and most of their business and education projectors for that matter. That’s good, familiarity, ease of use and all that – it also comes with the two AA batteries required to power it. But it still doesn’t have a backlight! With a list price of $2,499, it would really be nice for the remote to have a backlight, but it’s not the end of the world, given the expected applications this projector would be used for. Most settings would be taken care of before needing to turn the lights down for an audience – not that you really need to turn the lights down with a brightness claim of 4,500, but you get what I’m saying.

Okay, back to the remote and the layout thereof. The top section has a blue power button in the upper left with the standard one push on, two push off configuration. The top right corner has a Source Search button to scan the active media sources. Below that are four buttons with shortcuts to sources: Computer, HDMI, USB and LAN.

The next section is a ten-digit number pad; 1, 2, 3, followed by 4, 5 6, followed by 7 8 9. The next row has “Num,” which when held down toggles the numeric keypad to their alternate functions. Zero, of course is in the middle, followed by “ID” on the right, which allows the user to toggle between different Epson projectors. Several of the numbers in the numeric keypad have alternate functions, accessed with the “Num” button; these are 6 (Link Menu), 7 (Auto),8 (Aspect), 9 (Color Mode), and 0 (Pen Mode).

Following that, we find a directional keypad with Up, Down, Left and Right arrows with Enter in the center. There are four small buttons surrounding the directional keypad, laid in like corners. Starting with the top left and moving clockwise, we find Menu, Escape, Pointer and User. The User button is, by default, set to access the Light Source menu, allowing you to switch between Normal, Quiet, Extended, and Custom. The User button is, of course, programmable and changes can be made via the Settings menu.

Below the directional keypad are three pairs of up/down, increase/decrease type buttons.  Left to right, they are Page, E-Zoom, and Volume.  Below that are A/V Mute, Split (Split Screen), and Freeze, followed by Home.

That wraps it up for our tour of the PowerLite L400U’s hardware.  Now, we move on to a discussion of this projector’s picture and audio quality.  See you on the next page!