InFocus IN5148HD Projector Review - Summary

Summary

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The InFocus IN5148HD is business/installation class projector with multimedia capabilities. It offers built-in support for displaying Microsoft Office files as well as photos and videos either from a USB flash drive or that have been loaded into the projector’s internal 4GB flash memory.

It offer built-in networking support for both connections to a wired LAN (Ethernet) and for a HDBaseT (A/V enabled) network.  Wireless connectivity requires use on a optional accessory that costs about $300.

In terms of the projector’s performance, the IN5148HD  projects a picture that has excellent image sharpness with the individual pixels fully resolved from corner-to-corner.  The 'Video' preset picture mode provided good color quality but with a little lower than ideal color temperature.  I did note that in virtually all of the factory picture modes, the color temperature tracked very well across the grey scale.

The 'User' picture mode had a somewhat higher than ideal color temperature using the factory default settings.  I found the user adjustments for red, blue and green gains did not function as they should which made calibration for an ideal 6500K color temperature not possible across the full grey scale.  However, the 'White Intensity' setting could be lowered to create a custom user picture mode that offered a improved balance between the brightness of the whites as compared to the saturated colors.

While InFocus rates the brightness at 5000 lumens in full power mode, I found the brightest configuration measured closer to 4600 white lumens ('Bright' picture mode, full power lamp mode and with the zoom set to maximum), but that picture mode had poor color.  This projector has a large drop off in brightness when set for best color accuracy with under 2000 white lumens and around 1500 lumens of color brightness, at mid-zoom.  For more information on White Brightness vs. Color Brightness see our short video – HERE.

The projector's two built-in 10 watt speakers produce adequate volume for use in a moderate size conference room.  As is the case with most business projectors there is no real bass, but the speakers in the IN5148HD sounded better than what is typical with most smaller, portable business projectors.  For use in larger venues where greater volume level are required, there is the always the option of using an external powered speaker system instead of the projector's built-in speakers.

The IN5148HD received our Special Interest Award as an affordable (~$4000 street price) installation class projector offering a very sharp image with full HD resolution, good image quality in the best picture modes, and a good feature set including multimedia capabilities.

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Pros & Cons

PROS –

• Business/Installation class projector at a reasonable street price (just over $4000)
• Excellent image sharpness and excellent focus across the entire image
• Good color accuracy in the best available picture modes
• Good performance from the projector's built-in speakers
• low maintenance with no air filter to replace
• reasonably good image contrast for a business class projector (a little better than most competing 3LCD business/education projectors but still well below most home theater class projectors)
• good multimedia support for computer-free presentations from files stored in the projector's 4GB internal memory or on an attached USB flash drive
• HDBaseT support built-in