Optoma HD81 Home Theater Projector Review – Image Quality-4

HD81 Sharpness

I was actually surprised here. The competition – BenQ’s W10000, like the lower resolution PE-8720 have exhibitied superb sharpness. Historically Optoma projectors competing with BenQ’s have been a touch softer. (example HD-7100 vs. BenQ PE-8720). Of course, in fairness, the Optoma models are traditionally less expensive than the BenQ’s. This time around the HD81 is a $1000 more than the BenQ.

Depending on settings, relating to sharpness (sharpness controls, edge enhancement, etc.) you can actually go from one being the tiniest bit sharper, to the other one. For example, BenQ’s default sharpness is 3, but I find it oversharpens, and I adjusted it to the one setting. When I ran the BenQ at 1, against the default Edge Enhancement setting on the HD81 of 2 (out of off, 1-5), the HD81 has a very small advantage. However I ended up preferring the 1 setting on the HD81 as well, and here they were about as close to a tie as one can imagine.