The UHL55 UHD Smart Home projector is the perfect solution if you are looking for a great looking home entertainment projector. The dual 8W speakers can fill the room with sounds while the 1500 lumens of brightness delivers a stunning image that can be measured in feet. You can set the UHL55 on your coffee table and enjoy a wonderful movie night, easily store it away.
Equipped with autofocus and keystone, the UHL55 is ready to projector where ever you would like to bring it. You could quickly pull it out for a big-screen football experience or use it in the bonus room as a gaming display. The Optima UHL55 supports all the major projector modes, and you could ceiling mount it as well. It's a very feature-rich projector.
We will start this review of the Optoma UHL55 Smart Home Projector with a quick overview. Then we will go through some highlights. Then I will go through the special features of the UHL55 in detail. We will also tour the hardware as well as go through the picture quality and performance. Once finished, I will sum it all up for you on the last page. Once you get to the end of the review, you should have a very good idea about whether or not the Optoma UHL55 is the right projector for your home entertainment needs. That being said, let us get on to the review.
The Optoma UHL55 4K UHD Smart Home Projector is a fantastic deal at $999. It will exceed all of your home entertainment needs and then some. The UHL55 is 1500 ANSI Lumens. That's a strong statement. When a manufacturer uses the term “ANSI” in their brightness specification that is in reference to the American National Standards Institute, it is a very precise measurement technique using nine different points in the image. I am excited to measure the brightness and see how close it comes to the specification. As the Optoma UHL55 is LED, the colors will be extra saturated and look amazing. The increased saturation makes the image appear much brighter to your eyes. Many in the industry feel that LED brightness appears 2 to 3 times as bright as traditional lamps.
The light source of the Optoma UHL55 4K UHD Smart Home projector is LED. On the specification sheet, it's rated as RGBB. That should stand for Red, Green, Blue, Blue. I do enjoy that they list out the different LED colors they use. We should see some great images with an extra blue LED. While you only need Red Green and Blue. Having the extra blue will help the blue color levels, without sacrificing the red or green. There are lots of tricks manufacturers can play with LED’s to increase brightness, but they are all at a cost. Having an extra blue as the Optoma UHL55 does is a great solution to boost the blues while keeping the vibrant greens and reds.
Photo from Baywatch on UHL55
The RGB light engine of the Optoma UHL55 is rated at 30,000 hours in eco mode or 20,000 hours in bright mode. Those are really huge numbers. That's years of movie watching and game playing. Realistically when you look at how often you use your projector and how long it will take you to get to 30,000 hours. These long-lasting LED projectors could be one of the last you ever purchase. Soon it will be content and resolution that will have to drive an upgrade.
Earth on Netflix 4k
Powered by an LED light source the UHL55 delivers a stunning 250,000:1 contrast ratio. This should allow for some spectacular greyscale reproduction and great performance in low light scenes. Using LED’s has some huge advantages. As they are so fast and can be turned on an off practically in an instant, projectors can claim huge contrast numbers.
Audio is an important feature in projectors. They are to be seen, not heard. The Optoma UHL55 is specified at 28db and delivers a great image quietly. Very quietly. It is also equipped with two stereo 8W speakers in what I would guess would be a tuned enclosure, looking at the size of the projector. The sound coming from the Optima UHL 4K UHD Smart Home projector is great. It will fill a yard with sounds as you enjoy a movie by the pool.
