Samsung SP-A600 Projector – Image Quality3

Bottom Line for Overall Picture Quality and Color Handling: Very good, and particularly good considering the low price of this Samsung projector. That said, it’s black level performance could use some definite improvement. I still feel that superior black levels are key to a superior picture. You might not appreciate the difference on typical daytime or indoor scenes, on those dark scenes, be they night time, or outer space, or an unlit room, better black levels make a crucial improvement! The lack of those more impressive black levels leave the SP-A600’s performance strictly in the 1080p entry level category. Of course that’s where its priced.

The other issue is gamma. Default for Movie 1 gamma is Film which should measure 2.2, but comes in at a very high 2.56, which makes the mid-brightness areas too dark. Switching to the Video gamma helps, but goes too far the other way: 2.04. Still I suspect most folks will, for most movies, prefer the Video setting, although it means images will likely appear a little less dynamic looking.