Sony VPL-HW40ES Projector Review – Hardware Tour 2

Sony’s  VPL-HW40ES remote control is very familiar.  In fact, with only two exceptions, it is identical to the HW55ES’s remote.  The first is that the HW40ES has an amber blacklight, rather than blue.  Personally I prefer the blue color esthetically, but find the amber easier to read in a dark theater.  The other difference is one of the buttons, which is now labeled Contrast Enhancer while on the HW55ES remote it’s Advanced Iris.  Well, with no iris on the HW40ES that change was necessary.

Here’s the rundown on all those buttons, and here’s a photo of the remote to follow along:

The Sony VPL- remote control with a moderately bright amber LED light when you press the top left button.  The light seems to stay on for about 30 seconds when pressed.  That’s a bit long by my taste, 10-15 seconds being optimal I would think.

Next button, in the center top row is the input selector.  Although there’s an auto sensing feature, it seems to have trouble distinguishing between the two HDMI inputs.  So, at least with the remote,  pressing that Input button once brings up the list of inputs, each additional time the input button is pressed, it moves through the list to the next source.  Leave it in the one you want, and the projector will switch to it in a few seconds.  Power is the upper right button, in green.  As is most common, press once for on, twice for off.

On the next section of the remote control, there are the same nine buttons as the HW55ES, for the 8 pre programmed picture modes, and the last one is the User button (which we save the calibrated settings in).

Navigation is next.  The four navigation arrows are in a round formation.  Three other button bars surround them.  The bottom one is the menu.  The upper left has a test pattern adjusting focus, over scan and other lens functions.  Opposite on the right is the Reset button.  I thought it a strange place.  Don’t worry, pressing it once won’t get you into trouble, in fact it seems only to bring up a small “Not Applicable” message.

The next section has 9 buttons, including direct access to most of the image controls.  I’ll just run through top row first, left to right:

• Aspect Ratio, Motion Enhancer, 3D
• Color Space, Color Temp, 3D
• Gamma Correction, Contrast Enhancer,  Reality Creation

That leaves only the very bottom buttons which consist of three rocker switches:  Sharpness, Brightness, and Contrast.  Contrast Enhancer is what I would call a really minor feature.  I’d say it only earns a button on the remote control because this Sony remote doesn’t have an iris or an iris control.

Nice remote control (again)!