Sony VPL-VW40 Home Theater Projector Review - General Performance

Posted on February 11, 2008 by Art Feierman

VW40 Menus

Images and commentary to be posted shortly. Meantime, the VW40 and VW60 share almost identical menus, and operation. For now, follow this link to the VW60's review to learn about the menus.

VW40 User Memory Settings

The Sony VPL-VW40 has three main user savable settings in the Mode area, in addition to Cinema, Standard, and Dynamic. Further, there are three custom settings for Color Temperature. These can be integrated into the Custom mode settings.

The Sony's user defined modes will also retain settings for most other controls such as Iris, Gamma, Brightness, Contrast, and more.

All considered, the Sony VPL-VW40 is better than average in terms of ability to save your favorite preferences.

VW40 Projector - Remote Control

Click to Enlarge.So close

The VPL-VW40 remote control is identical to the VW60's, with more buttons and control than the one that accompanied the VW50. Overall, I liked using the remote a great deal. Not my favorite, but very good.

From right to left, across the top, you'll find a green Power button (press once for on, twice for off), in the middle top, the Input select, and on the left, the backlight button (note - none of the buttons on the top row light up).

Next comes two rows of three, mostly image quality controls, from left to right: Color Space, Color Temp, Black Level. On the next row: Gamma, Advanced Iris, and Lens (lens controls focus, zoom and vertical lens shift, and brings up a green test pattern for focusing and placement).

Further down you'll find the reset on the right, and the four arrow keys with center Enter button for menu navigation. Right below that is the wide Menu button itself.

The next row offers Aspect ratio, RCP (color management) and Adj. Picture buttons, which lets you toggle through most picture options, in sequence.

After a wide space, the next row has three buttons: Cinema, Standard, and Dynamic. The following row has User 1, 2, and 3, for all your favorite saved presets.

Lastly there is a row of rocker switches: One each for Sharpness, Brightness, and Contrast.

Buttons are larger than on many remotes, so the remote should work well even for those with really large hands. The range of the remote is very good. I had no problem getting more than 25 feet range including a bounce off of my screen, when using it in my theater room.

Click Image to Enlarge