The image quality from the W500 is very good indeed. It produces a sharp picture with good colour depth and contrast, while skin tones look noticeably more life-like than those produced by competitors such as Samsung’s SP400B.
However, this level of quality was not achieved without some tweaking of settings. When viewed side-by-side with some competing models our opinion on which projector looked best changed many times as we made alterations via the configuration menu.
The W500 uses LCD technology rather than the ever-popular DLP system
Most important when viewing movies was to leave the dynamic iris function enabled. The improvement this achieved was more noticeable on the W500 than on many other projectors and without it, black levels looked really un-impressive. However, once enabled the picture quality was easily among the best we’ve seen. Other than that setting, we liked the picture best with all the remaining image enhancements left disabled. This W500’s use of LCD technology has one major advantage – and that’s the absence of the so-called rainbow effect often noticed with DLP projectors. Some people seem to notice this unpleasant coloured banding more than others, so if you are one of these unfortunate individuals, the W500 is going to be streets ahead of a DLP projector for you.
Yes it’s “only” a 720p projector, but there’s much more to image quality then sheer pixel resolution. We feel that, for the price, most users will be more than satisfied with the images the W500 can deliver.
COMMENTS
LCD vs DLP
Does anyone know how this compares to the Optoma HD700X? That one is under £400 at Amazon, but it's DLP and I'm nervous about seeing wheel artifacts.
Well
You certainly win points for the jelly tots reference :-)
Price isn't bad but the Panasonic I've got is so much brighter that I think it's worth the extra cash.
Excellent projector...
Got mine last Xmas after the TV packed up (was £300 more back then but still worth it at that price). One of my friends with the 48" plasma TV he bought 3 years ago for close to £3k is still green with envy... it makes his monster of a TV look tiny and for a fraction of the price.
Biggest problem is the natural light, I had to get proper blackout blinds in order to use the projector when the sun is out fully during the day.
When all is said and done, invite the friends over, get the popcorn going and watch films wall sized.
Or for any gamers considering one... have you ever tried a 4 player console game on one TV? Found yourself squinting at a quarter of a TV screen from the sofa? Get one of these and then a quarter of your wall is probably bigger than the entire TV screen it replaced ;)
Oh and the free Xbox it comes bundled with is the Arcade version for anyone wondering.
optoma hd-65
you can pick this up for about 420 quid, its 720p and DLP and brighter than this IIRC. I run mine off a philips hmdi upscaling dvd player (a whole 60 quid) and play onto a 120" screen (thats like just under 3m wide). fantastic picture.
