Infocus X10 projector

For many home cinema buffs, “1080p” and “less than £1000” will be all they need to hear to get them scrabbling for the plastic, but the X10 actually has a great deal more to offer than price alone. Its 1200 ANSI lumens output is more than adequate for home cinema and its native 2500:1 contrast ratio can be boosted to 7500:1 by means of a manual iris adjustment.

Designed with ceiling mounting in mind, all the inputs are labelled such that they'd be upside-down if you were to use the projector on a coffee table. Composite- and s-video are provided, along with component video, HDMI and, that favourite of InFocus, the M1-DA port, which can be used in conjunction with a supplied adaptor to enable a PC connection via DVI or VGA. This should allow you to hook up just about any kind of kit capable of putting out a video signal.

The ports are clearly labeled, but a second HDMI port would've been nice

A second HDMI port would have been nice, but at this price we’re more than happy to make do with the M1-DA port and whatever adaptors we may need to get that second digital input going.

With 10-bit video processing and HDMI 1.3 support, the X10 is set to take advantage of the highest quality digital inputs. It can display up to 1.07bn colours, and Texas Instruments’ BrilliantColor technology is available to boost image brightness according to your preference – although ours is to leave such features disabled.

Of course, on a budget projector like this you’re not going to get motorised image adjustments or any form of mechanical lens shift, but the X10’s large, chunky cog-like manual controls are easy enough to use and a digital vertical image shift is provided.