Apple Watch Review

The Apple Watch is an extraordinarily small and personal device. It is designed to participate in nearly every moment of your day, but almost never directly interact with anyone else. It knows when you’re wearing it. You can talk to it. You can poke it — and it can poke back.

Every so often, the Apple Watch thinks about your heartbeat.

But the Apple Watch is also an enormous device. It’s the first entirely new Apple product in five years, and the first Apple product developed after the death of Steve Jobs. It’s full of new hardware, new software, and entirely new ideas about how the worlds of fashion and technology should intersect.

It’s also the first smartwatch that might legitimately become a mainstream product, even as competitors flood the market. Apple has the marketing prowess, the retail store network, and the sheer determination to actually make this thing happen.

It just has to answer one question: would you actually use the Apple Watch instead of your phone?


Walk It Off
Notifications, Music, Apple Pay
Fashion Technology
Featuring Racked
Lost in the Meeting Zone
Messaging, Siri, Digital Touch
Business Time
Apps and Performance
Work It Out
Health, Fitness, Activity Tracker
Twilight of Attention
Featuring Eater
Back to Base
Battery Life, Thoughts, Feelings
Credits

The Apple Watch is an extraordinarily small and personal device. It is designed to participate in nearly every moment of your day, but almost never directly interact with anyone else. It knows when you’re wearing it. You can talk to it. You can poke it — and it can poke back.

Every so often, the Apple Watch thinks about your heartbeat.

But the Apple Watch is also an enormous device. It’s the first entirely new Apple product in five years, and the first Apple product developed after the death of Steve Jobs. It’s full of new hardware, new software, and entirely new ideas about how the worlds of fashion and technology should intersect.

It’s also the first smartwatch that might legitimately become a mainstream product, even as competitors flood the market. Apple has the marketing prowess, the retail store network, and the sheer determination to actually make this thing happen.

It just has to answer one question: would you actually use the Apple Watch instead of your phone?


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HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Let’s just get this out of the way: the Apple Watch, as I reviewed it for the past week and a half, is kind of slow. There’s no getting around it, no way to talk about all of its interface ideas and obvious potential and hints of genius without noting that sometimes it stutters loading notifications. Sometimes pulling location information and data from your iPhone over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi takes a long time. Sometimes apps take forever to load, and sometimes third-party apps never really load at all. Sometimes it’s just unresponsive for a few seconds while it thinks and then it comes back.


Apple tells me that upcoming software updates will address these performance issues, but for right now, they’re there, and they’re what I’ve been thinking about every morning as I get ready for work. Wearing a smartwatch like the Apple Watch is a far deeper commitment than carrying a smartphone in your pocket; you are literally putting the technology on your body and allowing it to touch and measure you while you display it to the rest of the world. Committing to technology that’s a little slow to respond to you is dicey at best, especially when it’s supposed to step in for your phone. If the Watch is slow, I’m going to pull out my phone. But if I keep pulling out my phone, I’ll never use the Watch. So I have resolved to wait it out.

I’m putting my phone in my pocket and this Watch on my wrist, and we’re taking this trip together.

These mornings have been full of self-reflection, moody contemplation as I gather my screens of all sizes and pack them in a bag, work alerts flashing across an array of devices that are all less important than my phone. I love my phone. Everyone loves their phone. The only real question a smartwatch like the Apple Watch needs to answer is “why would I use this instead of my phone?” The answers so far haven’t been apparent; the Watch seems like it can do a little bit of everything instead of one thing really well. So I’m putting my phone in my pocket and this Watch on my wrist, and we’re taking this trip together.

We are going to need more coffee.

As an object, it makes sense that the Watch is not nearly as cold and minimal as Apple’s recent phones and tablets and laptops. It has to be warmer, cozier. It has to invite you to touch it and take it with you all the time. Take the bands off and it’s a little miracle of technology and engineering and manufacturing, a dense package containing more sensors and processing power than anyone could have even dreamed a few decades ago. It’s a supercomputer on your wrist, but it’s also a bulbous, friendly little thing, far more round than I expected, recalling nothing quite so much as the first-generation iPhone. It is unbelievably high tech and a little bit silly, a masterpiece of engineering with a Mickey Mouse face. It is quintessentially Apple.

It’s also surprisingly heavy. I noticed when I was wearing it, and everyone who held it commented on the weight. That might simply be a function of how unfamiliar watches have become; my stainless steel Apple Watch with leather loop band weighs 2.9 ounces, which is more than my plastic Nixon’s 1.7 ounces or the 1.8-ounce Moto 360, but much less than my 5-ounce Baume and Mercier. All in all, the Apple Watch isn’t light enough to fade away, but it’s also not so heavy that it’s a distraction.

On the right side of the Watch you’ll find the Digital Crown scroll wheel and a dedicated button (the official name is just “side button”) that opens your favorites list with one tap and activates Apple Pay with two taps. This side button is extraordinarily confusing — it looks and feels so much like an iPhone sleep / wake button that I still hit it to turn the screen on and off, even though I know I’m doing the wrong thing.

On the back of the Watch, there’s a slight dome that holds the optical heart rate sensor and the inductive charging system. You’ll also find a pair of buttons that release the watchbands. They’re flush with the case but relatively easy to depress, and the bands slide right out. You can make the Watch work in basically any orientation you’d like by flipping the screen with a setting in the iPhone app — a boon for the left-handed. It’s a fairly simple system, so expect to see tons of third-party Watch bands; Apple says it has no problem with that.


Apple Pay is my favorite feature on the Watch.
Apple gave me three bands to play with: the leather loop, the Milanese loop, and the white sport band. I mostly stuck with the leather loop, which feels more like plastic than leather but which I found super comfortable because it was so easy to readjust throughout the day. The white sport band basically felt like any other plastic band I’ve worn. I felt ridiculous wearing the Milanese Loop, so I didn’t.

The face of the Watch curves up off the sides, leaving a noticeable air gap above the display underneath. But besides that small complaint, the display is simply terrific. It carries the same Retina branding as the iPhone display and it delivers, with imperceptible pixels and inky blacks that allow the screen to blend right into the curved sides of the glass. It’s easily the best smartwatch display on the market, and it would be unassailable if not for the air gap. It’s light-years beyond everything else.


The back of the Watch is arguably more beautiful than the front.
ON YOUR WRIST
Once you actually start living with the Watch, it quickly becomes clear that there are three main ways to actually use the thing: the watch face, the app launcher, and the communications app.

Apple is insistent that one of the main functions of the Watch is simply to be a great watch, so when you raise your wrist, you’ll see the time by default, just like a regular watch. The lone exception out of the box is the workout app, which Apple says is “sticky” so people can check their exercise stats quickly at the gym.

In the first of many moments where the Watch felt underpowered, I found that the screen lit up a couple of ticks too slowly: I’d raise my wrist, wait a beat, and then the screen would turn on. This sounds like a minor quibble, but in the context of a watch you’re glancing at dozens of times a day, it’s quickly distracting. Other smartwatches like the Pebble and the LG G Watch R simply leave their screens on all the time; having a screen that constantly flips on and off is definitely behind the curve.

TELLING TIME
The main watch face really is a complete self-contained experience: if the Apple Watch had no other functionality except for what you can do from the watch face, it would still be competitive. Customizing the watch Face is the first time you’ll use Force Touch: you push a little bit harder on the screen, and you can swipe between Apple’s selection of watch face templates, each of which can be customized and saved as individual variations. Most of the templates are minor riffs on the same basic analog watch, but others are very strange indeed, like the animated butterfly and jellyfish. There’s no particularly great digital face, and there’s no ability to load up your own watch faces or buy new ones from the store, which is a clearly missed opportunity.

If the Apple Watch had no other functionality except for what you can do from the watch face, it would still be competitive.

The Watch app is literally the most central experience on the Watch — you can rearrange every app icon on the homescreen except the Watch icon, which is always in the middle. What’s fascinating and somewhat confusing is that so many of the Watch’s core abilities are only in the Watch app, so interface ideas you learn there don’t work anywhere else.

For example, the Watch app is the only place to access notifications after they appear. Notifications are the most important part of any smartwatch experience, but on the Apple Watch you can only swipe down to see your notifications when you’re on the watch face. Once you click the Digital Crown and open the app launcher, the notification drawer goes away entirely and swiping down does nothing. Same with Glances, which are essentially single-screen status updates from various apps you access by swiping up from the Watch app. They’re a major piece of the Watch experience, but they disappear everywhere else in the operating system. These are radically different interface patterns than iOS, where you can access the notification center and control center from virtually everywhere, and it makes navigating the Watch interface more confusing until you get it.

The Law of Wearable Success
In order to be successful, any given piece of wearable technology has to be useful the entire time it’s on your body. Prescription glasses sit on your face, but improve your vision all the time, so they’re successful. Sunglasses sit on your face and make you look cooler all the time, so they’re successful. Google Glass sits on your face, but mostly does nothing, so it’s a failure. It’s a simple formula.
Understanding that the Watch app is an entire primary experience unto itself is the key to understanding what happens when you press either of the buttons on the side of the Watch — they launch the other two main Watch experiences. Pressing the side button takes you to a totally unique contacts screen, which is where you send the ephemeral Digital Touch messages. Clicking the Digital Crown on the watch face opens the honeycomb app launcher, which is where you can open the various other apps on the Watch.

All of this sounds complex, but you’re not really supposed to use it all at once — the aim is for the Watch to shine in 10- 15-second burst throughout the day, not in extended usage sessions. And that was borne out every morning, because I didn’t have any reason to wear the Watch until I left the house.

I was half-hoping to put on the Watch in the morning and use it instead of my phone, but that didn’t happen. I grab my phone first thing in the morning and use it nonstop to prepare for the day: I organize my calendar, catch up on The Verge, check Twitter, and bang out replies on Slack and email. None of this is even possible to do on the Watch. Apple spent tons of effort and millions of dollars promoting the iPad as a business and creation platform instead of just a consumption machine, but there’s no fighting the tiny display and limited input options of the Watch — this thing is all about quickly glancing at information, not really doing anything with it.

It becomes far more valuable once you’re on the move.

Modest Updates: Nikon D3400 Review

The D3400 is a very modestly updated version of the D3300. It's an entry level DSLR targeted toward first-time ILC shooters and those who are ready to move on from their smartphones to a more advanced shooting platform.

The camera is built around the same 24MP APS-C CMOS sensor found in its predecessor along with an 'EXPEED 4' image processor, Full HD video capture and an 11-point autofocus system. Unfortunately the camera doesn't have Wi-Fi, but it does have Bluetooth LE connectivity for transferring images from the camera to a smart phone via the 'SnapBridge' app.

Nikon packs a lot of very desirable features into the D3400 for the price.
In terms of competition, the D3400's sits between the Canon Rebel T6 and the Canon Rebel T6i. The D3400's $649 launch price for a kit with the new AF-P 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 VR lens puts it between the $549 list price of for the T6/EOS 1300D kit and the significantly more expensive $899 MSRP for the T6i with the 18-55mm VR zoom. The T6 has a lower resolution, 18MP sensor but its lower price makes it a threat at this price-sensitive point in the market.

Specs Comparison

The table below illustrates that not much has changed from the D3300 to the D3400. The biggest changes seen in the D3400 are in battery life (which we suspect is due to the less powerful flash), weight and the new built in Bluetooth LE that works with SnapBridge to enable photo sharing. The D3400 also tends to come kitted with a new 'AF-P' version of the 18-55mm VR lens which uses a new focus motor to offer improved performance in live view and video.

For beginning DSLR shooters the elimination of the external mic port (if video is important to you) and, more notably, the Ultrasonic Sensor Cleaning from the D3400 is something to definitely keep in mind when deciding which camera to purchase.

If you're not wedded to the idea of owning a DSLR, the Fujifilm X-A3 (which features an articulating touchscreen LCD, better AF coverage, and twin control dials), and the Sony a5100 (which acts more in the way of a point and shoot, but still offers impressive features and AF coverage), are both mirrorless cameras. These offer excellent features and image quality in a much smaller package. These are definitely two other options to also consider looking at before making a purchase.

It is worth noting that the traditional DSLR still holds some key advantages over mirrorless rivals. They offer much better battery life and lens selection, for example. The optical viewfinder is another important factor for many photographers. For more on the subject, read our primer.

BenQ SU931 Large Venue Projector Review

Capable of lighting up a conference room or mid-sized auditorium with sharp vibrant images, the BenQ SU931 excels at economy with an enviable price tag despite combining more than 6,000 lumens of brightness with full HD resolution.

Of BenQ’s extensive array of business-oriented projectors, the SU931 stands out not only as an excellent value but as a flexible business tool that can enhance anything from a video conference to a marketing presentation. While BenQ lists it at $4,500, if you shop around, you’ll see it for $2,900, making it one of the best bargains in business projectors

With over 6,000 lumens at its disposal, the SU931’s DLP imaging chip delivers WUXGA (1,920 by 1,200) resolution. That translates into bright and sharp images with text that is among the most readable in its class as well as excellent focus from corner to corner. On the downside, the SU931’s exhaust is hot at 160-degrees Fahrenheit and its lamp is rated to last for a short 2,000 hours of use. This adds up to estimated annual costs that were on the high side.

It has connections for every popular source except for DisplayPort, and its integrated wired Ethernet networking lets technicians control the SU931 over the Internet. The projector, however, does without built-in or optional WiFi wireless networking.

Overall, it sets a new standard by delivering more lumens per dollar than the competition, but might have cut a few too many corners to get to its enviable price tag.

Highlights

Delivers 6,090 lumens in Bright mode
Good grayscale imaging and text readability for presentations
Excellent focus uniformity
Networking port and ability to control projector over LAN
Mechanical vertical lens-shift eases projector installation
Remote control laser pointer
Wide range 1.6:1 optical zoom lens
Surprisingly strong audio and speakers
Includes lens cap
- See more at: http://www.projectorreviews.com/benq/benq-su931-large-venue-projector-review-2/#sthash.CFaK6s5p.dpuf

Epson EB-U04 review - Part 1

PROS

• Good price
• Ships with a carry case
• Sharp and bright

CONS

• Unimpressive black-level response
• Patchy colour temperature
• Various running noise issues

KEY FEATURES

• LCD projector with 1920x1200 resolution
• Presentations and Cinema picture presets
• Two HDMIs
• 3,000 lumens maximum brightness
• Dynamic Iris system
• Manufacturer: Epson
• Review Price: £549.00

WHAT IS THE EPSON EB-U04?

The EB-U04 is an LCD projector with a Full HD resolution that’s on sale for the budget price of £548.99. Epson pitches it as a projector that can be used for either home entertainment or office presentations.

EPSON EB-U04 – DESIGN AND FEATURES

While it isn't outright ugly, chiefly thanks to its glossy white top cover, the EB-U04 looks a bit utilitarian versus the more living room-friendly Epson EH-TW5300 that I tested recently. It’s smaller and squat, with a noticeably more compact lens – none of which raises great hopes about its picture quality versus the EH-TW5300. 

Its relatively petite size does make it handily portable, though – and this useful trait is enhanced by the inclusion of a padded carry bag with the projector.

Connectivity is pretty good. Two HDMIs back up its home-entertainment claims, while its potential as a workhorse is enhanced by a USB port capable of playing multimedia files, a VGA PC input, and the ability of one of the HDMIs to handle MHL mobile phone playback.

You can even add an optional wireless adapter (the ELPAP10), which opens up the potential for using Epson’s iProjection app to stream a range of content – including photos, videos and documents – directly from your mobile phone or tablet through the projector.

The projector’s key picture specifications include a native Full HD resolution, a claimed dynamic contrast ratio of 15,000:1, and a very high maximum brightness of 3,000 lumens. On paper, this combination of brightness and contrast seems weighted towards the business market rather than home-cinema, but it’s entirely possible that the EB-U04 will have the controls necessary to adapt its optics to suit both movie and PC content.

For those looking for a projector for home use, there's one other point of concern. For while I described the projector as "Full HD", its resolution is in fact 1,920 x 1,200 rather than 1,920 x 1,080. This means it has a PC-friendly 16:10 native widescreen aspect ratio rather than a video-friendly 16:9 one.

As you’d expect, the projector carries the option to show 16:9 widescreen sources in their native ratio; you don’t have to see them stretched vertically to fill the EB-U04’s full resolution. But there’s no getting round the fact that 16:10 image clips are designed for PC rather than video use.

With the EB-U04 potentially getting used at work and home, it’s good to find Epson claiming a huge lamp and filter life of 10,000 hours – roughly enough to deliver one movie a day for 15 years!

Note, though, that to achieve this life span you’ll need to keep the projector running in its reduced brightness Eco mode. This may not necessarily be possible if your office or home environment has much ambient light.

On a positive, I should remind that this LCD projector won’t suffer with the rainbow striping problem common with rival DLP technology. In addition, it should also deliver more bright images more consistently because, unlike DLP technology, LCD projectors don't use a colour wheel to produce.

On the flip side, the EB-U04’s LCD technology will lead to a reduction in image quality over the projector’s life than you're likely to see with a DLP model.

EPSON EB-U04 – SETUP

The EB-U04 has a reasonable number of setup options. Physically, here’s a small amount of optical zoom, a drop-down leg under the front edge of the unit and screw-down legs at each rear corner. There's also a rather nifty sliding keystone-correction knob above the lens, which helps to get the sides of the image straight if you’re having to position it off to the side.

The lack of optical vertical image shift shouldn't be a surprise at this price point.

The EB-U04’s potential work and play nature is reflected in its picture presets, which include both a Cinema mode and a Presentations mode. Other adjustments include a noise-reduction system (best left off when watching HD); offset and gain adjustments for the RGB colour elements; Normal and Eco modes for the lamp; and the option to set an auto iris system to off, Normal, or High Speed.

My advise would be to ensure you pick the right option – Presentations or Cinema preset – for what you’re about to use it for. Also, when watching a movie in a reasonably dark room, the lamp should be set to Eco to get a little more black-level response out of the optics and drastically reduce the projector’s running noise.

I'd also recommend setting the auto iris option to Normal rather than High Speed, since while this can result in occasional lag in how the brightness responds to changes in the image content, it also causes the iris system to fewer scratching noises. More on this later.

Philips Screeneo 2.0 review part 2

PHILIPS SCREENEO 2.0 – PICTURE QUALITY

The Screeneo 2.0 does an excellent job of retaining image geometry, despite its ultra short-throw optical system.

There’s no bowing along the top or bottom edges of the kind I’ve seen with other ultra short-throw projectors. While you may have to use some keystone correction to keep the sides perpendicular, this does not cause much in the way of artefacts or loss of resolution.

The image is also free of brightness the hotspots and inconsistencies that generally affect ultra short-throw projectors.

A slight loss of sharpness is evident in the corners, and this becomes more apparent as you increase the size of the image. As a result, I would limit the image size to 90 inches at a push. This issue is common among ultra-short throw projectors and the Screeneo 2.0 suffers less than most.

Particularly impressive is the projector’s colour handling. The range of tones it delivers is strikingly well suited to video playback right out of the box. Skin tones look natural and full of tonal subtlety, rich colours looking bold but never over-stressed or unbalanced, and even dark colour tones look both authentic and full of shading detail. 

There’s no sign of posterisation (colour striping) issues either.

The impressive colour performance of the Screeneo 2.0 helps to give its Full HD pictures a good sense of detail and texture, and this isn’t damaged excessively by motion judder. This is a relief given the unusable nature of the Flow Motion processing system, which should be kept off.

Pictures look markedly brighter than those of its predecessor, resulting in images engage even in a bright room. The brightness boost also delivers an uplift in shadow detail in dark scenes.

Thankfully, this boost in brightness has not had a negative impact on the projector’s contrast performance. Dark scenes don’t appear to be any more prone to the classic low-contrast grey mist effect. 

That said, the Screeneo 2.0’s black levels are only maybe a touch above average by the standards of the home entertainment projector market at large.

In other negative news, I occasionally spotted signs "rainbow effect" colour striping noise over stand-out bright objects. My test sample also showed a faint dust "sphere" in the bottom-right corner of the image. No amount of cleaning the image "window’" shifted this, proving that the dust was tucked away somewhere inside the projector’s optics.

There’s a very good chance that a Screeneo 2.0 projector you buy won’t suffer with such a dust issue – but clearly, there’s potential for dust to get into the projector’s optical path.

Given that the Screeneo 2.0 is designed to sit right next to the pictures it produces, it’s great to find that its bucket-shaped body is completely free of light leakage.

The Screeneo 2.0’s practical, multi-functional design makes it a potential favourite for gaming as well as movie watching. With this in mind, an input lag figure of 38ms is solid enough, despite falling a few milliseconds shy of the very speediest projector responders.

Philips Screeneo 2.0 review - Part 1

PROS

• Built-in sound system works well
• Decent all-round picture quality
• Ultra short-throw design is brilliantly convenient

CONS

• Black level response could be better
• You can get better pictures for the 
• same money or less from conventional projectors
• Slight loss of focus in the corners

KEY FEATURES

• Ultra short-throw DLP projector
• Full HD native resolution
• Built-in 26W 2.1 sound system
• Supports multimedia streaming from phones and tablets
• Carry handle and ships with a carry bag
• Manufacturer: Philips
• Review Price: £1,499.00

WHAT IS THE PHILIPS SCREENEO 2.0?

Now for something completely different: a DLP projector that wants to be both a big-screen TV and a sound bar, and resembles a bucket. Confused? Welcome to the weird but wonderful world of the Philips Screeneo 2.0.

PHILIPS SCREENEO 2.0 – DESIGN AND FEATURES

The Screeneo 2.0, or officially the Philips HDP2510/EU, really looks like a bucket. From the fold-down silver carry handle to gentle downwards tapering, the Screeneo wouldn’t look out of place on a beach with a spade propped up against it.

It's not ugly, though. The black-and-silver colour scheme is smart and the finish quality is high. The Screeneo is actually a triumph of design for all the functionality it crams into its reasonably compact body.

What you get is ultra short-throw projection technology and a potent integrated audio solution. The point of the Screeneo 2.0 is to recreate the experience of watching a huge television for a fraction of the price.

Let’s first look at the projector. It’s a single-chip DLP system capable of punching out a claimed 2,000 lumens of maximum brightness, with a vast contrast ratio of 200,000:1. That means it's definitely a video product, rather than the sort of thing you'd use for PowerPoint presentations.

The DLP optics also deliver a Full HD resolution plus a claimed 1.07 billion colours from a six-segment (RGBRGB) colour wheel system. The 250W UHP lamp inside the Screeneo 2.0 is supposed to last more than 10,000 hours – a huge figure by projector standards, and one that should greatly reduce running costs over the projector’s lifetime. This is a big deal for a workhorse projector that’s designed to potentially replace a living room TV. 

The single most remarkable thing about the Screeneo 2.0’s projection system is its throw ratio. The reason for its bucket-like shape is that it contains a projector firing upwards from its bottom. It does this via an optical array that ultimately produces a picture through an angled "window" on the upper edge. This makes it possible to achieve a huge picture from a tiny throw distance.

Sit the projector just 10cm from your screen or wall and you can enjoy a picture 50 inches in diameter. Stretch that distance to 42cm and you get a 120-inch picture. There is no zoom feature, so the only way to way to adjust the picture size is to physically move the Screeneo 2.0 closer to or further away from the wall.

There are real advantages to having a projector that can sit so close to a wall. It functions like a television in terms of the impact it has on your living room layout. It doesn't need to be placed in the centre of your room, as you would a normal projector, and there’s no need to worry about long cable runs.

It carries three HDMI video connectors rather than the two found on the vast majority of projectors. It’s also equipped with Bluetooth, so you can effortlessly stream video, photos and music files to the projector from smart devices. There's also a USB port for memory sticks.

Other connections of note include a 12V trigger output for firing up a motorised screen; a headphone port; an optical digital audio output; audio inputs and outputs; a composite video jack (although this should only be used as a last resort given the relatively low picture quality it carries); and a VGA PC port.

It is compatible with 3D, although no glasses are included.

PHILIPS SCREENEO 2.0 – SETUP

The Screeneo 2.0 is a mixed bag when it comes to setup. It’s pretty cool that you can just plug in the projector and enjoy big images straight away, but there are a couple of potential complications.

Firstly, the motorised focus adjustment, accessed via the remote control, is imprecise. You can hear it chuntering along for quite some time without making any significant impact on the image’s sharpness. It gets there in the end, but the adjustments are so gradual that you are never entirely convinced that you’ve got it totally spot on.

Secondly, it lacks any sort of vertical image shifting or zoom. That makes positioning a little trickier if you use a screen instead of a wall.

The settings are comprehensive, with a helpful series of gamma presets and both colour and white balance management.

Key setups: I’d recommend using the Cinema lamp mode for dark room viewing and the Daylight mode for bright room viewing. For me, the default PrimeTime mode falls between the two.

It’s also essential that you turn off the Flow Motion processing, since it causes some pretty nasty artefacts. I’d recommend leaving the Dynamic Contrast feature on, although the difference it makes is marginal.

If you’re using your wall rather than a screen, it’s definitely worth checking out the Wall Colour Correction option. This is a very handy shortcut for neutralising the impact your decor may have on picture quality.

BenQ SW921 Review

PROS
5,000-lumen rating is suitably bright for a midsize to large room. WXGA (1,280-by-800) resolution. Near-excellent quality for data images. 1.6x zoom. Only minor hints of rainbow artifacts for static data images.

CONS
Some colors in data images are a little dark in every preset mode.

BOTTOM LINE
The BenQ SW921 projector can throw a suitably sized, bright image for a medium to large room, with a native WXGA resolution and near-excellent quality for data images.

Among the SW921's$1,349.00 at Amazon competitors are the NEC Display Solutions NP-P452W$1,482.63 at Amazon that I recently reviewed and the Epson PowerLite 1975W WXGA Wireless 3LCD Multimedia ProjectorBest Price at Amazon, which is our Editors' Choice WXGA model for a midsize to large conference room or classroom. Both models have some advantages over the SW921, but both are also priced higher enough that they don't offer any better value. The only question is whether you'd rather pay more for their extras compared with the SW921 or do without them and save some money.

Basics

The Epson model is the only one of these projectors that's built around a three-chip LCD engine. Both the SW921 and the NEC model use single-chip DLP engines. The advantages for the three-chip engine are that it guarantees that the Epson 1975W is free of rainbow artifacts (red-green-blue flashes), and it ensures that its color and white brightness are the same. With DLP data projectors, the two brightness levels are generally different, which can affect both color quality and the brightness of full-color images. The advantage for both DLP models is that—like most DLP projectors today—they support 3D. However, few data-projector applications need 3D, so for most people, that won't matter.

Another key difference among these models is that the NEC NP-P452W is the only one that has a significant lens shift, and the only one with both vertical and horizontal lens shift—two features that largely explain its higher price compared with the SW921. Vertical lens shift lets you move the image up and down without tilting the projector. Horizontal lens shift lets you move the image left and right without swiveling the projector. Being able to move the image without distorting the image shape by tilting or swiveling means you don't have to resort to a digital keystone adjustment, which can introduce artifacts with some images.

When I tested the NEC model, I measured its vertical shift at plus or minus 49 percent of the image height from the midpoint and the horizontal shift at plus or minus 38 percent. In comparison, the SW921 only offers a vertical shift, which I measured at a total of not quite 3 percent of the image height. That's enough to be useful, but still meager compared with the NEC NP-P452W's shift. The Epson 1975W doesn't offer any lens shift at all.

Setup and Brightness

The SW921 is built on the same platform as both the lower-resolution BenQ SX920 and the higher-resolution BenQ SU922$1,599.00 at Amazon. All three are the same size and weight—at 4.7 by 10.5 by 16.2 inches (HWD) and 10 pounds 13 ounces. They also offer the same set of connectors, the same 1.6x zoom lens, and the same sound system, including a 20-watt speaker. For details on all of these features, see my review of the BenQ SX920$1,198.00 at Amazon.

The difference in price among the three models comes from the difference in resolution, with the XGA (1,024-by-768) resolution of the BenQ SX920 giving it a price tag that's $150 less than the SW921, and the BenQ SU922's WUXGA (1,920-by-1,200) resolution giving it a price premium of $250 over the SW921. The three BenQ models also have essentially the same vertical lens shift feature. However, the different resolutions for the projectors also give them different aspect ratios for the image, so the percentage of vertical shift is different. The BenQ SX920 offers a vertical shift at a total of less than 5 percent of the image height, while I measured the total shift of the BenQ SU922 at 2.5 percent of the image height.

The difference in aspect ratios between 4:3 for the XGA BenQ SX920 and 16:10 for the WXGA SW921 means that despite having the same brightness rating, the two are appropriate for different image sizes. According to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendations, at the SW921's native 16:10 aspect ratio, 5,000 lumens would be suitable for a 269- to 365-inch image (measured diagonally) assuming a 1.0-gain screen in theater-dark lighting. With moderate ambient light, the appropriate size would drop to 178 inches.

For smaller screen sizes, you can lower the brightness level by switching to the projector's Eco lamp mode, using a lower brightness preset mode, or both. Keep in mind that the lower color than white brightness means that full-color images won't be as bright as you would expect based on the white brightness. (For more on the topic, see Color Brightness: What It Is, Why It Matters.)

Image Quality

The SW921's quality for data images is excellent in many ways, but falls short on color quality, making it near-excellent overall. Every mode includes colors that were notably dark in my tests in terms of a hue-saturation-brightness color model. Yellow was also a little greenish in some modes in my tests and mustard color in others. However, colors are nicely saturated, and color quality is more than good enough for most data presentations.

Beyond that, the SW921 did an excellent job with color balance on our standard suite ofDisplayMate tests, with suitably neutral grays at all levels from black to white in most modes. In addition, images designed to bring out pixel jitter and moiré patterns were rock solid, even with a VGA connection. More important for most data-projector applications is that the SW921 did a good job holding detail. White text on black was highly readable in my tests at sizes as small at 10.5 points, and black text on white was easily readable at 7.5 points.

The projector also did a good job of avoiding rainbow artifacts. The only time I saw them on our data-image tests was with one image that's designed to bring them out, and even then I saw only minor hints when I shifted my gaze back and forth quickly. With video, I saw them infrequently enough in well-lit scenes that few people if any would find them bothersome. With poorly lit scenes, however, they showed often enough that anyone who sees them easily may find them occasionally annoying.

In most other ways, video quality in my tests was good enough to be watchable. Colors were within the realm of reasonable, I saw only a slight hint of posterization (shading changing suddenly where it should change gradually) and only in the most demanding scenes, the projector did an excellent job with shadow detail (details based on shading in dark areas), and noise was no worse than moderately obvious in scenes that tend to bring it out.

Conclusion

For a guaranteed rainbow-free image even with video, plus the benefits for color quality and the brightness of color images that come with matching levels of white and color brightness, consider the Epson 1975W, our Editors' Choice for the category. Also be sure to take a look at the NEC NP-P452W for its setup convenience, thanks to its high percentages of lens shift. That said, the BenQ SW921 will give you a bright image, near-excellent quality for data images, a 1.6x zoom, and even a small lens shift at a significantly lower price than the Epson or NEC models.

Philips Screeneo 2.0 review - Part 2

PHILIPS SCREENEO 2.0 – PICTURE QUALITY

The Screeneo 2.0 does an excellent job of retaining image geometry, despite its ultra short-throw optical system.

There’s no bowing along the top or bottom edges of the kind I’ve seen with other ultra short-throw projectors. While you may have to use some keystone correction to keep the sides perpendicular, this does not cause much in the way of artefacts or loss of resolution.

The image is also free of brightness the hotspots and inconsistencies that generally affect ultra short-throw projectors.

A slight loss of sharpness is evident in the corners, and this becomes more apparent as you increase the size of the image. As a result, I would limit the image size to 90 inches at a push. This issue is common among ultra-short throw projectors and the Screeneo 2.0 suffers less than most.

Particularly impressive is the projector’s colour handling. The range of tones it delivers is strikingly well suited to video playback right out of the box. Skin tones look natural and full of tonal subtlety, rich colours looking bold but never over-stressed or unbalanced, and even dark colour tones look both authentic and full of shading detail.

There’s no sign of posterisation (colour striping) issues either.

The impressive colour performance of the Screeneo 2.0 helps to give its Full HD pictures a good sense of detail and texture, and this isn’t damaged excessively by motion judder. This is a relief given the unusable nature of the Flow Motion processing system, which should be kept off.

Pictures look markedly brighter than those of its predecessor, resulting in images engage even in a bright room. The brightness boost also delivers an uplift in shadow detail in dark scenes.

Thankfully, this boost in brightness has not had a negative impact on the projector’s contrast performance. Dark scenes don’t appear to be any more prone to the classic low-contrast grey mist effect.

That said, the Screeneo 2.0’s black levels are only maybe a touch above average by the standards of the home entertainment projector market at large.

In other negative news, I occasionally spotted signs "rainbow effect" colour striping noise over stand-out bright objects. My test sample also showed a faint dust "sphere" in the bottom-right corner of the image. No amount of cleaning the image "window’" shifted this, proving that the dust was tucked away somewhere inside the projector’s optics.

There’s a very good chance that a Screeneo 2.0 projector you buy won’t suffer with such a dust issue – but clearly, there’s potential for dust to get into the projector’s optical path.

Given that the Screeneo 2.0 is designed to sit right next to the pictures it produces, it’s great to find that its bucket-shaped body is completely free of light leakage.

The Screeneo 2.0’s practical, multi-functional design makes it a potential favourite for gaming as well as movie watching. With this in mind, an input lag figure of 38ms is solid enough, despite falling a few milliseconds shy of the very speediest projector responders

Philips Screeneo 2.0 review

PROS

• Built-in sound system works well
• Decent all-round picture quality
• Ultra short-throw design is brilliantly convenient

CONS

• Black level response could be better
• You can get better pictures for the same money or less from conventional projectors
• Slight loss of focus in the corners

KEY FEATURES

• Ultra short-throw DLP projector
• Full HD native resolution
• Built-in 26W 2.1 sound system
• Supports multimedia streaming from phones and tablets
• Carry handle and ships with a carry bag
• Manufacturer: Philips
• Review Price: £1,499.00

WHAT IS THE PHILIPS SCREENEO 2.0?

Now for something completely different: a DLP projector that wants to be both a big-screen TV and a sound bar, and resembles a bucket. Confused? Welcome to the weird but wonderful world of the Philips Screeneo 2.0.

PHILIPS SCREENEO 2.0 – DESIGN AND FEATURES

The Screeneo 2.0, or officially the Philips HDP2510/EU, really looks like a bucket. From the fold-down silver carry handle to gentle downwards tapering, the Screeneo wouldn’t look out of place on a beach with a spade propped up against it.

It's not ugly, though. The black-and-silver colour scheme is smart and the finish quality is high. The Screeneo is actually a triumph of design for all the functionality it crams into its reasonably compact body.

What you get is ultra short-throw projection technology and a potent integrated audio solution. The point of the Screeneo 2.0 is to recreate the experience of watching a huge television for a fraction of the price.

Let’s first look at the projector. It’s a single-chip DLP system capable of punching out a claimed 2,000 lumens of maximum brightness, with a vast contrast ratio of 200,000:1. That means it's definitely a video product, rather than the sort of thing you'd use for PowerPoint presentations.

The DLP optics also deliver a Full HD resolution plus a claimed 1.07 billion colours from a six-segment (RGBRGB) colour wheel system. The 250W UHP lamp inside the Screeneo 2.0 is supposed to last more than 10,000 hours – a huge figure by projector standards, and one that should greatly reduce running costs over the projector’s lifetime. This is a big deal for a workhorse projector that’s designed to potentially replace a living room TV.

The single most remarkable thing about the Screeneo 2.0’s projection system is its throw ratio. The reason for its bucket-like shape is that it contains a projector firing upwards from its bottom. It does this via an optical array that ultimately produces a picture through an angled "window" on the upper edge. This makes it possible to achieve a huge picture from a tiny throw distance.

Sit the projector just 10cm from your screen or wall and you can enjoy a picture 50 inches in diameter. Stretch that distance to 42cm and you get a 120-inch picture. There is no zoom feature, so the only way to way to adjust the picture size is to physically move the Screeneo 2.0 closer to or further away from the wall.

There are real advantages to having a projector that can sit so close to a wall. It functions like a television in terms of the impact it has on your living room layout. It doesn't need to be placed in the centre of your room, as you would a normal projector, and there’s no need to worry about long cable runs.

It carries three HDMI video connectors rather than the two found on the vast majority of projectors. It’s also equipped with Bluetooth, so you can effortlessly stream video, photos and music files to the projector from smart devices. There's also a USB port for memory sticks.

Other connections of note include a 12V trigger output for firing up a motorised screen; a headphone port; an optical digital audio output; audio inputs and outputs; a composite video jack (although this should only be used as a last resort given the relatively low picture quality it carries); and a VGA PC port.

It is compatible with 3D, although no glasses are included.

PHILIPS SCREENEO 2.0 – SETUP

The Screeneo 2.0 is a mixed bag when it comes to setup. It’s pretty cool that you can just plug in the projector and enjoy big images straight away, but there are a couple of potential complications.

Firstly, the motorised focus adjustment, accessed via the remote control, is imprecise. You can hear it chuntering along for quite some time without making any significant impact on the image’s sharpness. It gets there in the end, but the adjustments are so gradual that you are never entirely convinced that you’ve got it totally spot on.

Secondly, it lacks any sort of vertical image shifting or zoom. That makes positioning a little trickier if you use a screen instead of a wall.

The settings are comprehensive, with a helpful series of gamma presets and both colour and white balance management.

Key setups: I’d recommend using the Cinema lamp mode for dark room viewing and the Daylight mode for bright room viewing. For me, the default PrimeTime mode falls between the two.

It’s also essential that you turn off the Flow Motion processing, since it causes some pretty nasty artefacts. I’d recommend leaving the Dynamic Contrast feature on, although the difference it makes is marginal.

If you’re using your wall rather than a screen, it’s definitely worth checking out the Wall Colour Correction option. This is a very handy shortcut for neutralising the impact your decor may have on picture quality

ViewSonic LightStream Pro7827HD review - Part 1

PROS

• Good picture quality across multiple sources
• Excellent value
• Wireless HDMI features in hidden bay

CONS

• A little clipping in peak whites
• Not the sharpest Full HD pictures around
• No backlight on the remote

KEY FEATURES

• Full HD DLP projector
• Vertical image shifting
• Rec 709 mode for video
• Supports wireless video dongles
• Good mix of presentation and video features
• Manufacturer: ViewSonic
• Review Price: £599.00

WHAT IS THE VIEWSONIC PRO7827HD?

The LightStream Pro7827HD is a Full HD DLP projector that, according to ViewSonic, has been designed to be your new best friend for the upcoming season of sport. It’s bright, flexible and simple enough to set up to deliver big-screen fun even in relatively casual living-room environments.

What’s more, with a price of just £599 it’s affordable enough to potentially divert you from that new TV you may have been thinking about buying.

VIEWSONIC PRO7827HD – DESIGN AND FEATURES

Aside from its slightly drab black colouring, the Pro7827HD looks pretty cool. Its sides angle in as they travel from top to bottom to create a playful profile, while the boldly labelled connection cover that juts out of the projector’s rear looks like something you'd see on a Formula 1 car.

The top edge of the Pro7827HD is perhaps too crowded to be conventionally stylish with its mix of multiple logos, numerous control buttons and knobs, a detachable cover – more on this in a moment – and a cut-out access point to the lens’ focus and zoom rings. Personally, I quite like the slightly industrial feel of the busy top panel.

That detachable cover I mentioned earlier hides a handy "PortAll" bay containing an HDMI/MHL connection that also supports wireless HDMI media streaming and 5V of USB power. This means you can use it with streaming dongles such as Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, the RokuStreaming Stick, and ViewSonic’s own ViewSync system.

Enabled via an optional WPG-300 dongle (around £100), ViewSync enables 1080p content from tablets, smartphones, PCs and laptops to be streamed into the Pro7827HD’s hidden HDMI/MHL port. Plus, it can be used in conjunction with a free iOS/Android "vPresenter Pro" app to enable features such as Live Cam streaming, Live Draw onscreen marking, Live TV, Content Broadcast and quad split-screen functionality.

Another interesting aspect of the WPG-300 from a business-use perspective is that you can potentially use it to enable multiple presenters to connect to the same projector wirelessly – under the control of a host – without having to swap over physical cables.

The handy thing about having all this functionality hidden in a bay within the projector’s main chassis, of course, is that you don’t have to remove the dongle each time you want to move the projector around.

The only problem with such business features is that they bring into question ViewSonic’s claim that the Pro7827HD is a great living-room projector. Experience suggests that projectors well suited to business presentations don’t usually translate well into the living room.

To be fair, though, the Pro7827HD certainly isn’t devoid of video-friendly features. For instance, ViewSonic promises that its "Cinema SuperColor RGBRGB Colour Wheel" will deliver true-to-life colours in movies that are capable of matching the sRGB and Rec 709 standards (HDR and 4K/UHD are, of course, not yet part of the budget projector world).

The Pro7827HD’s use of one of Texas Instrument’s DarkChip3 chipsets and "True Black" high-contrast technologies bolsters its movie credentials, too, while its calibration options are sufficient to earn it the endorsement of the Imaging Science Foundation as a projector that one of its engineers could professionally calibrate.

Also potentially useful for the relatively casual circumstances the Pro7827HD may find itself used in over this summer is its new "SonicExpert" technology. Based on a proprietary speaker transducer and chamber design, the Pro7827HD’s integrated sound system claims to be capable of delivering a range of sound from 20Hz to 20kHz, and provides audio presets covering video and even music use.

The Pro7827HD’s overall connectivity is impressive for such an affordable projector. It has three HDMIs (two with MHL support), which is one more than you'd usually get with any projector, even vastly more expensive ones. There’s also a composite input, a component video input, plus RS232 and RJ-45 connectors to support system integration.

While I’ve established that the Pro7827HD uses a DLP engine and video-friendly colour wheel, it’s also worth noting that it claims a maximum brightness of 2,200 lumens. This should be enough to deliver punchy images when there's a degree of ambient light in the room. A claimed 22,000:1 contrast ratio is also a cut above the numbers usually associated with the sub-£600 projector market.

VIEWSONIC PRO7827HD – SETUP

The Pro7827HD is impressively easy to set up. The star of the show is the large knob on the top edge of the device, which lets you optically shift the image vertically up or down. Optical vertical image shifting is phenomenally useful, yet it’s seldom found on projectors costing less than £800. And it’s practically unheard of in the sub-£600 market.

The projector also offers keystone-correction options to help you get the edges of its images perpendicular, but hopefully you won’t have to use it thanks to the vertical image shifting.

In addition, the Pro7827HD’s fairly short-throw lens should prove handy in most living-room set ups, allowing you to position the projector close enough to your screen or, at a push, a wall to keep it clear of the legs of all your sports-loving mates.

There’s a passable amount (1.3x) of optical zoom, too, and the focus and zoom rings are both calibrated well enough to support fairly sensitive adjustments.

For best picture results, I’d suggest using the Rec 709 mode for dark-room movie viewing and making sure the lamp is set to its Eco mode. For bright rooms use the dynamic setting, especially if you’re watching sport.

One mode I recommend you avoid is the lamp’s SuperEco mode – bizarrely, this often makes images appear darker than the Eco mode, while simultaneously making fan noise louder. Go figure.