Mitsubishi HC4900 review

We've waited a long time for 1080p projectors to fall in price, and at last it has happened.

Mitsubishi's HC4900 is the first relatively affordable full HD model to arrive and costs £1,334 inc VAT. This is still much more than you'd pay for a budget 720p home cinema projector; BenQ's W500 is less than half the price.

The 1080p resolution is a real step up in image clarity. We could see individual hairs on the back of an actor's neck, and straight edges were crisper than those on a 720p image projected at the same size. We played a 1080p video through the HC4900 and Mitsubishi's 720p HC1100, projecting a 70in diagonal with each. Interestingly, only half of our 14 test viewers claimed to be able to detect the extra detail in the 1080p image at this size from normal viewing distances.

The focus and 1.6x zoom are motorised and can be adjusted from the remote control, which makes the HC4900 ideal for ceiling mounting. It also has lens shift, which lets you move the projected image left, right, up and down. There's no keystone correction, but as this degrades image quality, it's better to have a lens shift of five per cent horizontal and 75 per cent vertical, which provides flexibility on the placement of the projector. The remote control has three programmable buttons and, usefully, a separate button for each input. A red backlight illuminates the buttons in a darkened room.

As the HC4900 has only 1,000 ANSI lumens to play with, you may need to draw the curtains and turn off the lights to get the best out of it. Generally, we'd recommend a brightness of at least 1,200 ANSI lumens or more for viewing in daylight. In low power mode, this was the quietest and coolest-running projector we've seen.

The HC4900 uses a trio of LCDs - one for each primary colour - and a dynamic iris. It has a contrast ratio of 7,500:1, which is higher than the W500's 5,000:1, but lower than that of its predecessor, the HC5000, which had 10,000:1. Despite adjusting settings and trying all the iris presets, we couldn't get the HC4900 to produce particularly good blacks, and whites appeared dimmer than the W500's.

Otherwise performance was brilliant, with realistic, rich colours. It's no slouch with standard-definition interlaced material either. Images were sharp with no noise and excellent anti-aliasing for smooth edges.

When connected to a PC by VGA it supports a maximum resolution of just 1,600x1,200, but we got a pin-sharp image at its native 1,920x1,080 through the DVI input after adjusting the overscan.

If you've been waiting for an affordable 1080p projector, the HC4900 is great news and provides lots of extra detail. Only its black level might disappoint, but if you can live with that, it's a bargain.