Epson EMP-TWD10 review

Epson's new EMP-TWD10 projector incorporates a DVD player and speakers.

It's ideal if you like the idea of a home cinema but don't want to clutter up your living room with technology. The price even includes an 80in floor-standing screen, which is useful if you don't have a convenient plain white wall. It's not the best-quality screen we've seen, though; the material is thin and the edges on our review sample were beginning to curl inwards.

Thanks to the 1.5x zoom lens, the projector can be positioned anywhere between two and three metres from the screen. A lensshift system provides up to 50 per cent vertical and 25 per cent horizontal movement.

If you place the device on a coffee table in front of you, the speakers and DVD drive will be facing you. Ingeniously, the upper section swivels by 180° so you could place it behind you, and still have access to the DVD drive.

Behind a flap on the 'rear' is a wide selection of inputs. The HDCP-compatible HDMI port supports resolutions up to 1080p and will handle native 24fps content from Blu-ray movies. An adaptor is provided for connecting component sources via the VGA input, and there are S-video and composite inputs for standard definition devices.

Using the HDMI input, we connected a PC set to the projector's 1,280x720 native resolution. Frustratingly, the results were poor. Images lacked crispness. The VGA input will display a crisp 1,280x720 image, but there's no way of adjusting the onscreen position. With one PC we lost around 30 pixels off the right-hand edge of the screen, while another lost twice that amount off the left. Because of this, we can't recommend it for use with a PC or notebook.

Video quality from the built-in DVD player is acceptable, with no nasty artefacts or jagged edges caused by the upscaling process. HD content, like Blu-ray movies, looked good, but lacked sharpness and contrast in dark scenes. Epson wouldn't disclose the projector's contrast ratio.

The 1,200-lumen lamp means you'll have to darken the room to get a decent picture. The bulb should last for 2,000 hours at full brightness and 3,000 hours in eco mode. Epson wouldn't disclose the lumen rating for this setting. The bulb is covered by the three-year warranty and replacements cost £146, which works out at around 7.3p an hour.

The EMP-TWD10 is more expensive than Panasonic's PT-AX200E, but it comes with a screen, speakers and DVD player. It's a good buy for those wanting hassle-free HD home cinema, but you'll be disappointed if you plan to connect a PC or notebook to it.