Acer PD125 review

At £721 including VAT, Acer's PD125 is the cheapest projector in the group. Its lamp costs just 7p per hour; only the Dell 3400MP is cheaper.

Acer hasn't skimped on features. You get the same 1,024x768 native resolution provided by the more expensive models here, and the contrast ratio of 2,000:1 also compares well. It is fairly portable, and weighs 2.4kg.

At 30dBA, it is one of the quietest projectors in the group, making it ideal for business presentations in small rooms. At its shortest projection distance of 1.2m the PD125 throws an image with a 62cm diagonal, which is good enough for presentation purposes.

Coaxing a decent image out of the PD125 took some effort. Like Dell's 3400MP, it had trouble with yellow areas. Desktop folders had a greenish hue until we adjusted the colour settings. We also had to adjust the tracking, brightness and contrast to get a good picture. Images were sharp, but colours weren't as rich as those from the other DLP office models.

Rainbow effects were noticeable in our black-and-white contrast test, but they weren't too obtrusive. Our video signal processing tests proved particularly difficult for the Acer, though. It did extremely well in noise reduction and sharpness tests, but it performed poorly when we evaluated motion.

If you're on a tight budget and willing to spend a little time getting to know the image control menu, this is a decent, inexpensive business projector. If video quality is important to you, however, or you want to add some extra punch to your client presentations, it's worth spending a little more

Author: Lynley Oram