Optoma HD67N review

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Verdict:

It's 3D ready, but you can't watch movies on it without an additional box, while the annoying rainbow effect and low resolution detract from it.

Review Date: 8 Feb 2011

Price when reviewed: £530

Buy it now for: £493
(see more store prices)

Supplier: http://www.askdirect.co.uk

Reviewed By: Kat Orphanides

Our Rating 3 stars out of 5

User Rating

Most home cinema projectors have a Full HD resolution of 1080p to match the resolution of Blu-ray movies, but the Optoma HD67N has a resolution of 1,280x720 (720p). This helps keep the price of the projector down, making it look like an appealing choice for an entry-level occasional-use model.

It's marked as being 3D-ready, which means that you can use it out of the box with an Nvidia 3D Vision system on a PC for 3D games. If you want to watch 3D Blu-ray or Sky 3D, or play 3D games on the PlayStation 3 you'll need to buy an Optoma 3D-XL converter.

The projector looks fairly plain but it's well made and small enough to move around easily. There’s some whirring fan noise when it runs, but this isn't too penetrating and the projector doesn't run too hot. The accompanying remote control is compact, nicely shaped and well laid out. Buttons to switch between different input sources are at the bottom, while other controls including brightness, colour mode, lamp mode and aspect ratio are nearer the top.

Unsurprisingly at this price, there are no lens shift controls, so you'll have to position your image by moving the projector itself, making it harder to align the image without resorting to digital adjustment. There's a vertical image shift option, which moves the picture up and down. This shouldn't be confused with a physical lens shift; this option shifts the image using the existing resolution, discarding the top or bottom few lines of the image. It could be useful if you only watch widescreen footage and have the black bars to spare, but we doubt anyone only watches one type of footage.

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