Hitachi CPX3 review

Hitachi's CPX3 is the smallest of the crossover models and the lightest projector in this Labs, making it well suited to carry between home and work.

It has a boxy case and a plain silver and black design. It's the only projector here with the power socket placed on the side of the unit. However, that doesn't make it ideal for shelf mounting, as the fan blows out of the rear of the case.

Setting up the CPX3 was quick. Startup took just three seconds, and shutdown was almost instantaneous. This is impressive, and means you could pack up and leave a meeting room quickly. The lack of lens shift means that, for the best picture quality, the CPX3 has to be placed squarely in front of the screen to get a straight picture.

In our presentation tests it performed well, with great colour accuracy and adequate contrast. With a 2,000 lumens lamp, the CPX3 is bright enough for use in daylight; there's even a daylight picture mode in the menu, which greatly increases colour saturation, albeit at the expense of accuracy. In a dark room, though, you can turn on eco mode, which dims the lamp and will also extend its life from 3,000 to 4,000 hours.

The quoted contrast ratio of 500:1 is low, even for an LCD projector, but in our tests we didn't notice a dramatic difference between the CPX3 and the other crossover projectors. The lack of contrast was most noticeable in cinema mode, which uses a higher colour temperature to bring out the detail in dark areas at the expense of making the rest of the image a bit washed out. Cinema mode also had an effect on blues, which were decidedly dull. Overall quality was good, though.

The internal speaker pumped out a fair volume, but not enough to drown out the noise of the fan. This was by far the loudest of the projectors here. The CPX3 is the best choice if you travel a lot, and the image quality is great for the price, but it's very noisy and so just misses out on an award.