With the pandemic, cinemas are closed and because of that, we can’t catch up with our movies just how we want it – you know… Surround sound! Big screen! Comfy chairs!
Thankfully, EPSON caught my attention by reaching out to me to look into this unit – The EPSON EH-TW7000, so here is my review.
(article continues after the video)
Dimensions
Let’s start with the size of this projector, its dimension at 310mm with a width of 410mm and a height of 157mm. Weighing at approximately 6.6 kilos, this definitely isn’t a portable projector for you to carry up and down, but you can if you want to.
Its body is built with a glossy white plastic finish and well and it is packed with a 1.62 zoom ratio and a focal length of 18.2 to 29.2mm.
Next to the lens is the air exhaust for better ventilation. Obviously, there will be some sort of a fan noise, which comes up to about 35 dB in normal mode and 24 dB in eco mode, when you paired it with a speaker you can barely even hear them.
Projection Size & Quality
Coming to the projection size, you can achieve a 100-inch screen size by placing the projector from 295cm to 478cm distance from the wall. Besides that, there is a wide range of placement possibility with a broad vertical shift ranging between 60% and 24% horizontally.
That being said, you can level up and recreate your home entertainment experience with the TW7000. The projection technology comes packed with RGB liquid crystal shutter projection system of 3 LCD with a native resolution of 1080p. Well, if you are wondering just like me like “hmmm isn’t this a 4K UHD projector?”, well yes, as it upscales your content up to 4K so you will surely see a difference even if you are just viewing 1080p content or even 4K video playback as well.
Lifespan & Brightness
Now, because it uses a 250 watts lamp, it allows you to project up to 5,000 hours life span. So with this, let’s talk about the brightness first. In normal mode, it produces 3,000 lumens with white and colour light output while in the eco mode it offers 2,000 lumens. Also packing an optimum contrast ratio of 40,000 to 1.
I have to say that I was mesmerized with the bright and vivid colours that the TW7000 was able to achieve. With 3 LCD technology, this projector is able to achieve an equal balance of colour and white brightness to deliver vibrant and rich colour projection compared to 1-chip DLP Projectors.
So by utilising the advanced 12-bit digital to analogue conversion of the 3 LCD panel, Epson projectors can display smooth tonal transitions, with no rainbow effects, othat are usually associated with many 1-chip DLP projectors.
That being said, we can now enjoy a vibrant, brighter and sharper images with the enhanced High Dynamic Range (HDR) function. With a wider HDR10 parameter range, we can also adjust the brightness and gradation of projected images with greater detail and accuracy.
Menu System
Now coming to the modes, there are pre-set colour modes available, easily adjustable to your liking, where you can choose between Dynamic, Bright Cinema, Natural and Cinema.
I also love how you can adjust the White Balance manually to really get the best whites, especially depending on the area and wall colour that you project on.
There is also the Super-Resolution Option to really dive in deeper into the Fine Line Adjustments and Soft Focus Detail.
It is also packed with a geometric correction of the vertical and horizontal keystone of plus-minus 30 degrees and the Quick Corner Adjustments were quite handy too.
There is also an option to choose on the aspect of the projection in the menu, whether you are doing a Front Projection either on a table or from the ceiling or a rear-projection as well, which I found it to be quite useful.
Remote
And speaking of being useful, I have to say that I love how all these adjustments can be done through the remote, where Epson has included lots of buttons for adjustments on the remote, which most projectors either gives you tiny little remote or you only can adjust on the body of the projector as well and don’t worry about not being able to see the remote when its dark as the remote is backlit as well.
Ports
Looking at the ports at the back, there is a wide range of connectivity solutions. It is well equipped with 2 USB Type-A ports, one which is used to provide power supply to the streaming media device that is connected to the TW7000. Then there are 2 HDMI ports, 1 USB type mini B port and a stereo mini-jack to output your audio as this projector does not come with built-in speakers. Yes, it may be a bummer and extra cost to get another pair of Bluetooth speakers but that aside, I suppose most of us do own a pair of Bluetooth speaker at home nowadays, right?
I’m glad to say that the TW7000 has a wide range of connectivity methods to suit an array of entertainment devices such as your smart devices, computers, gaming consoles, camera, video camera or even your streaming media player – making home entertainment more accessible than ever.
Setup
As for the setup, it is fuss-free. Just by simply plugging in your streaming media players to watch your favourite contents come to life. Of course, you’ll need some time for the first-time setup where you need to adjust the leveller at the bottom and finding the right colour pre-sets and distance between your wall and projector placement. Also connecting to the Bluetooth speakers for audio output. Once that is all set up, the next time it’s pretty much plug and play.
Just to let you guys know, when you start up your projector, do bear in mind that it takes about 30 seconds to warm up and takes about 7 seconds to cool down just before shutting off completely.
Connectivity
It has Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity QUALCOMM APTX audio support built in. There is also optional Wi-Fi connectivity up to 130 megabits per second which comes in a form of wireless LAN unit of ELPAP10.
Test
When I was doing a gaming test on a PS4, image quality came as a surprise to me. There wasn’t any latency or lags whatsoever but do bear in mind that this wall that I am shooting on had a grey-ish textured wallpaper, so you might see some lines in between the images, but trust that when it is projected on a clean white, grey or black wall, it will be totally clear.
Conclusion
Now to sum it up, with the flexibility that comes with functions such as lens shift, zoom and 4K upscale Pro UHD technology, you can now maximise your viewing experience. So again, you may ask earlier, 1080p native resolution but marketed 4K Pro UHD? To be clear, the projector actually has a native resolution that upscales full HD content to a 4K resolution by shifting each pixel resolution diagonally doubling the resolution. So yes, this is actually a 4K Pro UHD projector indeed.
As for the projector’s price, it is retailed at RM6,238, which I will leave links down below and yes I know you’ll not digest this well just yet, but hear me out.
With RM6,238 for this projector, you can probably buy a typical smart TV at like about maybe 65 inches, but for some household who has another spare room to be converted into a cinema room or entertainment room, this could be the best option for the money because if there was a 100-inch screen TV, would it even cost RM6,000? I doubt so but nevertheless, let’s discuss this down in the comment section below.
Aside from that, thank you so much and stay safe!
