Customer Reviews
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
A great buy, but know what you're buying
By PhotoGraphics
I won't go into techie specs, that has already been covered in great detail here, only a few bulletpoints to help readers make an informed decision:1. Know that this is a "business" projector, not an "entertainment" projector. It is designed to hook to a computer and project presentations or videos in standard resolution and format, not HD widescreen.2. As a business projector that will likely travel, the VS310 is not the smallest or lightest but it is built quite substantially. Your choice may be between small/light or well-built. Personally if my important presentation depended on it, I would go with the latter.3. Business presentations are often conducted with the light on (to keep the audience awake?), while entertainment content is usually projected in darkened rooms. The 2600 lumens of the VS310 make it great choice for rooms that are not so dark.4. Bulbs for projectors are not cheap. The Epson has significantly longer bulb life than many other models and the replacement bulb is reasonably priced. That's a plus. If you're important presentation depends on a projector that works, this would be a good choice but I suggest you NEVER schedule a meeting without having a space bulb handy.5. A few years ago when researching business projectors I did a lot of research on the two basic core technologies. LCD and DLP each have unique advantages over the other. Neither one is perfect. So it is important to understand what each one gives you. Then you can make a good decision about which will be better for you. In a nutshell (and as a generality) LCD tends to be a better choice for business projectors and DLP tends to be a better choice for entertainment projectors.Once you get past the basic functions of a business projector, a lot of add-on features are gravy, nice but not necessary. Anyone who has been to a training or typical business meeting knows that the presenter rarely uses all of the fancy adjustments to make sure the picture is perfect on the screen, more often than not they will unpack the projector 5 minutes before the meeting and point it in the general direction of the screen. The VS310 has a more-than-adequete range of controls.Bottom line: The VS310 is a nice little projector ... reasonably priced, simple and economical to use and sturdily built.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
Great value in a capable entry-level LCD projector
By M. Erb
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1JCI62BUVFUTJ UPDATE: For Mac users who have Mountain Lion, the extension that Epson provides in the projector and that gets installed on your computer the first time you hook it up via USB is not compatible with Mountain Lion. So that means you need to download the latest driver from Epson first, before you hook this projector up to your Mac, otherwise you will have a very messy situation which requires tricky un-installation of the older Epson driver. If you've upgraded to Mountain Lion and already have the extension installed, you will have to use the Epson uninstaller to remove it first. Then download the new extension from Epson website and install that before connecting the projector.The Epson VS310 3LCD Business Projector is a great, basic LCD projector that will please you with it's bright display and easy operation.The projector interfaces with your PC by a provided VGA cable. Since Macs don't have VGA outputs, you'll need to use a USB cable on the Mac and you can also use the USB cable for connecting to your PC. Inexplicably, Epson does not provide a USB cable with this model although they do for other models such as the EX3210 Epson EX3210 SVGA 3LCD Business Projector, 2800 Lumens, VGA, USB, 5.1 lbs. It's hard to believe that Epson could not include a $2 USB cable to make things easier for Mac users as well as letting PC users enjoy the ease of USB connectivity.Setup is a breeze. Hook up the projector and it's basically plug and play, except on Macs which will require the installation of an extension to enable video output to the projector via the USB cable. The cable is a USB Male A-type to Male B-type. USB 2.0 Cable Type A Male to Type B Male 6 ft, Black. Again, It's very disappointing that this cable isn't included.There is no HDMI input. Otherwise there are VGA inputs, USB input and Composite Video input.Turing on the unit requires a simple press of the on/off button and the unit takes about 1 minute to achieve brightness as the bulb heats up to optimal temperature. A great feature of this projector is that it does not require a cool-down period. Simply turn the projector off and pack it away.The focus and horizontal keystone controls are easily operated by two separate controls above the lens. The projector has automatic vertical image correction. 2600 lumens provides a very bright image even in rooms with bright lights as my video demonstrates. In dim or dark rooms, it's very impressive.For audio, the projector has a 1watt internal mono speaker. It's not great and I would consider it barely adequate but it does provide sound.This is a XGA projector that is meaningless blather for most people. What that means is that it provides a resolution of 1024 x 768. In other words, plenty of pixels to give you a nice sharp image.It's relatively quiet in operation and the remote gives you control over just about everything.For the on-the-go person needing a ightweight, easy to operate, quick to setup, quiet projector, this should serve the purpose. Lamp life is purported to be 5000 hours but expect the lamp to dim during that time period and of course that rating will vary accordint to the power setting you use. That's the way it goes with LCD projectors.I'm disappointed that there is no included USB cable. For a device that is heavily promoted as being USB plug and play, you'd think there would be one. VGA cables are so 2000's technology... bulky and not even available on Mac's. The USB cable (not provided) can be used on both Macs and PC's. I'm also a little disappointed that no case is included whereas the aforementioned EX3210 includes a case... not a great case, but at least there is a case.In spite of the couple of grievances I have, overall this is a good performing, basic LCD projector.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent value business class projector
By Bron
Compact and light weight, this is aimed squarely at the traveling business person who needs to make presentations while traveling, but it is also a handy general purpose projector, if you can accept a few limitations in exchange for the low price.Pros: Very compact, low price, excellent image quality, good color, good build quality, easy to use, good remoteCons: No HDMI input, remote not backlitThe high lumens means this projector is very bright and can be used in a room with a fair amount of ambient light. A step up from the 800x600 210 model, the 310's 1024x768 resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio are fine for presenting and for DVD's, gaming, and many video formats. It's equivalent to 720p HD -- higher resolution than standard DVD video (640x480) and fine for streaming videos, DivX, home videos, photos, and similar uses. It's very well suited for laptop video games with a mid-level graphics card as well.You get Epson build quality and reliability, long bulb life, good out of the box color, instant on/off, USB instant play (for photos, presentations, and PC Display, but not suitable for video), and VGA (good for PC Video and general display purposes).You get vertical (but not Horizontal, that's reserved for the more expensive 315 model) lens shift and lots of tweaking options (most of which you won't need). This unit is very quick and easy to set-up and use, and quick to shutdown and pack up as well.I used the VGA input to connect my laptop to the projector, everything worked fine and was quick and easy to setup. Projector detected the video signal and the auto config worked as expected. I projected an 84" (diagonal) image using ECO mode (lower power/brightness, less noise, longer lamp life) and left the auto iris on (better blacks). I did not need to make any adjustments to color, everything looked good to me.The image quality is excellent for the price. For business purposes, it's very good. For home media, it's acceptable and, at this price, very decent. The blacks aren't "inky," but the image is bright and colorful. Also a good choice for gaming via the VGA connection. There's no HDMI at this price, not an issue for business uses, but it means you'll have to use component output to the VGA input connector via a special cable (not included) for best quality DVD/Movie videos. No USB cable is included, either, which is a bit lame in my opinion, but, hey, look at the price!Verdict: The basic idea here was to deliver a good quality, budget projector that features Epson's key image and build quality, and basic features, at the lowest cost possible, I believe Epson has hit the target and that these projectors will be quite popular. I've raised my initial 4 star rating to 5 stars based on my tests and performance vs. cost (i.e. bang for the buck).An excellent business projector and a handy all-around projector when used with a laptop or desktop PC via the VGA connector.---------------------Update 2011-12-01: Photos and Art images looked very good to excellent. There was plenty of detail, very bright, fairly sharp, wonderful color fidelity, and overall great image quality.I also did some limited testing to see how this unit would work with streaming video for casual movie watching (e.g. Netflix, Amazon Instant video, etc.). Image quality was very acceptable. Blacks were decent, things that were black, looked black. This is no match for a good home theatre unit, no inky blacks and "pop" here, but a very decent and eminently watchable image. Would be great for sports, I'm guessing. I watched some Netflix films and they looked very good, DVD quality plus/minus depending on source. The Amazon video I watched (Firefly non-HD) was a bit lower in quality, but still acceptable. Some native video (i.e. playing from laptop hard drive) looked great, near or better than DVD quality, YouTube videos were pixellated due to their low resolution, but the higher rez looked OK. (On an 84" image, you're going to notice blocking and pixellation w/YouTube and other lower quality sources, so keep that in mind.) I used blutooth speakers or headphones for audio - did not bother with the projector audio.All in all, it was fun and I was very pleased with the results. I think many would be perfectly happy with this projector for casual movie/video use (just don't compare it to a moderate to high-end HT unit). The wonderful HBE (Human Brain Effect) takes over after awhile and you don't really notice any image quality issues. Perfectly enjoyable and very inexpensive by comparison. Also very easy to set-up and put-away. I projected the image on my light beige wall and even that looked pretty good. The auto iris does click a bit occasionally (as with most other units), but you can turn it off if this bothers you. It improves the blacks a little bit, noticeable, but not a dramatic change.If you don't get too hung up on the lower resolution (vs. the newer 1080p units), moderate screen door effect (never bothers me at all), you'll have a lot of fun. And, at current prices, this is hard to beat in terms of fun/dollars spent.
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Vivitek Sucks
Pick another Epson model, EX7210 if you want to watch movies or EX3210 if you just need a projector.
