Acer H5360BD review

Acer’s latest entry-level 3D home cinema projector is ideal for a bedroom or any room where you don’t want a huge projector. At less than 10cm deep, you should have no trouble finding a space for the H5360BD on a bookshelf or sideboard. Unfortunately it lacks full 1080p support, only projecting 720p video.

At a penny under £500 though, this might not matter to you – particularly given the surprisingly vivid picture quality. Despite down-scaling our 1080p test files to a 1,280×720 resolution, they still looked great. Colours were vibrant and the picture was very bright at default settings, although it did suffer from a noticeable rainbow effect – black and white scenes were particularly painful to watch, although things improved when switching to full-colour videos. Fast-moving scenes proved a struggle, as we noticed plenty of motion artefacts, and there are no digital image corrections available in the menu system.

3D support is a huge bonus in an entry-level projector such as this, but it isn’t ready for your 3D Blu-ray discs straight out of the box. No 3D glasses are included in the box, so you’ll have to buy a pair of DLP-link glasses (£50 each from www.amazon.co.uk) first. 3D effects were reasonable, but lacking in depth compared to most 1080p projectors.

The compact remote control slides into a cradle built into the projector for storage – this is great if you plan on keeping it within easy reach, but not so good if you plan on using a ceiling mount. Whatever your plans, make sure you don’t lose it: aside from the power button, there are no controls on the unit itself. All the expected buttons are there, including controls for changing the video source and enabling digital zoom.

Unsurprisingly at this price, focus and zoom must be adjusted manually. The 1.2x lens is fairly limiting, so the projected image size will mostly depend on where you place the main unit rather than the zoom. This shouldn’t be a problem in most rooms, as the H5360BD can throw a 60in image from seven feet. There’s ample keystone correction, but we advise against using it because it impairs image quality – it’s no substitute for mounting the projector square-on to your screen.

Despite its small size, there’s still a good selection of ports on the back of the unit – VGA, S-video, component and composite outputs and a single HDMI port are fine for most setups, but if you’ve got multiple high definition sources, you may need to invest in an HDMI switch to connect them all at once. There’s also a 3.5mm audio input – the single 2W mono speaker is surprisingly loud, but quality isn’t great. As with some laptop speakers, the absence of bass and a muffled high-end made it unsuitable for enjoying movie soundtracks.

Considering its budget price, the H5360BD copes well with both 2D and 3D video. You won’t be blown away by its image quality and the lack of 1080p support may be a compromise too far for some. However, if you want a huge picture for little money, it’s a good entry-level choice.