Epson EB-W12 review

The Epson EB-W12’s 2,800-lumen brightness makes it suitable for office use. It can connect to most devices thanks to VGA, HDMI and composite inputs, and it will also connect to a PC over a USB video connection and display images from a USB flash drive. It’s a three-chip projector, so doesn’t need a colour wheel and won’t suffer from the rainbow effect common to DLP projectors.

The EB-W12 can produce an incredibly bright image, displaying vivid colours and strong contrast even while operating under fluorescent strip lighting. There are three main picture modes: dynamic contrast, sRGB and presentation. We found sRGB looked dull in desktop applications, but presentation mode added some much-needed punch. Turning on the projector’s dynamic contrast mode led to sharper edges, deeper colours and stronger contrast in video footage, but made colours in desktop applications and presentations look over-saturated.

Dynamic contrast can lead to dramatic and distracting changes in brightness, but Epson’s implementation seems subtle enough – the only drawback is the extra clicking noise the projector makes when it’s enabled, thanks to the iris opening and closing to adjust the amount of light going through the lens. This adds to the EB-W12’s already loud fan noise to create quite a distraction when watching video, but it should be fine in office environments.

The projector has a native resolution of 1,280×800 – it will display up to 1,920×1,080, but is clearer at its standard resolution. We found HDMI gave the clearest image – VGA wasn’t as clear, even after we’d run the auto-setup program. Attaching a PC to the projector’s USB display port is simplicity itself, as the necessary drivers are stored on the projector, and gave us a clear image – we found the mouse cursor a bit laggy in USB display mode, though, and films are jerky over USB.

When playing a Blu-ray disc over HDMI, the Blu-ray’s 1080p signal is downscaled to fit into the EB-W12’s 1,280×800 resolution, but it was still clear and sharp, with bold colours. Fast-paced video footage showed no signs of ghosting, and the image was punchy even under fluorescent lighting.

The EB-W12 is particularly easy to set up, especially if you have to project from an angle. While most projectors have a keystone function that lets you project a rectangular image from an angle, the EB-W12 has a mechanical slider that makes this job much easier. Business users will also appreciate the EB-W12’s carry case, relatively low weight and USB flexibility. Viewsonic PJD5523w has better contrast and stronger blacks, so is better for films, but the EB-W12’s better USB support and easier keystone correction gives it the edge for business users. It wins our Business Buy award.