Acer H9500BD review

Although it has a mid-range price, the H9500BD is Acer’s top-end projector, complete with several high-end features we wouldn’t expect to find, particularly on a Full HD (1,920×1,080) DLP model, including lens shift.

Although you don’t get as much control as with an LCD projector, Acer’s lens shift gives you enough vertical and horizontal correction for most rooms, so you can get a square picture without having to resort to digital keystone correction.

It’s quite a sizeable projector, so it’s best mounted to the ceiling or installed on a shelf, but Acer’s odd decision to include a carry case in the box implies it’s also meant to be moved from room to room. This goes against our expectations for a projector that costs more than £1,000, as anything over this price is generally designed to be a more serious home cinema unit rather than a portable entertainment system. Still, we appreciate the option to it heave to and fro between rooms, as there’s plenty to like about this projector.

Setup was very simple thanks to its wide range of connections. It not only has two HDMI and VGA inputs, but there’s also a dual-link DVI-D input, component and S-video inputs, and a VGA output. Acer hasn’t included any speakers with this model, so you’ll have to use a home cinema system for audio.

As it’s a DLP projector, there’s the downside of having to contend with a slight rainbow effect, but we found we barely noticed it. In fact, it’s only really in high contrast scenes that it’s particularly noticeable.

The H9500BD has seven preset picture modes ranging from Standard, Movie, Dark Cinema, Game, Sports, Bright, and Presentation. We were a little disappointed that none of them can be customised, and any changes to the brightness, contrast, colour temperature, gamma, saturation, tint, sharpness or individual colour management settings will send you straight to its customisable User mode.

This doesn’t offer much opportunity for fine-tuning the projector to get the best image, but we were pleased to see that the AcuMotion settings could still be used regardless of which mode we chose. This is Acer’s version of frame interpolation, which adds in extra frames to help video appear smoother, and we were very impressed with it when we turned it on.

It’s almost a little too slick for watching films with, but it was particularly adept at handling fast, jerky, camera movements. We did see some very minor halo effects when it was turned on, but this was only noticeable up close and certainly won’t make too much of a difference to the overall picture quality if you’re sitting far away.

Out of the preset modes, we found that Movie offered the best balance between rich colours and high contrast, but much like Acer’s H5610BD, it was only Bright mode that was completely unusable as this turned the screen a nasty shade of green. Otherwise, we were impressed with its high contrast levels, and we were able to pick out an excellent level of detail in nearly every mode available.

Where the H9500BD really stands out, though, is its 3D capability. It comes with a pair of 3D glasses, so you won’t have to factor in this extra cost, and we saw no evidence of any crosstalk or flicker during our test footage. The glasses inevitably dim the brightness somewhat, but the projector’s dedicated (albeit streamlined) 3D menu gives you control over the brightness, contrast, gamma and saturation settings. You don’t get a choice of different picture modes sadly, but we were pleased that the AcuMotion setting was there as well, which made for some particularly slick 3D viewing.

With a brightness of 2,000 ANSI lumens, a dimly-lit room is the best option, but there’s enough light to keep watching with some lights on. We have to say that we’re a little disappointed by lamp life of 2,000 hours at full brightness and 2,500 hours in ECO mode. This works out at comparatively high running costs of 10p and 8p per hour respectively.

Running costs aside, the Acer H9500BD stands shoulder to shoulder with the similarly priced Epson EH-TW6100W when it comes to 2D and 3D picture quality. Its menu system is a little basic, but if you want an excellent projector that’s just about portable, then you need look no further than the H9500BD.