My dream house has a movie theatre in the basement – and the ghost screen (appears and disappears at a press of a button) is a wall’s length, and height. Before I can achieve this though, my living room is still a living theatre thanks to the EPSON EB-UO4 full HD Projector themed as a home entertainment or office presentation power house. For Kshs 120K only, you can enjoy up to 100 inches full HD entertainment – and you better have at least a 5.1 home theatre surround sound to accompany the crystal clear pictures.
The LCD 3000 lumens EPSON EB-UO4 projector is not considered to be a portable projector, at least not as portable as the EPSON EB-1776W we reviewed in June last year. Although not tagged portable, EPSON EB-UO4 is still lightweight and ships with a padded carry bag in case you’d find a need to take the projector somewhere.
As a home entertainment projector, EPSON EB-EO4 is features two HDMI ports in addition to the usual PC-VGA port, the AV video input port, and for mobile centric users one of the HDMI ports can handle MHL mobile phone playback.
Although I have mentioned that the EPSON EB-EO4 features a full HD resolution, that is an understatement. Full HD is typically a 1920 by 1080 pixels but the resolution of this projector is at 1920 by 1200 pixels. This shouldn’t mouth water you though as the aspect ratio is not the normal video widescreen of 16:9 – but rather the PC widescreen aspect ratio of 16:10 – so the vertical pixels consumes 1200 pixels thus retaining the ppi.
One thing that worries those who want to opt for projectors is the lamp hours. Normally, projectors require their lamps to be replaced every year when used daily at an average of 6 to 10 hours per day. The cost of replacing a lamp is typically above shs 30K – and spending shs 30K a year on a lamp is akin to buying a new 32 inch TV every year. EPSON EB-UO4 projector however has a 10,000 lamp hour, which should last you up to 5 years if used at an average rate of 5 hours a day. Normally if you work weekdays your screen time can be as little as 3 hours weekdays, and probably do some 15 or so hours weekends. And as usual, electronics are supposed to serve you for about 2 to 3 years before upgrade so having one for 5 years is going overboard.
Let us assume you have bought your EPSON EB-UO4 projector, how do you go about setting it up? The beauty of the projector is that even my 4 year old son could set it up on his own – at least after he had learnt how to match port colours with cables. What you need to do is to insert the power cable to the socket – and plug it at the back of the projector. Next step is to insert the video input source (HDMI, AV, or VGA, USB stick) – power the projector on, wait for about 30 seconds to see the image on the wall, and adjust the image.
At the front of the projector and just below the lens there is the tilt adjustable stand to allow for proper screen placement on the wall. If the screen is not properly aligned with the wall, you can also choose to further adjust the tilt by lengthening or shortening the back screw stands – something I discovered many weeks after attempting to do the adjustment with books and card boards which I placed below the projector to provide a slight lift.
After the projector is set possibly at a distance of 3 meters away from the wall, you can go straight into adjusting the image size by moving the zoom wheel that is well placed on top of the projector. Also on top of the projector is the keystone correction button that you can move from left to right or vise versa in order to correctly place the image within the screen area. I however found adjusting the keystone using the quick corner adjustments to work best – slow but best.
The EPSON EB-UO4 Projector has the following technical specifications:
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Projection System
3LCD Technology
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LCD Panel
0.67 inch with MLA (D10)
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Colour Light Output
3,000 lumen – 2,100 lumen (economy) In accordance with IDMS15.4
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White Light Output
3,000 lumen – 2,100 lumen (economy) In accordance with ISO 21118:2012
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Resolution
WUXGA, 1920 x 1200, 16:10
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Contrast Ratio
15,000:1
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Lamp
200 W, 5,000 h durability, 10,000 h durability (economy mode)
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Keystone Correction
Auto vertical: ± 30°, Manual horizontal: ± 30°
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Colour Reproduction
Up to 1.07 billion colours
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High Definition
Full HD
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Aspect Ratio
16:10
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Colour Processing
10 Bits
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2D Vertical Refresh Rate
50 Hz – 85 Hz
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Projection Ratio
1.38 – 1.68:1
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Zoom
Manual, Factor: 1.2
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Projection Size
30 inches – 300 inches
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Projection Distance Wide/Tele
1.8m – 2.17m (60 inch screen)
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Projection Lens F Number
1.5 – 1.71
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Focal Distance
20.42mm – 24.5mm
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Focus
Manual
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Offset
10:1
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Lens
Optical
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USB Display Function
3 in 1: Image / Mouse / Sound
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Interfaces
USB 2.0 Type A, USB 2.0 Type B, Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11b/g/n (optional), VGA in, HDMI in (2x), Composite in, MHL, Cinch audio in
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Epson iProjection App
Ad-Hoc / Infrastructure
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Security
Kensington lock, Padlock, Security cable hole, Wireless LAN security, Password protection
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3D
No
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Features
AV Mute Slide, Built-in speaker, Direct Power on/off, Document Camera Compatible, Horizontal and vertical keystone correction, Long lamp life, MHL audio/video interface, Network projection, OSD copy function, PC Free, Split-Screen-Function, Wireless LAN capable, iProjecton set-up by QR code
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Warranty
24 months Carry in, Lamp: 12 months or 1,000 h
The best part of Epson EB-UO4 is that you can get the device for Kshs 120K only (VAT) inclusive. In Nairobi, the projector can be bought at Officemart, Bright Technologies, Innovative Computers, Avenue Electronics, Wincomp Services and Text Book Centre
