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InFocus X10 DLP Projector

Author	John Archer
Published	24th Jun 2008
Manufacturer	InFocus
Price	£781.73 (Exc VAT)
as reviewed	£898.99 (Inc VAT)
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Design
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Image Quality
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Overall

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For starters, the X10's picture is almost unbelievably sharp. While watching the nice-picture-shame-about-the-movie Blu-ray of National Treasure 2, the definition in the actors' faces during the bright White House egg hunt sequence is little short of jaw-dropping. There's exceptional fine detailing, total crispness, and a complete absence of video noise. What's more, the outstanding detail levels also help generate a terrific sense of depth to the image, revealing every last subtlety of focus as the image trails into the distance.

Actually, the detailing here is so cute that it slightly reveals the shots of the White House for what they actually are: a special effects addition achieved through the miracle of blue-screen…

I'd really doubted that a projector as cheap as this one could deliver the full benefit a 1,920 x 1,080 pixel count can bring to an HD movie. But as well as the detail and lack of noise already noted, I was also struck by the purity of colour blends, as the X10's extra pixel density does away with the vast majority of the ‘colour banding' problem that can afflict budget projectors.

Also nothing short of remarkable is how bright the picture looks. DLP projectors at the X10's sort of price point traditionally struggle to give images any real dynamism, but there's dynamism aplenty on show here, even during the dark scenes that make up National Treasure 2's final half hour in the Olmec caverns.

Of course, brightness alone does not a great video picture make. But don't worry; while the best picture quality on the X10 is achieved with the iris slightly closed (I personally set it to between 64 and 73), the resulting loss of brightness isn't at all severe in the context of the benefits you reap in terms of black level improvement.

With the iris slightly closed the black levels you can achieve are simply in a different world to anything - repeat, ANYTHING - else we've seen anywhere at anything like the X10's price.

And still we're not even close to being done with the good news, for the X10 is also streets ahead of its price point with its colour saturations. They're both radiantly rich - as is spectacularly apparent during the HD Disney logo that precedes the National Treasure 2 presentation - and, even more remarkably, terrifically natural in tone. For instance, all the faces on show in the lecture theatre where Ed Harris's character drops his historical ‘bombshell' are rendered with emphatically authentic toning, even though this scene is, by its nature, rather dark. There's not a PC-biased colour tone in sight.

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An o' Neamus said on 2nd July 2008

I've just bought this projector based on the positive reviews (chiefly this one, there's not many about as this projector is very new) and I must say I have a bit of &quo... more

An o' Neamus said on 13th July 2008

This is a follow-up to my previous comment. I decided to keep the projector. I still don't know how the "rainbow effect" on this projector compares to others, but I ... more

Arco said on 26th July 2008

and how much does the lamp for this thing cost? it'll die pretty soon if you watch tv with the projector too

Alice Inordnung said on 5th August 2008

This is a follow up to An o'Neamus ' comments. I also was concerned about the rainbow effect and demo'd an IN82 (the same huge size as the X10) , no X10 being availa... more

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