Epson - EX5280 3LCD XGA Projector with Built-in Speaker - White

Epson EX5280 3LCD XGA Projector with Built-in Speaker - White Having owned a retail home theater / custom integrator business for more than a decade, I’ve viewed many a projector, both video and data grade. Despite modest technological display improvements in recent years, the light engines powering these have gotten much better. This EX5280 is a “light cannon”. At 3800 lumens I didn’t expect color accuracy to be in the same ballpark with JVC’s DILA high-end video-specific units that hover around $10,000 retail. I was pleasantly surprised to see a bright color pallets without the muting of previous models. Comparing this unit with a previous generation Epson PowerLite Cinema Pro 9500 UB projector ($4k then retail) rated at 1600 lumens, this thing is miniaturized yet still visibly smokes it (albeit lower res), with an image that’s equally colorful, with light output for days. Considering the cost differential I’d be hard pressed to pony up the additional for more contrasted black levels and native 16:9 widescreen modes. This is designed for business usage, and it excels on PPT/Keynote, Excel/Numbers, etc. business in the front, party in the back, this guy doubles as a very usable Media Room display device as well. The images below demonstrate comparisons between a Sony 75” x950g model, Sony 65” x850e model, and the Epson EX 5280 scaled image size of 100” (using only a small portion of the image 1024x768 image sensor), displayed on a tan / yellow wall. I noted on the white door jamb white trim the color was much more accurate. With a high-contrast white screen the color balance would more closely rival the much smaller TVs. Disclaimer: it was even much brighter at the same size (while holding) but it wasn’t conducive to capture like apples. With projectors perceived light output is inversely proportional with display size (same amount of light on smaller area is much brighter ) While this was certainly still watchable it did wash out when I turned on all room lights, yet I could still see a surprisingly clear image. Turning the other 2 TVs and room lights off, and plugging in Xbox you can see Forza comes alive with bright punchy colors. All in all, if you’re in the market for a business projector this is it, and will double when you want to play console games or watch the big game, or just enjoy a 2nd screen. PROS + Portable ultra-compact footprint + extremely bright without muting colors + XGA resolution 1024x768 resolution + accepts 1080p input widescreen signals + Sweet Spot between 3280 and 7280 models + side-by-side split screen display option + inputs HDMi, USB, VGA, Composite + on-board speaker plays hdmi audio CONS -16:9 scaled resolution loses sharpness -built-in speaker thin sounding (expected) -business-use NO Complaints whatsoever CONCLUSION Despite this being designed for business and impressive presentation usage, buyers can easily identify and connect an Apple TV 4K to this Epson. The big game has never looked this big and bright. Recommend Strong Buy

With the return back to the office, I’ve already run into the inevitable limited availability of conference rooms. With the new Epson EX5280, it makes it easy for me and my team to utilize another space, while allowing us to present needed training decks and presentations with our clients. While this Epson isn’t in a native HD format, most of our offices utilize older Gen 2 Apple TV’s to AirPlay to our presentation monitors and projectors. This allows our 99% Apple Mac office to AirPlay presentations from Keynotes and display important training videos. In the box you’ll find the Epson Projector, a remote, batteries, a power cord, a carrying/storage soft case, setup docs, and warranty guides. I was surprised to find that this projector still supported older VGA and composite connections, so this offers a pretty good range of compatibility across devices. Using the projector for direct connection to a Mac wasn’t an issue, allowing for a more direct connection when AirPlay wasn’t working well in our crowded WiFi workspace. It’s important to note that the projector is displaying a native 1024x768, but does allow inputs of up to 1080 without issue. The 3800 lumens were pushed to the edge in our office; however, at no point was the text in our training deck or corresponding demo videos ever difficult to see. The included remote was easy to use as Epson continues to use a familiar design and user interface. The input selection is done automatically when you power on the projector and takes only a handful of seconds to hit full brightness. The various display modes allow you to set picture preference to match your desired output. In our case, we used mostly Presentation or Cinema modes for our Keynotes and Cinema modes only when the contrast/brightness levels needed to be tuned for some of our demo videos. Adjusting focus and size of the image is done using the adjustments near the lens. If you’ve ever The included carrying case made transporting the projector easy, with a small pocket for storing the cables. I should note this doesn’t include any HDMI or other input cables for video. So keep that in mind if you’re setting up a presentation for the first time and don’t already have access to the appropriate video cables. The included speaker is also surprisingly louder than I was expecting. It allows for some volume adjustment, with a more middle area being the most desirable. The higher volume setting sounded like the small speaker was overpowered, so setting to midrange was the perfect the spot for clarity in a 30x30 meeting room. Overall, given the price, the included input options, the ability to handle both Mac and PC without issue, and the quality of the picture it’s hard to pass up on this projector. Especially given the portability and ease of setup.

I've been looking for a nice projector for work and decided to try this one out. I was very impressed with how bright it is under the office lighting as well as how easy to navigate through all the windows. Fonts and presentations are very easy to read and allows multiple type of connections in the back. Unfortunately video playback is not the best however since this is more for business presentations I am not worried about it. The controller and bag that it comes with is very nice and makes for easy travelling. Overall I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a good mid-price range projector

Clear and sharp image. It was on sale, i Like it a lot. I use it on my school.

This is a capable all around projector, and perfect for business presentations. Even in less than optimal conditions. You can use this, obviously, to watch TV, etc. and it would work just fine, but it’s more geared for work/school presentations and the like. I say this because of the limited ports (which aren’t particularly conducive to home theater setups and lack of “smart” TV functionality. IN THE BOX It’s pretty barebones. You get the projector, power cord, remote and 2 double AA batteries. I wish it came with an HDMI cable, but I expect most people have some hanging around the house/office. It also includes a convenient carrying bag, but it’s softshell, so don’t plan on throwing it around or placing heavy things on top of it. The projector isn’t super tiny, but it’s much smaller than older projectors. I wouldn’t call this travel size, since they make projectors the size of soda cans, but it’s certainly small and light enough to the point where it’s not a burden to take with you when you need it. PROJECTOR PORTS There aren’t many ports in the back of the projector. And to my surprise, it seems geared to cover old and new technology. It has an old school VGA port, composite cables, and HDMI port. It also has a USB-B input, which I guess is for connecting a computer, but I don’t really know. It has a USB-A port, which I’m guessing allows you to play files directly from a thumb drive. But honestly I didn’t test it. HDMI is really all I need, but having VGA is nice, if I ever run into an issue and need it (which is still unlikely). IMAGE QUALITY I must say, the brightness of the projector is pretty spectacular. Our office has an open conference room with lots of windows. Our old projector required us to close the shades and turn off all the lights. The Epson projector is so bright we didn’t have to close the shades or turn off the lights. While turning off lights and closing shades is generally an option, it’s really nice to have the flexibility of being able to project something in the middle of the day, in bright conditions. Obviously, the image looks better in the dark, but this is seemingly as bright as an LCD TV. The image quality itself is high def, so the image quality looks good, but make no mistake, this is no 4K image quality. Which frankly is fine, since what I use this for is PowerPoint presentations. Which is why I said you may not want to purchase this projector as a “home theater” projector. While not image related, I’ll go ahead and mention the built-in speaker. This projector has a built-in speaker, which is useful in a pinch, but the audio quality is teeny. It’s better than most laptops’ speakers, but it will not replace a quality Bluetooth or dedicated speaker when playing audio. FEATURES Like I mentioned previously, one of the boons of this projector is its flexibility. What I mean by that is, flexibility in the types of rooms where you can use it. I’m guessing other projectors have it, but you can adjust the keystone of the image depending on the limitations of the room where you are using the projector. Say you are giving a presentation in a room where you’ve never been before; say the space is crowded or you don’t really have an option to place the projector directly in front of the screen. You can use the slider on top of the projector near the zoom and focus rings to angle the screen to the side. So, imagine placing the projector at an angle (not directly in front of a screen), you can slide the slider to compensate. So in effect, you can have the projector to the side of the screen and still have an image that looks like the projector is directly in front of the screen. Same goes for the vertical keystone. Say the table where you place the projector is lower than the screen and you don’t have anything to raise the height of the projector. You can use hte buttons on top of the projector to angle the picture up or down. Again, imagine the projector being lower than your screen. You can adjust the picture on the fly so the image is directly square (vs. the bottom corners being wider than the top). Another BIG thing to add is the “zoom” feature. IF you’ve ever used a projector before, the farther away it is from the screen, the bigger the picture. The closer you move it to the screen the smaller the screen gets. Sometimes you don’t have enough space in your room to get it just right. You can use the zoom ring next to the autofocus to “widen” or “tighten” the image. I don’t know the specs of the “throw” capabilities, but the range is enough that you should be good. We presented in a smallish room and were able to widen the image to fill the screen. The remote also has some nifty features that you can’t downplay. No there’s no buttons to flip through your presentation, but say you want to blow up some text that isn’t quite as big as you hoped when making your powerpoint. You can digitally zoom in on the screen and use the arrows on the remote to move the zoomed in portion to where you want it to be. It can feel a little clunky if you’re trying to put on a smooth presentation to impress people, but being able to zoom in on portions of a presentation to highlight something is a nice thing to have. It also has the ability to mute the screen, basically making everything black. This is perfect as it allows you to get your presentation ready, then you hit the mute button which kind of turns off the screen, but upon reactivation, you’re ready to go. In other words, you don’t have to wait for the projector to warm up or anything like that. You can even split the screen if you have two inputs. This is one of those “cool” features, without much practical use. But it’s there. You can plug in a computer using the HDMI port and the VGA port and have the screens side-by-side. CONCLUSION This projector is pretty no frills, it does exactly what it does, pretty darn well. The image quality is bright enough for well lit rooms, and the keystone options and throw distances give you plenty of flexibility when using it in unfamiliar rooms. I highly recommend it for anyone who gives frequent presentations, whether in your own office or someone else’s.

The Epson EX5280 is an amazing projector that produces some of the best images I’ve seen from a projector. The projector comes packed with a full fledged remote, power cable and a nice carrying case. There are many different ways to connect to it such as USB, HDMI, VGA and RCA. The built-in auto image adjust works great and is able to correct the image almost instantly. There are also manual controls on the device as well, such as zoom ring, focus ring and horizontal keystone. Unfortunately, there is no built-in WiFi, but Epson does offer an optional wireless LAN module. There is also a built-in speaker which gets pretty loud. The projector is very easy to set up and takes almost no effort, thanks to the auto image correction. It can project on almost any flat surface from 30” up to 300”. In Addition, because it’s so light and easy to carry around, this makes for the perfect presentation tool. Not only can it connect to your computer via HDMI or VGA, but it can also connect and play video sources such as Roku, Apple TV, Blu-Ray etc. Once I got everything set up, I ran it through a couple of tests to see how well the projector performed. First, I connected my Windows laptop to mirror my screen, I was blown away by how bright and crisp the image was. The projector has some really nice features that are awesome and are pivotal for any presentation. For example, the split screen function lets you display 2 windows side by side and have 2 different images that you can use as a comparison tool. This is easily accomplished by a push of a button on the remote control. There is also a zoom feature which lets you zoom in on a specific part of an object. The next thing I tried out was the ability to play movies, so I connected my Apple TV and played a couple of movies. The image quality was amazing! The picture is very bright, with vivid colors and the motion is super smooth. There is no rainbow affect, flickering, or any other sort of picture distortion – it looked perfect. With the option to connect to other audio equipment, I decided to use an audio cable to run to my receiver so I could enjoy surround sound. This experience has turned my living room into an actual movie theater. Overall, I am very impressed with how the Epson EX5280 functions. It is so easy to set up and use, it really is a true plug and play. With the built-in auto key stabilizer, it instantly fixes the screen to make it look crystal clear. The image is bright enough to see perfectly during daytime, or a brightly lit room. The options and tools it provides you with to present images and videos are incredible, combined with the portability - it becomes the perfect presentation tool. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a new projector.

The Epson ex 5280 is a fantastic quality projector with a lot of versatility! I have been streaming content via amazon fire stick and I am impressed with the clarity of the picture. You really don't even need a projector screen with this projector. I have been projecting on the wall and it has provided me with a great picture even midday with windows around. It's easy to set up, extremely user friendly and intuitive, and compact and portable. For office presentations it is a great portable projector that connects to my laptop or devices seamlessly. It comes with a small carry case that is protective and allows me to store it safely. It is very lightweight! It has great picture color and clarity and has a modern feel. The projector comes with a remote and optional wif can be added. I have been using the HDMI and USB ports for connectivity. It has decent sound quality. I have frequent presentations at work and this is quick enough to connect and sharp enough for any conference room I end up in. This is a great value for all of the features it has-- a great price for a convenient, high quality projector. If you are looking for a great business projector that can also stream video for professional or personal use, this is your projector! This is a review for the Epson Pro EX5280 Projector that I received free of charge to do a beta test and review.

I wanted a projector primarily to be able to give presentations of static images and short videos in community forums so I decided to try this one. In addition I've always been intrigued about using a projector for entertainment (television and movies). I had hoped to get a projector that excelled at both tasks that was sold for a reasonable price. The price ranges are all over the place for projectors and this seemed like a good middle of the road projector with great performance for the price. Unboxing the projector I was glad to see it came with a carrying case and had a slightly updated more modern look than the projectors I am used to seeing. It was truly plug and play and I had the projector up and running in about 5 minutes! My initial reaction based on image was very positive (hey who doesn't love seeing a television image covering the entire wall!?). The image was definitely bright and met my brightness expectations, although the blacks seemed a little too bright and the quality wasn't perfect, but as I said I would say it met or maybe even exceeded my expectations. It would seem that projector technology has improved a lot in the last 5 years or so and I'm guessing it will continue to improve at a very fast pace. I was immediately disappointed by the lack of an Audio Out or Bluetooth. This means, if using sound you basically HAVE to rely on the small 2W built in speakers. Most would agree this is not acceptable for use as a cinema projector or even playing audio video presentations. Aside from throwing a decent amount of heat, the fans also produce low to moderate noise which competes with the small internal speakers. I’m glad to have a projector to provide my community presentations however if you depend heavily on good audio I might look at other options and/or wait a while as technology seems to be improving so fast. However if you need an excellent but no-frills projector today this seems like a good buy. This is a review for the Epson Pro EX5280 Projector that I received free of charge to do a beta test and review.