Epson - EB-W6 review

Epson's extensive range of projectors covers all areas of use, from home cinema and TV projection, to business for meetings and presentations, to classroom projectors designed to liven up school lessons. The EB-W6 is aimed at the last two of these and not as a home cinema projector, though in fact it's quite capable of projecting DVD and TV signals up to its native resolution of 1,280 x 800 (WXGA).

As projectors go, the EB-W6 is medium size, decked out in white and grey and with a deeply inset lens. The sliding lens cover also kills the video and audio output and the projector needs no lamp cool-down time, so you can unplug it to turn it off, if you need to vacate a room quickly, for example.

Controls on top of the case include a quick manual scan of available inputs, but the device picks up most video sources as they're plugged in. One of the main innovations of the EB-W6 is its ability to connect both video and control signals through a single USB cable. You don't need a VGA or HDMI header, though both are provided. Instead, you can use a simple USB 2 lead, for connection to just about any laptop which has a key sequence to switch from its LCD screen to an external monitor.

When the external monitor sequence is pressed, the projector detects it has been polled and downloads a driver to the connected notebook. It then duplicates whatever's on the internal screen. Don't try to run video this way, though, as there isn't the bandwidth to run it smoothly. But it's ideal for slideshows and PowerPoint presentations.

There are also sockets for an SD card and USB memory drive and, using the top panel controls or the supplied remote, these can be searched for any graphic files, like JPG and TIF. The projector then automatically displays a screen of thumbnails so you can select images for a slideshow.

Image quality is sharp and colours are vivid, thanks to Epson's 3LCD technology, and the lamp delivers 2,200 lumens with a contrast ratio of 2,000:1 and a wide screen, 16:10 aspect ratio. The lens isn't particularly short throw, needing up to 2.3m for a 60-inch screen, but the lamp only takes 170W and is rated at 3,000 hours, or 4,000 on low brightness. The EB-W6's three feet have a fast action tilt at the front, but adjusting for sideways alignment involves stiff and awkward rear screw feet.