OPTOMA HD28DSE

£699

I’ve long been a fan of Optoma’s budget projectors, which regularly punch above their price bracket in terms of big screen picture quality. And this Full HD beamer once again raises the bar for what to expect at this price point, offering DarbeeVision’s powerful video processing engine for improved image depth and clarity, marking the first time the technology has been used in a projector.

It’s able to pump out an impressively high 3,000 lumens of brightness with an equally notable 30,000:1 contrast ratio. There are two HDMI 1.4a ports, a powered USB port capable of supporting dongles such as the Amazon Fire Stick or a Google Chromecast, plus 3D support.

In use, there are a number of issues that’ll have you reaching for the settings, most notably the Dynamic Black feature which can cause chaotic levels of brightness when watching dark scenes and is therefore best switched off. The Darbee processing also needs plenty of adjusting, but once tamed it delivers a clarity and sharpness beyond what you’d expect for HD content.

It does suffer a little bit from the rainbow effect – a common problem with DLP projectors which means the viewer sees a flash of colours when they quickly look from side to side – but it’s thankfully far from the worst offender when it comes to this issue.

Unusually for built-in speakers, the HD28DSE’s 10 watt units are pretty effective, while its 3D mode also impresses with little in the way of crosstalk or ghosting of images. This is helped in no small way by the device’s excellent brightness.

You’ll need to do plenty of tweaking straight out of the box, but once set up there’s no other projector at this price point offering comparable image quality. Recommended.