The Epson EH-TW5300 is clearly made with home-entertainment in mind. This is an LCD projector, despite having a relatively low cost (as far as home-entertainment projectors go), it features a competitive brightness of 2,200 lumens (as per the company), a dynamic contrast ration of 35,000:1 (again, as per the company), MHL mobile phone connectivity, a Full HD resolution, and 3D playback.
The Epson EH-TW5300 is Built for Home-Entertainment
Aesthetically speaking, the Epson EH-TW5300 is perfect to be placed on top of a coffee table. It has a small architecture which means it will only leave a relatively small footprint as far as projector standards go. Its chassis is also easy to look at thanks to its curvy nature, high-gloss white finish, and rounded edges.
However, what could sit rather uncomfortably (visually speaking) is the silver-metal trim that surrounds the lens. It is straightened off by the device’s edging. Still, you might be distracted away from this with the delight of the detailing of the lens mount.
Visually, there is plenty to like about the EH-TW5300 Home-Entertainment Projector, but they are ultimately undermined by one factor – image black level response. In this aspect, the projector delivers poorly. It does have a high claimed aspect ratio, but the blacks aren’t really up to par as compared to other projectors found in the same price class.
The dark scenes, even in dark areas of otherwise bright scenes, look very washed out. They don’t even look “black” at all as they looked to be more of a washed-out gray. Immediately, this made pictures a bit unrealistic on the eyes, and as a result, hard to engage with.
The severity, or lack thereof, of the black level response is that it inevitably impacts the unit’s color performance. For instance, if you’re watching horror or thriller movies, wherein “dark” is the predominant theme all-throughout the film, there is constant infusion of grayness which leaves the dark colors and skin tones to look muted and very off-key.
However, this does not pose much of an issue when you’re running the projector in a fairly bright room. Once again, however, it does not mean that this washed-out black will disappear, as it is still very much existing. This aspect becomes even more maddening since every other element within images looks pretty decent.
The Epson EH-TW5300 is made to be for home-entertainment use, and yet it is flawed in some areas. What’s questionable for the unit is that one area of a category is flawed whereas the others perform pretty decent. This is especially true when you’re talking about its black-level response for images being projected.