Sony VPL-HW40ES Review

Sony has developed a reputation for producing home theater projectors of superior quality. One of their latest projectors, the VPL-HW40ES, has not only taken this up a notch but it has also done so at a fraction of the price of projectors in its range.

Features

The most notable aspect of the Sony VPL-HW40ES is its price. Retailing at a lower price compared to most other high end projectors, this projector will give you the same quality that other Sony projectors have at a relatively pocket-friendly price. This is not the only notable feature.

To enhance the home-viewing movie experience, the HW40ES comes with a Dynamic Lamp Control feature. What it does is to ensure the projector’s lamp’s brightness works together with the shutter actions of the 3D glasses to bring out a brighter image without influencing the consumption of power. Although it does not come with the 3D glasses, the money you save buying this at a cheaper price can be used to buy some good 3D glasses.

Some features which remain the same include the Reality Creation system and the Motionflow engine. The former works to make Blu-ray pictures get back their original colours and textures which had been lost in the encoding process. The latter, on the other hand, works to reduce motion blur meaning that any action scenes you view will appear sharp and not have judder.

Other notable features include a 1.6x optical zoom lens which works together with a 1700 lumens which adds to picture brightness resulting in good quality pictures. It also has the ability to shift images vertically and horizontally, and screw down legs which will make it easier to balance the projector should your table surface not be as smooth.

Its factory settings are quite good and call for little to no adjusting. If you however wish to adjust anything related to the picture, you can do so. You however need to get a bit technical, but once you master the basics of the workings of the projector, you will have an easy time of it.

The HW40ES runs quietly but it does produce quite a bit of heat which may help warm up the room during the cooler months!

Limitations

The iris of the HW40ES is not automatic. This means that to reduce the black levels of dark scenes you have to set it manually. The plus side is that once you have found your ideal settings you do not need to touch them again.

Colour temperature and gamma modes have limited and for some are even locked. You can only adjust color temperature when set to Custom 5.

Even with the noticeably lower price of a projector of its caliber, the Sony VPL-HW40ES does not disappoint. It handles colour very well and has a good amount of brightness. And with a three year warranty it still stands above many projectors in its price category.