Casio pioneered their own design combining a laser with LED, for a compact solid-state light source that offers most of the benefits of a laser light engine. One of the biggest challenges we’ve found with this hybrid Laser/LED light engine is brightness. Their projectors tend to fall well below brightness claim, a fact which often has me wondering why they wouldn’t just lower the claim to be closer to the actual brightness output of the projector. No matter, that’s why you’re here to read this review! To get the full scoop on the XJ-211WN, without the hype.
Though Casio rarely meets their claim, their projectors still produce enough brightness for most environments. This projector is plenty bright for the classroom and business environments for which it is intended. More on that on the Performance Page of this review. For now, let’s talk about the benefits of the hybrid Laser/LED light engine.
Like its laser light engine cousins, the hybrid Laser/LED light engine has extremely low maintenance as compared to their lamp based competition. While most lamp based projectors range from 3,000 hours on the low end, to 10,000 hours on the high end before they need that lamp replaced, solid state light engines like the one found in this Casio have a lifespan of up to 20,000 hours. I’ve even reviewed projectors that claim up to 30,000 hours.
Let’s translate that to real life. In a 180-day school year, with the projector running 6 hours a day, the projector will run for 1,080 hours per year. With a lamp based projector, you might get between 2.5 to 3 years, or up to 9.25 years on the higher end of the spectrum, before having to change out that lamp. With a solid-state projector like this Casio, running it the same amount of hours per year, you can trust your projector will last up to 18.5 years on that light engine. That’s a massive difference.
Lamps are not expensive, so needing to change out a lamp every couple of years may not seem like a big deal, but think about this: A single school with a projector in every classroom (high schools can have as many as 80-90, give or take) will eventually need to replace a lamp in every classroom. Imagine each of those projectors needing a lamp change within the same school year. Now, imagine an entire school district, with multiple elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools, needing lamp changes within the same school year. That adds up between the purchase of lamps and maintenance. These solid-state projectors completely eliminate that cost, adding immensely to their value proposition. It also has a dust-resistant design, which means there’s no concern of dust settling on the optics within the projector and creating “dust blobs” or distortion in the projected image.
