Out of the Box Picture Quality - BOXi T200 Pico / Pocket Projector
All of our photos of projected images in this review, are "out of the box" except perhaps the few using User mode, where I changed the color temp or gamma.
The T200 projector does offer some pretty impressive picture quality right out of the box. There are many modes, as mentioned, and not all are "great", but of particular note, most of the images were taken using Cinema, Normal, and Photo mode.
Over the last few years we've reviewed some pico and pocket projectors that really never looked very good in terms of picture quality.
While the T-200 may not be a serious home "theater" quality projector, the picture available, color honestly is just fine. The T-200 has modes that definitely look better in terms of color fidelity than a number of my friends LCDTVs. I'm not talking accuracy, but rather, having a good looking image.
T200 Pico / Pocket Projector Skin Tones
Talking about how well the T200 projector handles skin tones is really just a continuation of my comments about viewing the T200 right out of the box. In the better modes, skin tones are rather believable.
Certainly, several modes, for example, produce skin tines superior to most serious home theater projectors when they are in their brightest mode - ie. Dynamic.
Consider these images under a wide range of lighting conditions of the scenes. Of course, great skin tones are something those of you looking at this Elmo projector for home movie and TV viewing are more concerned with, than those using this projector for presentations.
T-200 Color Modes
In this slide show, you can see photos of the same image taken in each of Elmo's BOXi T200 pre-set color modes and its User modes.
The first image in the player is of note, it is User mode, but not default. For that image I had set the User mode to a color temperature of Low. That probably works fine for an old black and white flick like Casablanca, but color temp is way too warm for color movies, as you can tell from the boy's skin tone. I probably should have found a different image as the menu blocks part of his face.
The image is from Batman Rises.
While none of the modes really is very close to a good calibrated image, it's impressive that several of them are probably at least as accurate as one would expect to find looking at LCDTV's on display at your friendly neighborhood Best Buy.
BOXi Color Modes
User Mode, Color Temp set to Low
Too Red, best to select the middle color temp setting. In this image gamma is at 2.2, Color Space is standard
Cinema Mode
Pretty good looking, and the color temp looks about right
Photo mode
One of the best and well balanced modes. and one the manual indicates is perhaps the most accurate.
Normal mode
Not too different from Photo, it too produces very acceptable color.
Game mode
Game exhibits some color shift, not as good overall, on skin tones. A slight purplish caste
Presentation mode
The T200's Presentation mode also works very well. It was used for all of our "computer" photos of browsers, email, and Powerpoint
MAX mode
Other PJs might call this Dynamic, or perhaps Native. Not pretty, (green heavy) with about 20% more brightness than other modes. It may come in handy
Picture Quality for Business / Education Presentations
These images really do look impressive considering this Elmo BOXi is a pico / pocket projector .
Note in particular that the grays of the computer's menus look just about right, as does the image of our homepage, and as does the bright oranges of the Powerpoint classroom presentation slide.
When viewing the closeup of my Mail program, and the other images, remember, that this is a true 1280x800 WXGA projector! In reality, the text appears significantly sharper "on the screen" than it appears in these slides. No surprise there. here you are looking at an image, when expanded, that's about 700 pixels wide, so really well less than 1/4 the resolution of the 1280x800 original projection.
What I'm saying is that reading really small type in emails, menus, and spreadsheets, is no challenge at all! To get the best idea of how good, look at the close-up of my Inbox, after expanding it. A touch soft, (no one will say "razor sharp" even on the projected image), and certainly not a match when compared to a 1080p or WUXGA projector, but darn good for WXGA!
Nicely done.
