Overview
The Epson Home Cinema 2100 is a 3LCD projector claiming 2,500 lumens. That’s bright enough to handle many lighting situations that may be less than ideal; including rooms that have a moderate amount of ambient light. That the projector has 3LCD technology is a plus, as these projectors do have a higher color lumen output than their DLP counterparts.
Such is the case with the 2100, which has the same amount of color lumens as it has white ones (typical of 3LCD and LCoS projectors). What does this mean for you? A cleaner, brighter image where colors truly pop. And, the ability to have colors cut through that ambient light that most of us seem to never quite be rid of. We expect this projector to have excellent color accuracy when we review it, as this is typical of most Epson home theater projectors.
The resolution is full 1080p, HD resolution (1920 x 1080). Epson boasts that this projector can project an image up to 132 inches diagonally (for reference, Art has a 124” screen in his home theater and it is indeed an impressive size). Lamp life on the Epson Home Cinema 2100 is good, albeit just on the high side of typical these days – 4,000 at full power, 7,500 in ECO.
It has a good contrast ratio of 35,000:1, although we tend to ignore contrast numbers, as, in the world of dynamic contrast, the numbers can be very misleading. Instead we talk black level performance. Assuming it performs like its predecessor, the HC2040 – last year’s Value winner in the under $1,000 range, it should have rather impressive color accuracy, but more on that later.
The 2100 has a built-in mono speaker that should be loud enough for your living room, media room, or dedicated home theater. It’s a small speaker, so the sound is bound to sound a bit “tinny,” with its handling of bass frequencies leaving something to be desired. So, do yourself a favor and hook this puppy up to some decent speakers.
If you’ve read any of my other reviews, you will know that I will always, always suggest that you hook your projector up to a proper set of speakers or sound system so that you can hear the sound design of movies and TV as the audio engineers intended. (Rock the House!) That goes for all projectors, whether they have mono or stereo speakers, or like most over $2,000 projectors – no speakers at all.
What can I say? As an audio professional, I simply cannot condone the absence of external speakers when using a projector, unless maybe for a backyard movie night for the kids. That’s my opinion, anyway.
The Epson Home Cinema 2100 has a host of other features that set this projector apart from others of the same price point, which we will discuss in the next section. Read on to find out more about this replacement for the Home Cinema 2040.
