Epson Home Cinema 880 Projector Review

The Epson Home Cinema 880 is the manufacturer’s least expensive Home Theater model. With a suggested retail price of just $599, the HC880 offers a lot of performance for the price, which has earned it's place on best projectors under $1,000. The projector boasts 1920 x 1080 Native Resolution, 3,300 ANSI Lumens, and true 3-chip, 3LCD technology. The HC880 can deliver a good looking picture on a large screen or a blank wall.

While there are less expensive home entertainment projectors on the market, spending a few $100 more on a reputable brand model like Epson will provide a much better viewing experience. The Epson Home Cinema 880 can produce up to 3,300 lumens of brightness and good color accuracy, making the unit a good option for an entry-level home theater. I can also see many Home Cinema 880s winding up in corporate meeting rooms.

You can easily connect a cable box, Blu-ray player, gaming console, or streaming device to the HC880 via its HDMI input. The Epson Home Cinema 880 projector can also support Mira casting with mobile devices such as laptops, smartphones, or tablets. The Miracast feature allows the viewer to project or mirror a device wirelessly without any additional software.

While many projectors at this price point only offer vertical keystone correction, the HC880 is equipped with two-dimensional keystone correction with a range of ±30° in each dimension. The 2D Keystone feature dramatically reduces the trapezoid effect, which occurs when a projector is installed off-center. The keystone correction is done automatically, or can you adjust manually via the Display sub-menu. Also, you can use Corner Fit to adjust each corner independently to achieve your desired image geometry.

Wired LAN allows you to manage the HC880 from a computer using a web browser when the computer and the projector are connected to the same local area network. The HC880 is compatible with several projector control systems, including Crestron, AMX, and PJ-Link, for network control via LAN. The HC880 also supports control via RS-232

Epson offers several home cinema models that retail for under a thousand dollars utilizes 3LCD technology, and can deliver an impressive amount of brightness. The models above the HC880 provide higher contrast, include a higher quality sound system, and they are equipped with Android TV.

The Home Cinema 880 is a very basic projector, it utilizes a lamp-based light source, and it doesn’t have many smart features. However, at $599, it is very affordable and produces good picture quality for its price. With an ANSI Lumens rating of 3,300 and a lamp life of 6,000 hours (12,000 hours in ECO mode), you can experience years of quality home theater content. This lamp-based projector produced brighter and more accurate colors than many DLP laser projectors that cost 3X more. The HC880 does not have many bells and whistles, but if you desire an excellent image from an affordable projector, the HC800 should be at the top of your list.