Epson PowerLite 1785W Wireless Portable Projector Review

The Epson PowerLite 1785W is a WXGA (1280x800) 3LCD projector intended for the traveling professional, classroom, or anyone who needs to wow their audience on-the-go.  This $899 projector is set to impress with a brightness claim of 3,200 white and color lumens for vivid color, which is great for rooms with little control over ambient light.

Its convenient wireless connectivity provides for a quick and easy setup to existing networks, and it even accepts connection directly from your smart device; incredibly convenient in this day-and-age where students are more likely to have their classroom presentation stored on their smart phone than “old fashioned” flash drive.

The Epson PowerLite 1785W is part of a family of portable projectors – Epson has by far the widest variety of projectors of any manufacturer and currently has the largest market share of all projector manufactures.  The PowerLite 1700 series of ultra-slim, portable business and education projectors includes the 1785W, which we are reviewing here.  Its siblings include: the 1795F, a HD 1080p version with a list price $100 more; the 1781W, WXGA (it’s virtually identical to the 1785W, but with a black cabinet) at $799; and the 1780W, also WXGA with a brightness of 3,000 lumens at a cost of $749.

This review of the Epson PowerLite 1785W portable projector will begin with a short overview and some highlights.  We’ll move on to a list and discussion of some of the special features this unit offers, followed by a tour of the hardware.  We’ll discuss picture quality in the different color modes and dive into how well this projector performed and if it met our expectations as I took it for a spin.  We’ll sum it all up on the final summary page; by that point you should know if the Epson PowerLite 1785W meets your needs for as a portable wireless WXGA business and education projector.

We wish to thank Epson America for sponsoring this year’s Best Classroom Projectors report.  

The Epson PowerLite 1785W is a 3,200 lumen projector with WXGA (1280x800) resolution with 3LCD technology.  What I love about 3LCD projectors is that they offer as many color lumens as white lumens.  Of course, due to wavelengths of visible light, no color is going to be exactly as bright as white light when using the same light source, but it’s close enough!  We tested the brightness claim and will discuss those on the performance page; we also tried the projector out in moderate ambient light (daytime, windows open, lights off) and we’ll let you see how well it performed there.

This projector is ultra-slim, and that’s another big plus for me.  Who wants to lug a large clunky projector around when you can get features such as wireless networking for smart devices, vivid color, high brightness, and high definition images and video out of something the size and weight of a laptop?

The projector even has automatic vertical AND horizontal keystone correction, which is useful as it makes fitting the image perfectly on the screen so much easier – a real plus if you’re going to be moving this projector from classroom to classroom, or meeting room to meeting room.

There are only a few connectors available on this projector, but the wireless connectivity provides a broader range of devices that can interact with the Epson PowerLite 1785W.  Miracast streaming is supported, so you can turn your display into a smart screen, 30” all the way up to 300” diagonal.

Of course, this is a small, very portable projector; while it is capable of filling a 300” screen, let’s be real here - it’s unlikely anyone would use it to go larger than 120" or 150” diagonal.  Obviously, that would be pushing it without very good lighting control.  On my 90" screen, which is about what you would expect this projector to be used with, it looks fantastic!