LG Minibeam PH300 Projector Review - Performance

Posted on July 23, 2015 by Art Feierman

LG Minibeam PH300 Projector - Performance: Brightness - Display Lag - Noise Level

PH300 Picture Brightness
Picture Mode	Lumens
Vivid	167
Standard	161
Cinema	124
Sport	165
Game	145
Expert1 or Expert2	124

While most LED powered pico and pocket projectors we have reviewed have produced, on average, only about 2/3 of the manufacturer claimed maximum light output, the LG PH300 measured only about 56% as bright as specified. Now that was using the out-of-the-box picture settings for each picture mode and when using a Blu-ray Disc player connected via HDMI and playing a disc with a reference 100% white test pattern. It is possible that by changing the factory defaults values for such adjustments as contrast, it might be possible to increase the maximum brightness a little.

I also measured the effect of the projector's Energy Saving setting. The table shows the lumens output in the full power mode (i.e, minimum energy saving). Going to the middle power mode reduces the image brightness by about 23% and the lowest power mode (i.e., maximum energy savings) reduces the image brightness by about 56%.

With the projector sitting level on a table and projecting a 75.5" wide image, I measured the brightness uniformity and found the top corners were the dimmest with about a 35% drop in brightness as compared to the peak image brightness value that I had measured near the center of the image.

I observed very good color uniformity when projecting a full white test image.

Input Display Lag

I evaluated the PH300 operating in Game picture mode and with the various processing options turned off or the minimum available setting. I was unable to find any settings on the PH300 that could reduce the display lag down to even 50 milliseconds. The display lag would perhaps be OK for casual gamers but not short enough for the really serious gamers.

Noise Level

LG does not specify how much noise is produced by the PH300's cooling fan. Even when operated in the brightness mode, I found the audible noise level produced by the projector to be fairly low.