Optoma EH320USTi Ultra-Short Throw Projector Review - Performance

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Art Feierman

Optoma EH320USTi Projector - Performance: Brightness, Noise, Interactivity

Optoma EH320USTi Projector - Brightness
Display Mode	White Lumens	Color Lumens	Color Temp
Presentation	2177	*	7541
Bright	3940	975	6011
Movie	1685	*	6714
User	969**	833**	6263**
Blackboard	2903	*	6037
DICOM SIM	2630	*	6634
sRGB	1270	*	6338

Notes:

* Color lumens was not measured for this Display Mode

** For User Display mode the user adjustments for Contrast, Brightness, Sharpness and Brilliant Color were adjusted. This reduced the white brightness considerably from what was possible with the factory default setting, but these adjustments produced a more accurate picture.

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The EH320USTi, like many single chip DLP education and business class projectors uses a color wheel with a clear segment. This is part of the "Brillant Color" function on these projectors. This adds white light to the red, blue and green (at least) primary colors and the result is whites and lighter shades of color will appear much brighter, while more saturated colors appear much darker in comparison. A measurement for "Color Brightness" provides a better indication than the traditional "White Brightness" measurement for how bright the projected image will appear when the projector is configured for best presenting color images accurately. See our video summary on Color Brightness - HERE.

The above table is for the projector operating in the high lamp mode. When using the Eco mode the light output decreased by about 20%.

I found the EH320USTi to have excellent brightness uniformity from the center of the image to the corners. Color uniformity across the image was very good and focus uniformity was reasonably good (but a notch below the best I have seen from an ultra short throw projector).

Noise

The EH320USTi is specified to produce a noise level of 36 dB in normal lamp mode and 29 dB in Eco mode. The value in normal (i.e., high lamp) mode is typical for this class of projector, while the low lamp (Eco) mode noise level is a little more than typical. While the noise level, especially with the lamp operating in normal mode, is certainly very audible, it should not be distracting when this projector is being used in a conference room or class room environment (remember this projector will be up at the front of the room, well away from everyone except the presenter). Changing to the “Eco” mode resulted in a noticeable decrease in noise level and to a level similar to that from a typical home theater projector when such a projector is operating in its normal mode.

The EH320USTi has a 16 watt built-in speaker that produces adequate volume to not only overcome the projector’s fan noise but also is sufficient to provide the audio in a classroom or a moderate size conference room. As is expected from such a modest size built-in speaker, there is no bass but it still works well for voice narrations and background music.

Interactivity

The key performance measure for a pen or finger touch interactive “electronic white board’ is how accurate the physical location of the pen’s or finger's tip aligns with the electronic drawing position. While I admit that I did not do extensive investigation/testing into the projector’s interactive capabilities, I did find that after calibration the touch positon alignment with the projected image was very good.