Optoma HD23 - Overall Color & Picture Quality
What I really like about the Optoma HD23 is that after watching a wide range of content, the overall color, and picture in general, looks good. It never appeared seriously over the top, or wrong. As just stated, blacks are entry level, while shadow detail is very good.
Skin tones are extremely good for such a low cost projector. That's not surprising, you're not going to have consistant, good skin tones, if overall color is not well balanced. Even without calibration (or our adjustments), they look pretty good.
All considered, picture wise, the HD23 projector produces a very pleasing picture, that won't offend. Better blacks would be great, but then this wouldn't be a $999 projector targeting the family room type of setup, it would cost far more.