Optoma ZU506T-W Professional Installation Laser Projector Review - Picture Quality Page

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Dave Duncan

Optoma ZU506T-W Professional Installation Laser Projector Review – Picture and Sound: Color Modes, Video Image Quality, Text and Presentation Quality, Audio Quality

Color Modes

❮ ❯

Color modes are important for a projector. If you are going to use it in a business environment and you want the ability to switch to a Video mode when appropriate, or to a color-calibrated mode such as sRGB so you can ensure the image is as close to what the artist intended at least in regards to the projectors image capabilities.

The ZU506T-W has a few modes. Presentation, Bright, HDR, Cinema, Game, sRGB, DICOM SIM and User. This rounds out just about any use case I can think of. Our of the box, the Optoma was in Presentation mode and looked very nice connected to my MAC. The whites and grays are even and the colors looked good.You can see images of each of the Modes above. Remember DICOM SIM is for viewing Xrays, which is why the color is way off. The grey scale reproduction is spot on though.I found that sRGB was my favorite viewing mode.

The colors were sharp and even, the white was easy on the eyes and I could see all the small text clearly. The presentation was a little hot for me and the whites were overpowering and some of the colors seemed a bit washed out. The bright mode was not as bad as you find on a lot of products. This is usually where they find their brightness specification. It was washed out and the colors suffered. However, if you were in a well-lit room and needed the extra brightness this would be a completely useable choice.

Cinema was my next choice for great picture quality. The colors and whites looked great. The image was clear and sharp. Nothing was overbearing or washed out.

.

OptomaU506T-W-Review-IMG_1598 — sRGB was great balance for picture performance all around

Even when viewing videos, I felt sRGB and Cinema were a toss-up. Video performance was good. I don’t think the HDR mode was fully implemented. It did not have the fantastic color brightness I see in-home products. Cinema was much better looking.The ZU506T-W did a great job displaying text. The DLP imager with that 1920 x 1200 WUXGA resolution did a great job. Even with the small 8 point font, it was clear and crisp. It easily connected to my Powerbook as well as my win10 laptop. Having HDMI on so many devices makes switching sources so much easier than it once was.

Video Image Quality

OptomaU506T-W-Review-IMG_1563 — Nice colors nad very clear image

To get the most out of my evaluation of the ZU506T-W I used a few movies with varying color profiles.

Aquaman is always a good one, then went through the spider verse for some animated content. As well as watching the Red Sparrow and Jumanji.The ZU506T-W plays video well. The image is clear and the detail is good. The colors are somewhat muted compared to home products. This is to be expected as there are always tradeoffs. The animated video of the spider verse looked great. You could see in some scenes that the color purple was very pronounced by the ZU506T-W. Red Sparrow is a great movie, but it has a lot of very dark scenes. The ZU506T-W did its best to display them. It did well, but again, this product shines in your office or classroom. I wouldn’t recommend it for home use. Unless you plan on watching a lot of excel and powerpoint. Then by all means.

Text and Presentation Quality

The ZU506T-W did a great job with the presentation content I displayed with it. The text was always sharp and the colors were well represented. I displayed content from my Mac book as well as my Win10 laptop.As you can see in the pictures, web pages were displayed clear and the colors looked very nice. Even when looking at an excel sheet you could identify all of the lines vertically and horizontally and they were not washed out.

I do want to put in a little note. When using the projector in the Bright mode it was a little hard to see all the lines as some of them were getting lost in all the brightness.

I browsed through Discovery education and all of the images looked very nice. Colors well balanced and even the small captions under images were clear and readable. There was no fuzzy detail or missing lines. Mostly due to the great WUXGA resolution that is perfect for most office and classroom work. Having that 16:10 aspect ratio gives you some extra vertical height to display webpages and documents.

I preferred to use the projector in Game mode while surfing the web and displaying powerpoints. This mode provided the best overall performance for white brightness and color saturation. I really enjoyed how well the images looked displayed on the ZU506T-W.Even when displaying the screen from my MAC which had a very dark background, the whites were not overbearing in sRGB mode. The projector delivered a very balanced image which was a pleasure to use.

I would recommend sRGB or Cinema for all your users to get the best balance and image performance.

Audio Quality

The 2 Stereo 10 Watt speakers on the ZU506W-T sound very good. I was able to watch much of Into the Spiderverse using them. I could see a classroom or conference room easily using them to fill the room with sound while watching a movie or training demonstration.You don’t usually find a lot of projectors with the advanced features of the ZU506T-W and speakers as well. The 10W speakers are a great addition to the built-in MIC input.

You can connect the Optoma to your favorite piezoelectric microphone and use the built-in speakers for voice reinforcement for your presenter or teacher. That’s a great way to make sure everyone in the room can hear.The audio features of the ZU560W-T get huge thumbs of from me. There is a lot of possibilities here from upgrading old installations or creating great new ones with full sound and voice reinforcement for your presenters and teachers.

Optoma ZU506T-W Professional Installation Laser Projector Review – Picture and Sound: Color Modes, Video Image Quality, Text and Presentation Quality, Audio Quality

Color Modes

❮ ❯

Color modes are important for a projector. If you are going to use it in a business environment and you want the ability to switch to a Video mode when appropriate, or to a color-calibrated mode such as sRGB so you can ensure the image is as close to what the artist intended at least in regards to the projectors image capabilities.

The ZU506T-W has a few modes. Presentation, Bright, HDR, Cinema, Game, sRGB, DICOM SIM and User. This rounds out just about any use case I can think of. Our of the box, the Optoma was in Presentation mode and looked very nice connected to my MAC. The whites and grays are even and the colors looked good.You can see images of each of the Modes above. Remember DICOM SIM is for viewing Xrays, which is why the color is way off. The grey scale reproduction is spot on though.I found that sRGB was my favorite viewing mode.

The colors were sharp and even, the white was easy on the eyes and I could see all the small text clearly. The presentation was a little hot for me and the whites were overpowering and some of the colors seemed a bit washed out. The bright mode was not as bad as you find on a lot of products. This is usually where they find their brightness specification. It was washed out and the colors suffered. However, if you were in a well-lit room and needed the extra brightness this would be a completely useable choice.

Cinema was my next choice for great picture quality. The colors and whites looked great. The image was clear and sharp. Nothing was overbearing or washed out.

.

Even when viewing videos, I felt sRGB and Cinema were a toss-up. Video performance was good. I don’t think the HDR mode was fully implemented. It did not have the fantastic color brightness I see in-home products. Cinema was much better looking.The ZU506T-W did a great job displaying text. The DLP imager with that 1920 x 1200 WUXGA resolution did a great job. Even with the small 8 point font, it was clear and crisp. It easily connected to my Powerbook as well as my win10 laptop. Having HDMI on so many devices makes switching sources so much easier than it once was.

Video Image Quality

To get the most out of my evaluation of the ZU506T-W I used a few movies with varying color profiles.

Aquaman is always a good one, then went through the spider verse for some animated content. As well as watching the Red Sparrow and Jumanji.The ZU506T-W plays video well. The image is clear and the detail is good. The colors are somewhat muted compared to home products. This is to be expected as there are always tradeoffs. The animated video of the spider verse looked great. You could see in some scenes that the color purple was very pronounced by the ZU506T-W. Red Sparrow is a great movie, but it has a lot of very dark scenes. The ZU506T-W did its best to display them. It did well, but again, this product shines in your office or classroom. I wouldn’t recommend it for home use. Unless you plan on watching a lot of excel and powerpoint. Then by all means.

Text and Presentation Quality

The ZU506T-W did a great job with the presentation content I displayed with it. The text was always sharp and the colors were well represented. I displayed content from my Mac book as well as my Win10 laptop.As you can see in the pictures, web pages were displayed clear and the colors looked very nice. Even when looking at an excel sheet you could identify all of the lines vertically and horizontally and they were not washed out.

I do want to put in a little note. When using the projector in the Bright mode it was a little hard to see all the lines as some of them were getting lost in all the brightness.

I browsed through Discovery education and all of the images looked very nice. Colors well balanced and even the small captions under images were clear and readable. There was no fuzzy detail or missing lines. Mostly due to the great WUXGA resolution that is perfect for most office and classroom work. Having that 16:10 aspect ratio gives you some extra vertical height to display webpages and documents.

I preferred to use the projector in Game mode while surfing the web and displaying powerpoints. This mode provided the best overall performance for white brightness and color saturation. I really enjoyed how well the images looked displayed on the ZU506T-W.Even when displaying the screen from my MAC which had a very dark background, the whites were not overbearing in sRGB mode. The projector delivered a very balanced image which was a pleasure to use.

I would recommend sRGB or Cinema for all your users to get the best balance and image performance.

Audio Quality

The 2 Stereo 10 Watt speakers on the ZU506W-T sound very good. I was able to watch much of Into the Spiderverse using them. I could see a classroom or conference room easily using them to fill the room with sound while watching a movie or training demonstration.You don’t usually find a lot of projectors with the advanced features of the ZU506T-W and speakers as well. The 10W speakers are a great addition to the built-in MIC input.

You can connect the Optoma to your favorite piezoelectric microphone and use the built-in speakers for voice reinforcement for your presenter or teacher. That’s a great way to make sure everyone in the room can hear.The audio features of the ZU560W-T get huge thumbs of from me. There is a lot of possibilities here from upgrading old installations or creating great new ones with full sound and voice reinforcement for your presenters and teachers.