ViewSonic PJD7822HDL Projector Review - Special Features

PJD7822HDL - A classic Crossover projector

What is a cross-over projector.  Short version, it's typically a projector built on a business/education platform - that is with a feature set and emphasis on what would make it a good business or education projector, but also with some focus on doubling as a good home entertainment projector.

The original 7820HD was the first 1080p cross-over projector under $1000, while it's replacement, the  PJD7822HD, carries on the tradition.  A lot of this review will focus on the home side, but almost an equal amount will "sing its praises" as a business/education portable projector.

This image demonstrates one of the Viewsonic projector's brightest modes - ViewMatch - suitable for business presentations yet, as you can see from the pie charts and text, very respectable color handling including skin tones, so it also works as a bright high quality mode for home entertainment that would be suitable for HDTV and sports, and even movies if there's a lot of ambient light.

 

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How can you tell?  Well, for openers, all business/education projector have at least some built in sound, but so do most of today's home entertainment projectors.  Still a home entertainment projector built from scratch is likely to be bigger, heavier and have a more powerful speaker system.  Other things are more obvious though, such as the PJD7822HDL's Presentation Timer feature to help you stick to schedule while presenting or rehearsing.  The Dynamic Eco Timer is another good example.  If there's no active source the projector will further reduce power consumption by about 30% below the Eco mode, saving lamp life and electric bills.

Also one interesting issue points to it's business background.  Almost everyone today uses HDMI for home theater.  But when feeding HDMI from the typical blu-ray player or satellite/cable box, the projector won't let you edit the color temp settings.  Interestingly HDMI from a computer will!   One of our complaints about the 7822HDL as a home entertainment projector revolves around that issue.  Mike was unable to do a great calibration because he could not calibrate  grayscale (RGB) from the traditional Blu-ray player.   The Viewsonic does, however have a full CMS - color management system for fine tuning the color accuracy of individual colors.

As a business portable this is one great little projector.  It weighs in at about 4.5 pounds making it true road warrior class.  And it is 1080p resolution, something extremely hard to find at this price point for a higher resolution image than almost all of the direct competition.

And it is blindingly bright!  We know that since Mike replaced his equipment last year, his new gear measures a little on the high side (less than 10%), but even allowing for that, this Viewsonic blew past its 3200 lumen claim in brightest mode, and it offers up modes with some pretty impressive color in its ViewMatch mode, while still topping 3000 lumens!

Bottom line.  By it for work, take it home for fun.  Or buy it for fun, but take it with you for work when you need to.  This Viewsonic is really equally at home in both worlds:  Home Entertainment, and Business Portable.  Sure it will work for education too, as a very low cost 1080p projector choice, but most projectors targeting education also have more powerful speakers so when installed extra speakers are not needed.

Streaming - No MHL...but

More and more home entertainment projectors are offering MHL on their HDMI ports, that's so they an work with streaming sticks (and other things) such as Roku or Google's Chromecast.  The Viewsonic lacks the MHL with the necessary power to drive those devices, but it does have a powered USB port which can be used in conjunction.  This provides a work around for streaming in most cases.

I was able to successfully use my Roku stick to stream from Netflix.  And that's the bottom line.

Lamp Life and Eco Modes

In addition to the usual full power mode (actual measurements are all on the Performance page), and eco mode there is the Dynamic Eco mode.  With this mode, the projector uses some smarts.  If there's no source it goes into a further reduced eco mode which can save an additional 30% in power, but it also can stretch out the lamp life...if you are in the habit of not remembering to power down the projector and there's no source, or the source itself powers down from non use.  This allows the PJD7822HDL to claim a maximum of 8000 hours, but that assumes you rely and have to, using Eco-Dynamic.  The projector also has an auto-shutdown function, so if that's engaged you really won't get to use the Eco-Dynamic...

Overall, Viewsonic claims 5000 hours for the lamp at full power (really excellent), 6000 hours in eco-mode (very good, but becoming a fairly popular rating for todays portables, home entertainment and cross-over projectors, and of course 8000 hours could be the life if you are somewhat lazy, and use Eco-dynamic, and not use the autos-shut down.

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Bottom line, excellent overall lamp life!

Gaming

As one expects from DLP projectors the input lag is definitely acceptable.  Measuring with a timer, using a MacBook Pro, results were usually 16-17 ms or 33-34ms.  That's one or two frames behind with 60fps gaming content.

Definitely not the fastest out there there are some basically using the same test that come in at 0ms, but this performance should be acceptable for all but the most hard core, life and death gamers, and even some of those.

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Viewsonic PJD7822HD 3D