ViewSonic X10-4KE Projector Review - Performance

Posted on February 28, 2020 by Nikki Zelinger

ViewSonic X10-4KE Projector Review – Performance: Brightness, Image Noise, Audible Noise

Measured Brightness, Mid-Zoom

Mode	Lumens	ECO
Brightest	921	744
Movie	903	691
TV	815	620
Gaming	886	691
User 1	850	673

The ViewSonic X10-4KE has a brightness claim of 2,400 lumens. Though it didn’t meet claim, the projector is perceived to be much brighter than these measurements. That’s thanks to its LED light engine. I’ve seen lamp based projectors with similar measurements that don’t appear near as bright as this ViewSonic.

I was able to watch TV shows with the blinds of my sliding door wide open. The screen is probably three feet from the door, so it gets pretty blasted with light. It’s not an ALR screen, but I had no problem watching shows in TV Mode.

Those really dark scenes are tough when it comes to ambient light. The projector already has mediocre black level and dark shadow detail performance – a condition that is aggravated when faced with ambient light. You can still see the gist of a scene. It’s just not all that enjoyable.

That said, have a plan for blocking out ambient light if you plan to watch movies during the day. Sports and TV shows should be fine. If you have a super bright room with not a lot of control over ambient light, there are plenty of other projectors better suited to your needs.

Brightest Mode is the most bright of the presets, but not by much. It measured at 921 lumens. Movie Mode was a close second at 903 lumens. Gaming is the next brightest mode, measuring 886 lumens, but I don’t recommend that mode. I really didn’t like the color – I found it to be far too saturated. TV Mode came in at 815 lumens, and User 1 measured 850 lumens.

Image Noise

Image noise caused by inability to process film grain.

Image noise is less noticeable in Ready Player One.

4K helps with film grain processing issue, but it is still present.

❮ ❯

This isn’t an issue I usually have to talk about, so I’m disappointed that I’m having to discuss it here. The projector doesn’t handle film grain well at all. The Hunger Games begins with A TON of film grain, and it was when I started taking photos of this movie that I first spotted the issue. The grain, instead of having that classic film look, has the look of high ISO on a DSLR, when taking photos in the dark.

The Fifth Element, we have in 4K, and it is a pretty grainy film on its own. It was nowhere near as bad as in The Hunger Games, which is a 1080p Blu-ray. There are some settings that might help with this, in the Image Settings. Sharpness is set to 50 by default. It is quite possible that by lowering it, you will see some improvement in the image noise.

Note that not all movies contain film grain. Older movies, or modern ones where the director made a creative decision to use film over digital, will have film grain in varying degrees. I always thought The Hunger Games had far too much in the beginning of the film, but this was a stylistic choice that really conveys the grunge of District 12.

Ready Player One had no grain in the scenes that were CG, in The Oasis, obviously, but there were scenes in The Real World that contained film grain. It wasn’t near as much as either The Hunger Games or The Fifth Element. HDTV and sports content did not have this problem, and I’m guessing neither will animated films if the animation in Ready Player One is anything to go on.

Audible Noise

Audible noise refers to the volume of the fan’s noise that emits from the projector when it is on. ViewSonic rates its fan noise at 30db at Full Power and 26db in ECO.

This is comparable to my own projector, and the fan noise is something that just fades into the background. You’re unlikely to notice it when watching anything with audio.

Thank you for reading our review of the ViewSonic X10-4KE. Click over to our Summary Page for a discussion about the competition and the projector’s pros and cons.