Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080

The Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080, priced at $2999, is a very affordable, high-quality 1080p, 3LCD multimedia projector. It delivers a true HD 1080p picture with up to 100" diagonal screen size, and supports both 24 fps and 60 fps frame rates making it ideal for HD-DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, video games, and to use as a computer display.

The PowerLite 1080 comes with a white "pearlescent" finish and has a small footprint at 15.9" x 4.8" x 12.2" and weighs 12.3 lbs. There is a newer model of this project called the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 UB to be released in December 2007 that boasts improved specifications for $300 less.

The PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 has three setup options: front projection, rear projection, and ceiling mounted. To help improve setup, this project also includes up to 47% horizontal and 96% lens shift (relative to the image size), and includes a 2.1X optical zoom to get your picture perfectly centered on your screen. This projector relies on manual focus and does not make use of automatic focusing technologies seen in other competing projectors.

Originally priced at $4999, Epson reduced the priced in April 2007 to $2999, triggering a similar price drop on its closest competitor, the Panasonic PT-AE1000U-EC. Inspired by the competitive spirit, Gizmodo has done an excellent head-to-head comparison of these two projectors (they gave the edge to the Epson).

Read the full PowerLite 1080 specifications.