Epson EH-TW3600 review

Epson is one of the leading projector manufacturers in the world today and offers a five-strong home cinema lineup. The EH-TW3600 is its newest entry-level model, and some way off the flagship RH4000 in terms of specs.

For instance, the brand's Reflective LCD technology is missing here. Still, at only £1,300, this PJ will certainly attract a few buyers.

Design-wise, the TW3600 shares the same form factor as its 4400 and 5500 siblings. Connections include twin HDMI inputs, component and a 15-pin D-Sub PC jack. Installation is made easy by an optical x2.1 zoom and manual control of horizontal and vertical lens shift.

A 100-inch screen size is achievable from just short of 3 metres. The TW3600 claims a dynamic contrast ratio of 50,000:1, but our Tech Labs only managed to elicit 16,467:1, and 4,593:1 natively. That said, I can vouch that this Epson is capable of producing an extremely bright picture, so it's well suited to those whose viewing environment isn't overly dark.

Running noise, quoted by Espon at 22dB, was also pleasingly low and didn't prove a distraction even in quiet scenes. Colour burst In use, the TW3600 delivers a solid but not exceptional picture.

With Toy Story 3 (BD), colours had great richness. Oddly, you should pick the 7,500K setting to get closest to 6,500K, but it looked natural nevertheless. Detail levels were good and motion was handled smoothly, without the juddering that can blight affordable projectors.

Power consumption: Watts

White screen 100IRE: 250W

Standard energy consumption from a project of this size.

Test footage: 250W

Energy consumption was fixed no matter what footage we tested the Epson with. In Eco-Mode consumption dropped to 200W.

Contrast ratio:

Claimed: 50,000:1 (Dynamic)
Measured: 4,593:1

We have measured better contrast ratios from similar projectors. Dynamic contrast was better at 16,467:1.

Luminance:

Cinema Setting: 13.4fL

Dynamic Setting: 49.4fL

Colour accuracy: 6428K

5000K: 4729K
5500K: 5091K
6000K: 5466K
6500K: 5822K
7000K: 6126K
7500K: 6428K
8000K: 6752K
8500K: 6981K
9000K: 7240K
9300K: 7457K
9500K: 7496K
10,000K: 7767K

The EH-TW3600 has a good variety of colour temperature options. We were unable to adjust the blue level in the manual RGB control menu, which hindered us from achieving the 6500K SMPTE Standard.

Changing genre, I switched to the opening scene of Buried. The Epson's performance struggled a bit here, mainly on account of its rather average black level response. Some shadow detail was lost, as the TW3600 struggled with the low-lit confines of Ryan Reynold's submerged coffin.

Trying to improve this by taming the brightness resulted in a less punchy image. With that in mind, it's hard to recommend the TW3600 for someone planning to build it into a dedicated cinema room (despite its provision of a 12V trigger).

It's much more suited to living rooms, and will certainly be an impressive introduction to the world of full HD projectors, going up against models such as BenQ's W1000+ and Vivitek's H1085.

But anyone hankering for top-notch home cinema performance should wait for the company's forthcoming RH models.

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