Being a new kid on the block, the Optoma HD80 has certainly made quite an impression among home theater enthusiasts. At first glance, it has a dead-on resemblance to the original HD81. But that's hardly the case as this model is somewhat in a league of its own. At present, this unit is the most affordable full-HD DLP in the market.

Design

The HD80 sports a refreshing pearl white chassis augmented with a shiny chromed zoom lever and focus knob, adding a nice elegant touch to its overall aesthetics. This is besides a sensuous arcing front and plenty of clean lines which are a far cry from the usual boxy design sported by its peers. At its rear-top edges are two banks of LEDs and backlit controls. These glow in soothing blue during initial bootup sequence and provide instant feedback against overheating, etc.

Its petite form factor is among the few attractions the HD80 has to offer. Measuring just 410 x 310 x 185mm, the Optoma is easily dwarfed by the mammoth BenQ W10000. The same applies to its feathery bulk, a reassuring consideration if you have the intention to ceil mount the 4.5kg beamer. Cooling here is catered to by fixed grilles without perforated filters, with intake on the right and exhaust on the adjacent left. Hence, sufficient side clearances are required for proper ventilation.

The bundled remote control has good reception range and an ergonomic feel which makes navigation a breeze. There are also a suite of shortcut keys for input selection and adjustments. This arrangement allows on-the-fly operation at the touch of a button as opposed to laborious manual toggling. Another cool feature is its green backlighting. This has configurable brightness by hitting Enter and gradually fades at regular intervals. It could have been perfect if only there were a dedicate button to activate this function.

Under the software image options, there are many settings which can help enhance picture quality. Putting aside the standard video parameters, we have quite a handful of advanced variants on video post-processing, among others. These include edge enhancement, manual iris and overscan. What is weird though is its integration of the grayscale cuts and gains within color temperature options. This limits fine-tuning to either group, but not both. Last, but not least, two onboard test patterns are available for quick image focus and white-level checks.

Features

The 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution HD80 is based on the older Texas Instrument DarkChip 2 engine and registers a healthy dynamic contrast ratio of 10,000:1. It has a bright 300W ultra-high performance lamp making it ideal for viewing a matinee, rated to deliver a high 1,300 ANSI lumens. Matching the optics is a fast 6x, seven-segment color wheel. This combination is likely to suppress most DLP rainbow artifacts experienced by many users, a definite piece of good news for those holding out from DLP projectors due to their low tolerance.

Unlike the flagship HD81, this model is powered by a 10-bit DNX PixelWorks chipset, complementing its proprietary TrueVivid video processing and Image AI II function. The latter optimizes brightness on-the-fly by manipulating an iris based on the playing scene. However, this sets the light cannon on Brite mode at full power, causing an audible increase in operating noise. Health-conscious users may also like to check out the O2 Air system, a photo-catalyst air purification feature which emits ions for better room ventilation.

As with most DLP models, the throw distance is on the longer side with a limited 1.2x zoom. In order to cast a 100-inch image, you will need a depth of no less than 4.1m. Equally constraining is its 36 percent vertical offset. This requires the set to be installed closer to the ceiling in order to vertically centralize the projection. Such short-mounted brackets are rare, but nonetheless there are vertical image shifts and keystone adjustments to work around this bottleneck. Though not without some image clipping and distortion, of course.

The rear connectivity panel is decked with an extensive array of sockets. Most notable is a pair of 1080p24-enabled HDMI inputs. This is definitely a plus compared to the pricier BenQ W10000, for instance. In the middle segment, we have a set of component-video sockets and a DVI terminal that doubles as a PC input. As a matter of fact, both handle 1080p signals readily, too, as verified during our testing. To ensure backward-compatibility, Optoma still retains the legacy S-video and composite-video jacks.

Performance

Very bright was our immediate reaction after firing up the HD80. This was coupled with smooth brightness uniformity and minimal fluctuation even at maximum zoom. Geometry and convergence, on the other hand, were well within limits with very mild warping only at the four projection corners. There were also negligible signs of offending screen door at normal viewing distance and we had no major complaints except for noise level. This was audible from a distance despite an effort to tone down the beamer on low-power mode.

Putting our SpyderTV Pro-calibrated review unit through Avia, we picked up mild black crush and green push in grayscale tracking and color decoding, respectively. That said, these were offset by some pretty impressive 480i DVD upscaling results. These were verified using standard-def HQV benchmark and our reference-quality Hollywood clips. The former demonstrated the projector's effective noise reduction and film-to-video conversion, while the movies turned up relatively sharp and detailed without any obvious sign of distracting jaggies.

The Firth Element by renowned director Luc Besson has been widely used by enthusiasts to evaluate colors and skin tones. Here, playing back a 1080p24 Blu-ray rendition produced the ethereal beauty exuded by heroine Milla Jovovich convincingly. Switching over to a HD-DVD copy of The Phantom of the Opera, we were greeted with a vibrant display of hues and strong depth-of-field. Though the usual full-HD sharpness was clearly present, some of the movies had a more film-like feel compared to the razor-sharp clarity of most animations.

For motion reproduction testing, we gave the PlayStation 3 Ridge Racer 7 a good spin on our theatrical-sized 100-inch screen. On the whole, the picture quality was very pleasing to the eyes with very smooth fluidity and almost non-existent rainbow streaking. Moving on, we were expecting the DVI port to deliver sharp text supplied with a pixel-to-pixel matching PC signal. This wasn't the case and turned out softer than expected. Nonetheless, we had better luck with our color banding test pattern which was rendered with fine levels of gradation.

With more positive than negative points listed here, the S$5,299 (US$3,486.84) Optoma HD80 is a clear winner in picture quality and affordability. However, its attractiveness is somewhat marred by its longer throw distance and vertical offset. Those consumers who own larger entertainment rooms will probably have deeper pockets for pricier 1080p models, too. Let's not forget the recent influx of low-cost A/V receivers with onboard HDMI switching, further negating its connectivity advantage.