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Hitachi CP-X251 Portable Video Projector Review

Manufacturer: www.hitachidigitalmedia.com

MSRP: $2,295

Highlights

• 2000 ANSI lumens brightness
• Native XGA 1024 x 768 resolution
• Weighs only 6.6 lbs
• Progressive scan
• 2 RGB inputs and 1 RGB output
• Component / Composite / S-Video inputs
• Digital Gamma and Auto Keystone Correction
• Kensington security slot
• Includes soft case

Review

The Hitachi CP-X251 is a compact, entry level business class LCD video projector with a lot of useful features. Hitachi has made a very good projector, demonstrating how competitive the under $1000 market can be.

Upon opening the box, you’ll notice that the projector comes nicely packaged in it’s own soft case carry bag. Set up was a breeze, courtesy of the easily adjustable dual post front legs and an auto keystone function. Connectivity is very good for it’s class, featuring multiple VGA ports. The lens is actually quite short, so we were able to hit a 100” image from about nine feet.

Out of the box, image quality was nothing to get excited about. The colours looked fine, but blacks were very grey. A little tweaking of the Gamma levels went a long way. The CP-X251 has a very powerful Gamma adjustment feature, allowing for the standard presets (although they aren’t numbered, which is annoying), as well as a function that allowed you to set your own Gamma value. We used this feature, available using the Advanced Menu, to set all parameters at –16. A pleasant surprise were the built in charts that appeared when custom setting the Gamma level. This settled the projector in at an acceptable black level, and provided for good over-all picture quality.

It is a noisy little beast, although the low lamp mode helped that. There’s no mistaking this for a HT projector, but with the good analog jack pack, it makes for a very versatile projector. There were no digital video inputs. Surprising was a useful Freeze and Magnify function that worked easily off the remote control.

Hitachi has a problem doing a good remote, and this one was no exception. It’s small, dark coloured, and easily lost in a dark room. The controls were well laid out, but on a smaller remote without an illuminated keypad, pressing the right buttons can be a real challenge.

We established the following settings:

Brightness  –1
Contrast  0
Gamma – Custom (-16 to all)

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Easy to set up using Auto-Keystone feature
• Good connectivity
• Powerful image controls

Cons

• Small, dark remote
• Requires tweaking for best image quality

Summary:

Excellent choice for business due to light weight and high brightness. Not recommended for home theatre use.

Specifications