Affordable Viewsonic PJD7822HDL Home Entertainment – Business Portable 1080p Projector – Replaces ground breaking predecessor
I was able to successfully use my Roku stick to stream from Netflix. And that’s the bottom line.
Overall, Viewsonic claims 5000 hours for the lamp at full power (really excellent), 6000 hours in eco-mode (very good, but becoming a fairly popular rating for todays portables, home entertainment and cross-over projectors, and of course 8000 hours could be the life if you are somewhat lazy, and use Eco-dynamic, and not use the autos-shut down.
Bottom line, excellent overall lamp life!
PJD7822HDL Overview
This
Viewsonic projector has an MSRP of $789, but typically sells for a good
bit less. I think it a little more than two years ago, that Viewsonic
announced the PJD7822HDL’s predecessor, the PJD7820HD.
I don’t recall if the announcement was at CES 2013 in January, or Infocomm 2013 in June, but we reviewed it in August 2013. When announced the older 7820 was perhaps the most talked about projector at other manufacturer’s booths. The commentary was something like this: What on earth are they doing introducing a 1080p projector for $899. Everyone else is introducing their lowest cost 1080p projectors around $1999! How are they going to make any money?
Well, I don’t know if they made a lot of money, but the projector has proved very popular. While overall, both old and new are “crossover” projectors – have much of their design in common with business portable projectors, and neither are serious home theater projectors, the older 7820HD brought 1080p resolution into people’s homes for under $1000 when virtually all the alternatives were at least 50% more expensive.
I don’t recall if the announcement was at CES 2013 in January, or Infocomm 2013 in June, but we reviewed it in August 2013. When announced the older 7820 was perhaps the most talked about projector at other manufacturer’s booths. The commentary was something like this: What on earth are they doing introducing a 1080p projector for $899. Everyone else is introducing their lowest cost 1080p projectors around $1999! How are they going to make any money?
Well, I don’t know if they made a lot of money, but the projector has proved very popular. While overall, both old and new are “crossover” projectors – have much of their design in common with business portable projectors, and neither are serious home theater projectors, the older 7820HD brought 1080p resolution into people’s homes for under $1000 when virtually all the alternatives were at least 50% more expensive.
This
time around, Viewsonic has introduced a newer version of that old
breakthrough projector, and it’s still about as inexpensive as 1080p
projectors get, but this time, Viewsonic has some real competition
around its price point.
Speaking of which, street price seems to be – at least for the moment, at $699 based on a quick scan of online pricing. That’s not going to set any records. BenQ’s HT1075, replacing it’s end of life W1070 is perhaps a couple hundred d0llars more. We discus in this review an Optoma with 1080p resolution, that’s $100 less. Of course they have different feature sets, and wildly different warranties, but the point is, there’s more competition for this new Viewsonic. It seems to be up to the challenge.
So, you want to know more? The PJD7822HDL is a bit brighter than it’s predecessor, now claiming 3200 lumens up from 3000. Although it lacks MHL on its HDMI ports, thanks to a powered USB port it will work with Roku sticks, Chromecast, Amazon Fire Stick etc, to stream live from the internet.
Lamp life has been improved as well. 5000 hours at full power is about as good as it gets without buying a more expensive projector with a laser or LED light engine. (Viewsonic makes the HD91, for example, which is a major step up and sports an LED light source.)
This Viewsonic makes a nice, compact home entertainment projector but can easily double as a portable business projector. It’s got the resolution (better than most business portables, 3200 lumens, built in speakers, zoom lens and weighs in at just slightly over 4.5 pounds. Very road warrior suitable!
As a home entertainment projector it’s got the brightness to handle most non-theater type rooms like a living room or family room, especially when paired with a suitable screen. Gamers will find this Viewsonic projector’s lag times to be really good, so the PJD7822 should be popular with them. And it is, after all, small enough and light enough to slip into a backpack to take it to a friends for an afternoon of WOW or COD, or Madden Football.
Here’s a quick list of the projetor’s highlights – many already mentioned, and then we can start discussing some of the “special features.”
Speaking of which, street price seems to be – at least for the moment, at $699 based on a quick scan of online pricing. That’s not going to set any records. BenQ’s HT1075, replacing it’s end of life W1070 is perhaps a couple hundred d0llars more. We discus in this review an Optoma with 1080p resolution, that’s $100 less. Of course they have different feature sets, and wildly different warranties, but the point is, there’s more competition for this new Viewsonic. It seems to be up to the challenge.
So, you want to know more? The PJD7822HDL is a bit brighter than it’s predecessor, now claiming 3200 lumens up from 3000. Although it lacks MHL on its HDMI ports, thanks to a powered USB port it will work with Roku sticks, Chromecast, Amazon Fire Stick etc, to stream live from the internet.
Lamp life has been improved as well. 5000 hours at full power is about as good as it gets without buying a more expensive projector with a laser or LED light engine. (Viewsonic makes the HD91, for example, which is a major step up and sports an LED light source.)
This Viewsonic makes a nice, compact home entertainment projector but can easily double as a portable business projector. It’s got the resolution (better than most business portables, 3200 lumens, built in speakers, zoom lens and weighs in at just slightly over 4.5 pounds. Very road warrior suitable!
As a home entertainment projector it’s got the brightness to handle most non-theater type rooms like a living room or family room, especially when paired with a suitable screen. Gamers will find this Viewsonic projector’s lag times to be really good, so the PJD7822 should be popular with them. And it is, after all, small enough and light enough to slip into a backpack to take it to a friends for an afternoon of WOW or COD, or Madden Football.
Here’s a quick list of the projetor’s highlights – many already mentioned, and then we can start discussing some of the “special features.”
PJD7822HDL Projector Highlights
- Plenty of brightness – 3200 lumens, including over 1000 lumens measured in “best” mode!
- 3 year warranty the longest around this price point
- First year exchange program with the warranty
- 1.3:1 zoom lens for placement flexibility
- 1.3:1 zoom has a bit more range than some other low cost competitors
- Very compact and light making it a backpackable projector
- 2 HDMI inputs
- 3D including Blu-ray 3D
- Small internal speaker and an audio out
- Monitor out (handy for business use with desktop computers)
Streaming - No MHL...but
More and more home entertainment projectors are offering MHL on their HDMI ports, that’s so they an work with streaming sticks (and other things) such as Roku or Google’s Chromecast. The Viewsonic lacks the MHL with the necessary power to drive those devices, but it does have a powered USB port which can be used in conjunction. This provides a work around for streaming in most cases.I was able to successfully use my Roku stick to stream from Netflix. And that’s the bottom line.
Lamp Life and Eco Modes
In addition to the usual full power mode (actual measurements are all on the Performance page), and eco mode there is the Dynamic Eco mode. With this mode, the projector uses some smarts. If there’s no source it goes into a further reduced eco mode which can save an additional 30% in power, but it also can stretch out the lamp life…if you are in the habit of not remembering to power down the projector and there’s no source, or the source itself powers down from non use. This allows the PJD7822HDL to claim a maximum of 8000 hours, but that assumes you rely and have to, using Eco-Dynamic. The projector also has an auto-shutdown function, so if that’s engaged you really won’t get to use the Eco-Dynamic…Overall, Viewsonic claims 5000 hours for the lamp at full power (really excellent), 6000 hours in eco-mode (very good, but becoming a fairly popular rating for todays portables, home entertainment and cross-over projectors, and of course 8000 hours could be the life if you are somewhat lazy, and use Eco-dynamic, and not use the autos-shut down.
Bottom line, excellent overall lamp life!
Gaming
As
one expects from DLP projectors the input lag is definitely acceptable.
Measuring with a timer, using a MacBook Pro, results were usually
16-17 ms or 33-34ms. That’s one or two frames behind with 60fps gaming
content.
Definitely not the fastest out there there are some basically using the same test that come in at 0ms, but this performance should be acceptable for all but the most hard core, life and death gamers, and even some of those.
Definitely not the fastest out there there are some basically using the same test that come in at 0ms, but this performance should be acceptable for all but the most hard core, life and death gamers, and even some of those.
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