ASK C60

There's certainly no shortage of multimedia projectors on the market these days and the sheer quantity can make it difficult to choose. Making them smaller or sexier is one way to lure you, as illustrated by Philips' snazzy cBright XG1 Impact (see Reviews, issue 81, p156). However, the more important issues are practicality and affordability. ASK's C60 may not be flashy, but it offers 1,100 ANSI lumens brightness and weighs a trim 2.6kg while costing just £2,590, which could prove significant against more elaborate (and elaborately priced) competition.

At such a competitive price it's reasonable to expect ASK to have cut a few corners, and the most obvious casualty is PC Card functionality for presentations without a notebook. That said, ASK hasn't skimped in other areas, and despite the lack of DVI the C60 has a well-balanced array of input and output options. These include a VGA D-SUB out for monitoring purposes, a 3.5mm audio in for feeding the integrated 1W stereo speakers, and S-Video and composite video inputs for channelling video through the C60. ASK has also included USB and PS/2 ports for adding mouse control.

The internal specifications are outstanding too, with a 132W UHP bulb and a respectable rating of 1,100 ANSI lumens in XGA. The output is channelled through a 1.3x manual zoom and focus lens capable of projecting a maximum viewable diagonal of 6.6m, which is more than enough for small to medium-sized venues.

To test the C60 I connected it to a notebook using ATi's Rage Mobility-M chipset at the native resolution of 1,024 x 768 in 32-bit colour. First impressions were good, with a bright, richly coloured image, although the initial auto-adjustment routine failed to set the clock correctly, clipping the right-hand edge of the screen. Forcing the C60 to reset the picture failed to correct this, and I was required to manually adjust the settings, which compressed the image slightly and reduced focus. This is disappointing, and while the C60 only clipped a small portion of the screen it's still unacceptable.

I also found that adding keystone correction affects screen framing and introduces significant amounts of moirÚ interference. That said, geometry remains relatively uniform, although I would suggest setting the C60 up so that it's horizontal with the projection target if you want the best results.

However, the projector redeemed itself during testing with DisplayMate Multimedia Edition. Aside from the problems with screen framing, the geometry was excellent with no obvious barrel or pincushion distortion. Vertical resolution was good too, although horizontal resolution was noticeably poorer, with red and green coronas affecting sharpness and reducing focus. Fine-tuning the phase couldn't help this either.

Colour performance was a different story though, with the C60 sailing through all the colour and greyscale tests. Greyscale extension was impressive, as were greyscale fades, which were smoothly gradated. Colour fades were just as remarkable, and the projector managed to display colour ramps with minimal stepping. As well as showing superb extension, its colours were bright and vivid, which will benefit both presentations and multimedia, such as DVD movies.

The C60 continues ASK's trend of using Windows-style menu systems, which I've always found intuitive and well designed. From the menu you can manually adjust the clock and phase, although this is disguised behind the Width and Tune labels. Other options include the ability to zoom and pan the image, adjust colour temperature and alter the projection position between rear and ceiling. And if you plan to use the C60 in a dual role as a video playback device, there's also a menu option to switch the projector into a 16:9 aspect ratio.