Philips cBright XG1 Impact

As multimedia projectors are usually employed in corporate rather than consumer roles, they're often given appropriately bland names and serious-looking chassis. However, this certainly can't be said of Philips' cBright XG1 Impact projector. As well as its punchy title, the XG1 Impact is stylish and has some remarkable features, not least of which is its powerful 1,500 ANSI lumens brightness, which makes it suitable for presenting in large rooms.

Philips has put considerable effort into the exterior design of the XG1 Impact, and if you believe that what you present from says as much about your company as the presentation itself, then the XG1 Impact fits the bill.

All the inputs are placed at the rear of the projector, which prevents flush mounting with a wall. There's a good spread of connection options, but the lack of a DVI input is disappointing. Philips has also added a D-SUB VGA output for an external monitor, although there's no PC Card support.

I was impressed by the combined VGA/USB cable, which helps reduce the number of cables and keeps them neatly together. The USB cable also has a dual role, providing USB mouse control and USB audio using the integrated 3W speaker.

I began testing with DisplayMate Multimedia Edition at its native resolution of 1,024 « 768 and the XG1 Impact immediately excelled with a sharp, vivid image.

The automatic setup routine works superbly, and there was no need to fine-tune the display. Rotating individual rims around the lens controls focus and zoom, although adjustments were made more difficult by the almost flush fitting to the main body. The tracker ball remote control works well, and the clear and concise menu provides enough functions to satisfactorily adjust and optimise the image.

The most praiseworthy feature of the XG1 Impact is its superb image quality. The lens projects a uniform picture, and the overall geometry was exceptional. Primary colour registration was also good, although there was a slight misregistration of the red in the horizontal and vertical. This accounts for the visible magenta coronas, which also affected apparent focus.

Colour and greyscale fades were impressive, and colour purity is also excellent, possibly due to Philips' Correction Circuitry; this measures colour homogeneity using a built-in digital camera and then automatically corrects for any variation in colour intensity. The XG1 Impact also features digital keystone correction, although the image quality drops appreciably when enabled, most notably losing fine focus.

The Philips cBright XG1 Impact delivers exceptional image quality and is bright enough to cater for medium to large conference rooms. The decrease in performance with keystone correction enabled is disappointing, as is the lack of PC Card functionality. But, in terms of non-corrected image quality, brightness and style, the XG1 Impact is stunning.

Author: Gareth Ogden