Canon LV-7215 review

The first of our LCD projectors, the LV-7215 is larger and heavier than any of the DLP-based devices. It makes good use of its extra bulk, though, as at 2,500 ANSI lumens it's brighter than any other projector here. Set up to display accurate colours, we found it to be around 1,850, but this is still brighter than anything else. It comes at a cost, though: a new bulb will set you back £325, making the Canon one of the more expensive to run.

At full brightness, the Canon is rather noisy, although the low brightness mode alleviates this somewhat. Fortunately, the fan only kicks into high gear on shutdown to cool the lamp quickly.

Despite the high brightness, maximum throw distance is short at 7.7m. However, the screen size is as large as any thanks to Canon's own 1.6x zoom lens. It's awkward to reach the adjuster underneath the lens, but it does allow the LV-7215 to produce much larger images than its rivals at a given throw distance.

The focus ring is level with the lens face and very narrow, making it tricky to adjust without getting fingers in the picture. When set in the centre, we noticed the corners were still a little blurred. Unfortunately, this is the price you pay for the wide-angle lens.

In our technical tests, the LV-7215's only failing was in the colour combinations check. Here, cyan with green, red with magenta and yellow with white were all unreadable. However, the colour scales test turned out to be flawless, so it isn't a contrast problem. The real-world tests were all performed reasonably well. There was a little grain in the DVD, but more annoying was the light leakage (which shows as grey borders) when watching widescreen movies.

Canon includes plenty of connectivity options. As well as DVI-I, there's a D-SUB socket that can be an input or output; this also supports component HDTV connections. S-Video and composite inputs are present along with two audio inputs, one 3.5mm jack and one stereo RCA. Finally, an upstream, type-B USB port is fitted for mouse control with the bundled remote. This has a central direction pad and plenty of buttons for direct access to keystone and digital zoom among others. It also boasts a useful laser pointer and even a power switch so the batteries aren't being drained in transit.

If you need a very bright projector that will display larger-than-average images, the Canon is a good choice.