Toshiba TLP-S10

Like most display technologies, projector prices are on a downward trend. Even so, there isn't much choice for those on a budget. The TLP-S10 is Toshiba's first SVGA LCD projector for under £1,000 after tax and is intended for both home entertainment and for use in presentations.

The S10 is a pretty large silver brick weighing just over 2kg. The styling and silver finish mean it will be equally at home in an office or living-room context. However, it's a shame the finish on the remote doesn't match the projector. On the plus side, it does have large buttons for picture resizing (handy for adjusting in the dark) and freeze and mute buttons, together with access to all OSM functions, which themselves are easy to navigate. There's also fast access to rear- and ceiling-mounted projection options, as well as picture quality controls.

Setup is simple, with an extendable front foot to adjust for height. The projector automatically locks onto the incoming signal and an auto set button both on the top panel and remote makes any necessary adjustments.

There's no optical zoom, but you can digitally adjust the image size down to 80 per cent of its native resolution. There's a slight degradation in image quality when you do this, but you're not going to get an optical zoom on a projector at this price, so this is an adequate substitute. You can use the same buttons to zoom in on a portion of the screen and pan around, and both these functions were generally fast and responsive.

There are also dedicated digital keystone buttons, so if it's necessary to extend the front foot you can quickly and easily compensate for the distortion and produce a straight-sided image.

In standard mode, the projector is rated at 1,200 ANSI lumens. In a dark room, the picture is bright and sharp and colours are well saturated, but this level of brightness isn't strong enough to cope when stray light creeps in from outside.

The S10 sounds quieter than its audible noise rating of 36dB would suggest. Even so, it has an eco mode, which reduces the lamp power and slows the fan, resulting in even quieter running, although this affects the brightness of the image.

A D-SUB VGA port, composite and S-Video connections can be found on the rear panel, as well as a serial port for remote mouse control (although the remote isn't particularly well designed for this), a through port for the video signal and an audio-in jack. As with most projectors, the speaker lacks any kind of oomph. However, while the 1W amplifier isn't something you'd want to use for DVD movies, it will suffice for a business presentation in a small room.

As an entry-level projector for home cinema on a budget, or occasional business presentations, the S10 does an excellent job. It's easy to set up and operate, delivers good image quality at native resolution and provides useful extras like support for compressed resolution up to UXGA and digital zooming. And given the excellent price tag, we find it hard not to recommend, although the Optoma EP371 is a better performer, even if it is £90 more expensive.

Author: Geoff Harcourt