Acer P1265 review

Amazingly, Acer submitted this very same projector in a business projector Labs nearly 18 months ago. It was praised then for its tremendous value, and that still applies today: a purchase price of £382 and a barely higher 5,000-hour cost of £476 are far beneath anything else here.

But the quality of the competition this month is high, and the P1265 looks a little ordinary in comparison. For a start, its two-year RTB warranty is the shortest of the group. It has the longest power-down time here at 2mins 6 secs, and then there's the 52in image at 2m - smaller than all but the Optoma.

The 2,400-lumen brightness is in the middle of the pack, and the overall 1,024 x 768 image proved of a similar standard. A good black level, reasonable detail in dark shades, and good, clean colours were its main strengths, but they were all undermined by significant artefacts in video clips - which no other projector here produced - and some pretty uneven focus with keystone correction applied.

The integrated 2W speaker has just enough volume for a small room, but no real power or punch to its audio. One of the few strengths is that this audio shouldn't get drowned out, as the Acer is one of the quietest here.

But all this may prove irrelevant to many, thanks to that incredible price. It has DVI and VGA ports to suit most office input devices, so for many the mediocre performance will be far outweighed by the running costs over time. In fact, thanks to its cheap 3,000-hour replacement lamp this Acer will cost you less over 5,000 hours than seven of its eight rivals' initial purchase price, so it's certainly worth a place on your shortlist.

Author: David Bayon