Bright Things on the Horizon from Epson

by | | 0 comment(s)

Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1440

The PowerLite Home Cinema 1440 is Epson’s newest and brightest home theater offering. With a whopping 4400 lumens, it is nearly twice as bright as Epson’s world-renowned flagship, the PowerLite Home Cinema 5030UB. It’s also nearly 50% brighter than Epson’s second brightest offering, their new and impressive PowerLIte Home Cinema 1040.Furthering the matter, the 1440 can deliver 4400 lumens both in white brightness (ANSI lumens) as well as color brightness (CLO). There are few home theater projectors which offer specifications such as these, therefore it is easy to see this projector is a true problem-solver.

Finally, Epson offers a home theater projector that is ideal for problematic ambient lighting conditions, such as well-lit living rooms and inconveniently placed windows. In darker settings, you’ll likely set the bulb for economy mode and minimize the brightness. Epson has measured the bulb life at approximately 3000 hours in bright mode and 4000 hours in economy mode, making this projector a more sustainable solution.

Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1440 Back View

While the Home Cinema 1440 is generously bright, many will wonder how the color and contrast is impacted as a result. What may be most impressive about the 1440 is that, while it is bright, it maintains a high degree of Epson’s deep black levels. Equally important, it offers a very good, though not astounding contrast ratio of 10,000:1. Of course, while the black levels are impressive and the color accuracy equal-as-much, there is room for criticism when compared to Epson’s own 5030UB flagship, whose auto-iris feature (not included here) is capable of the most impressive blacks I’ve ever seen in an LCD home theater projector.

One thing of note is that the Home Cinema 1440offers a native resolution of WUXGA (1920×1200). It is one of the few which Epson presently offers. The WUXGA resolution is more versatile than HD form (1920 x 1080) because of its ability to deliver HD quality for both 16:9 and 16:10 formats. This means, for computer users, the Home Cinema 1440 is a better choice than many other offerings, as you can switch between 16:9 and 16:10 at a fixed viewing width without re positioning the projector or losing resolution.

Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1440 Top View

With a zoom ratio of 1.0-1.6, this projector really makes for a convenient home theater install. We were able to attain a 120” diagonal image in as close as 12 feet and almost as far back as 20 feet away. This gives the consumer a lot of flexibility. Of course, in high ambient light situations, we recommend mounting as close as possible to concentrate the light source. Another welcome convenience which this projector offers, is keystone correction of ±30 degrees vertically and ±20 degrees horizontally.

The Home Cinema 1440 is also impressive with regard to its connectivity options. It is up to date with all current inputs, including 2 HDMI ports, VGA, USB and RCA of course, but also it supports new MHL-enabled devices. An MHL port allows you to easily stream HD video using MHL enabled devices such as your Roku streaming stick, Amazon Fire TV Stick or Chromecast. Another really awesome feature of the 1440, is that you can utilize two inputs at once, displaying the images side by side. We had a lot of fun testing out this feature.

WHO IS THIS PROJECTOR FOR?

There are three main scenarios where this projector is likely a perfect fit.

  • Scenario 1: You’re designing a home theater where ambient light is a concern. You intend to use the projector during the daytime and want to counter some of the sunlight.
  • Scenario 2: You have a dark environment already, but want a projector which can produce a 150”-200” diagonal image in full 1080p resolution, while not breaking the bank.
  • Scenario 3: 3D viewing is your main interest and you want those extra lumens to make your 3D experience brighter.

The Home Cinema 1440 is among the most impressive 4000+ lumens home theater projectors we’ve ever come across, offering classic Epson quality, with a full blast of 4400 lumen brightness. The picture quality is excellent, if not quite up to the performance level of Epson’s flagship 5030UB. However, the Home Cinema 5030UB clearly succeeds in outshining the 1440 in a darker environment, but the 1440 is the clear winner when the lights are on. This is a major offering from the industry leader.

*We recommend a premium quality screen to get the most performance out of this HD projector.

This entry was posted in no categories.

You must be logged in to post comments.