LG HX300G XGA Portable LED Projector

I have used this projector to watch DVD and BluRay disks, and I have streamed BBC iPlayer to it via my BluRay player. I have not yet tried connecting it to my laptop.

Considering that it uses LEDs instead of traditional projector lamps the projector is surprisingly bright, but you do need to use it in reduced light, the darker the better. It has 3 LED brightness settings: Presentation, Normal and Economic. The presentation mode gives the highest brightness but with a loud fan noise. Economic gives the lowest brightness with the least fan noise. In very dim conditions Economic mode is bright enough.

The menu system will be familiar to anyone with a recent LG television, most of the controls are the same. There is a lot of control over various aspects of the picture. If you set the mode to one of the expert modes you get even more sliders to adjust. Alternatively just use one of the preset picture settings if playing around with menus isn't your thing.

Despite not being an HD projector, the picture from Blu Ray looked fantastic. I did notice that any bright red objects such as post boxes looked just a bit too red, but this is a very minor point. The image from iPlayer and DVD also looked great. Overall I have no issues with the picture.

I find no trace of the rainbow effect when using the projector normally. If you have a picture which is black with a small amount of bright white (e.g. the setup menu on my BluRay player), and you very rapidly move your eyes up and down (i.e. rapidly look at the bottom of the picture and then at the top again) you can see a slight rainbow above and below the white text. On a normal film picture you won't see anything. If you are in the habit of watching the menu on your DVD player while rapidly flicking your eyes up and down you may be able to see the rainbow, but I think the vast majority of people will never be worried by this.

The in-built speakers are pretty bad, very quiet with no bass, they give a very 'tinny' sound. If you have no external amp/speakers you can plug headphones into the projector and get much better stereo sound, but with a little bit of noise in quieter parts of the soundtrack. The volume control only has 10 steps, which isn't really enough. The projector has an FM transmitter which can transmit the stereo soundtrack to an FM radio. The transmitter has a very weak signal, the projector will have to be very close to your radio for this to work. Even with my radio aerial almost touching the projector I was unable to get a clean stereo signal on the radio, there was a lot of background noise. Switching the radio into mono gave a much cleaner signal as mono radio doesn't need such a strong signal. When you pause a DVD/BluRay/iPlayer after about 20 seconds the FM transmitter switches itself off, then I started getting a loud hiss from the radio. The transmitter switches itself on again after a second or two when you restart the video.

The projector can be used for front or rear projection, and can be ceiling mounted. It has a tripod socket on the bottom. It has manual focus, vertical keystone correction from the menu, and a plastic sliding lens cover. As I found out myself the first time I used the projector, you get a much better picture if you open the lens cover. It comes with a good remote control (and batteries), component video to dsub cable, VGA cable, and a power supply resembling a laptop power supply. You do not get an HDMI cable. It comes in a nice padded carrying bag with strap and space for projector, psu, cables and remote.

In summary: the picture is surprisingly good, the sound is not so great. Good price, very portable, for best results get a proper projection screen. I like it a lot.

The brilliant HX300G
Had the HX300g for about a week now and I am LOVING this thing! Whether your watching an Upscaled DVD, playing the Wii/PS3/XBOX 360 or watching a Blu ray or home movies from your laptop or USB stick, this thing delivers, every time, with a sharp and bright 120" screen on your wall, the HX300G will leave you wondering why you ever bought that tiny 42" HDTV everytime you use this thing!

Pros:
Screen Projection aspect ratio is 16:9 widescreen and also can be 4:3. The projector itself is very nice looking, the Amazon pictures dont do it justice. Its Small, about the size of 6 standard size CD cases.
Comes with all sorts of inputs, these include, HDMI/VGA/RGB/Component video/USB 2.0/3.5mm Audio IN. there is also a 3.5 headphone jack output.
The projector supports the playing of DivX HD files, All sorts of audio and video and image files straight off a USB or portable HDD, upto 250Gb I believe but dont quote me.
It comes with a very nice laptop style bag full of goodies, including VGA to RGB converting cable, VGA cable, Remote, cleaning cloth.
Picture Quality.... Amazing. That is all.

Just kidding, Brightness is brilliant, 270 lumins is alot more than I thought it would be, if you want more brightness you could always pick up a 2.4 gain glass bead screen up off ebay for around £80. the LG is best viewed in a completely dark room, but I have been using it with 20-30% lighting and it is still very watchable,
Default Picture settings arn't great as with most LG stuff, but after a few minuits of tweeking its great, if using RGB connection or VGA you will find that the projector accentuates the reds and greens, blues seem to be fine though,
and as for the "rainbow effect" that led Pj's apparently suffer from, I have not witnessed this atall.
The Pj supports upto 720p HD which is fantastic for the price asked as if you want 1080p LED you are looking at a minimum of £1200 for a Casio XJ range projector.
Blu rays look the best and upscaled dvds are brilliant too.
Contrast ratio of 2000:1 should not put you off as most projectors only come with this sort of ratio.

Cons:
there are very few cons really, the first being, that its not quiet. The fan gives off around 30dB which is about asmuch as a standard desktop computer.
The next is that the power brick it comes with is very big about half the size of the actual projector. not a huge problem, but I would of thought they could make these little smaller in this day and age. The next is that there is no zoom function, so, the further you have it away from the wall, the bigger the screen. At the moment im getting a 120" screen from around an 8ft throw distance.

Overview:
an absolute buy of the century for me. I love the cinema but im finding it harder and harder to justify a £15 price ticket each for me and my wife plus travel and a £7 bucket of popcorn ha! this does the job of filling the void with a one off payment. have this with a £150 samsung all in one box 5.1 surround sound system a Blu ray player and your in buisness. This would be perfect for anyone who wants a projector but doesnt want to have the expence and worry of changing a blown bulb every couple of thousend hours. the lamp life is around 30,000 hours which is something stupid like 30 years at 8 hours a day. its smallness and the lack of a very fragile and expencive bulbs makes it ideal for taking round to friends houses for a movie night. Need I say anymore, stop thinking about it... and get one. You wont regret it. The only thing I ask myself is "why didnt you get one 3 months ago" haha.

Edit: I have now scaled the screen size down since propperly setting the projector up, the screen size is now a meager 85" lol, its still massive and looks 10 times better than it did befor, AMAZING!

Originally looking for a high end system, I came across this little LG unit. Ok so the lumen output is fairly low, however with a 30,000 hour lamp life it's worth waiting until the day turns to dusk. It can read most film formats from a USB flash drive, or passport drive. Music, photos, office docs and the like without a pc.

I used it to watch Glastonbury 2011, by streaming BBC3 through my iPhone, into its HDMI connection and cast the picture on to the garden wall. We got the picture to about 8ft x 6ft. It also can transmit the audio over FM, which is a handy feature. And a PS3 works a treat.

The only issue I have with it is the size if the power supply, it's nearly as big as the projector itself.
All said I would recommend this unit to anyone wanting a introductory level project. It's great fun.