Acer PH530 User Reviews

I Purchased this new of ebay for only $650 AUD. For this price I was not expecting much but thought it would be a good first projector. I have to say I am stunned by the quality. To be fair to all projectors I think they should be judged on the highest quality source such as Full HD broadcast tv, blue ray or a good upconverting DVD player, otherwise problems with the signal found in SD broadcast and standard dvd can reduce quality. If you run a good quality signal using hdmi, wuxga, or dvi you will not be disapointed. I have an 83" home made screen using an IKEA blind an the picture quality, for DVD movies, itunes tv, HD broadcast sports hands down beats both Plasma and LCD tv's half the size and 5+ times the cost. Awesome.

The picture is amazing. I have a 100 inch screen set up in the basement for it, HD is awesome on it. The only problem I have with it is that 480p picture looks a little pixelated.

It is my first projector and does good job for DVD watching. I have got this for 640 and projecting on 100" screen.

Any Problems: so far none.

Excellent image quality! I'm very happy that I've choose this projector! I thunk that it's the best choice ih this price level. I've already watched a lot of my favourite films, and every time it was like I watch these films the first time...

I bought this unit to replace my Optoma H31. The H31 had almost 4000 hours on it and was getting flaky. I saw this unit advertised for a good price and was looking to move up to a 720p projector. Out of the box the factory settings didn't look very good on my 100" screen. I ran video Essentials and dialed everything in. I use my Media Center PC exclusively so the projector gets everything at 720p and it does a great job. DVD's look fantastic. For us it just looks like such a sharper picture when compared to the Optoma. Since the screen size didn't change and the pixel count went way up! I'm very happy with this projector. I have almost 400 hours on it already and it is working flawlessly.

Any Problems: None.

This is my first projector. Overall I am very happy. The picture is great. There have been complaints about this projector not having speakers, but if you're like me you already have a suround sound system. Features the menu is great, easy to use. I wish the projector could zoom in a bit more, but I can live with the fact it can't. The keystone correction is very nice. I have my projector in an odd spot. Most people say "your projector works from over there?" With shipping taxes, ect I pay $700. I think it is well worth it.

Any Problems: The second time I turned the projector on the pic had a purple tint to it. I turned my DVD play and projector off and on, and I've never had the problem again.

Lets break this down a bit: Image Quality: Some say its a bit soft, and it does have a slight color issue that nit-picky people like me can pick out when calibrating. However overall for its price, i'd say the image quality is excellent. You can achieve a decent black level without crushing your whites and blacks. Furthermore you achieve some very nice results when using the hdmi input. Features: It has all of the inputs you'd need, and its menu system, while not great, gives you the minimum options needed to do what you require. Overall it gives you what you need. Construction: So far so good. Ease of Use: I found it very easy to use. The mneu is easy to use and navigate, the projector was quick and easy to setup. Quite nice. Reliability: So far its working great. However i did have one hiccup where the projector came on, then shutoff and told me the lamp was died. I reset the projector, and all has been well ever since. I attribute this as a firmware fluke, so hopefully they handout an update soon. Value for Money: I got this thing for $599, a 720p hd, 2500:1 cr, 4x-7 seg color wheel dlp projector... what more could you ask for that price? Value is excellent!

Any Problems: None except for the lamp thing mentioned above.

No Rainbows, some see green push a little, but use the right Degamma setting and it is not an issue. Fan noise is not loud. You can find alot of info on avsforum on this projector. I upgraded from a BenQ PB6100 and this proj produces Excellent HD images and movie channels also. Regular SD also looks good with right settings. Im using these settings right now and they are making me happy. ********************************* These settings are with Econo mode OFF and ECO ON looks good to. Good with ambient light also. (Sharpness 14) 45 56 1 8 5 104 100 100 55 50

Any Problems: The projector wants to resync when I goto espn or espnhd channel displaying a 2 sec acer logo top left with display setting also. Very little issue for an Excellent HD experience and good to very good regular SD display also. This unit does a lot for $600 at tiger direct.

This is my first projector and I'm quite satisfied with what I've got for the money. For me, the high contrast ratio outweighs the average brightness (I originally thought I'd buy the Benq MP720P) - after all, when you really want a cinema-like experience, you want a dark room (as dark as possible!). But even with some (not much) ambient light, the picture is watchable with this projector. The high contrast just rocks. (Nevertheless, I've stopped using the whitening toothpaste...) I bought a 110" screen (4:3 - 240cm wide) and the cheap InFocus ceiling mount (needed a bit of tweaking, but half the price of the Acer mounting kit). The result is superb and I'm very happy with the result. The difference in brightness in normal and Eco mode is small and the difference in noise is quite big (I'm satisfied with both modes). So far I have not used HDMI (still not decided how to get the signal there, it's about 10m from the PC...), but even the VGA connection works fine. I get a 240cm wide picture at the throw distance of 4.7m with no zoom, so I think that the specs are not correct. Maximal zoom is slightly above 1.2x. I've tried some HD movies (Aliens, Matrix Revolutions), it looks awesome ;-) I recommend this sort of projectors to anyone. And get a big screen if you can :-) There *is* difference between 80" and 100", and between 100" and 110"!! The scores I give to this projector are high, because I knew perfectly what I was getting, so I'm not disappointed by anything. In its class, I think this is a good choice. Cheers, Filip

Any Problems: The specs (even those in the Acer's PDF manual) are incorrect, the projected image is larger (at least with my unit). Usually this can be compensated by moving the projector closer to the screen... Opposed to this site's info, there is *no* audio (not even mono)... but who would use it? It's a home cinema projector... :-)