October 6, 2003

Hi folks,

We have just posted the review on the Mitsubishi HC2 Colorview. This is a great little SVGA projector that we are happy to bring to your attention. The price might be a show stopper for some, but shopping around will probably solve that problem for you.

This week will we turn our focus to the Toshiba MT500. This is spec'd as a native 16:9 DLP unit with 1024x576 resolution. Many folks have presumed that it is using the 16:9 Matterhorn DLP chip. It isn't--it uses a native 4:3 XGA chip with 192 lines deactivated, which is an alternative route to achieve the same physical resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio. Regardless, with a retail of $3,999 and a much lower street price, audience interest is not surprising. The review will be posted within a week or so.

Just announced on Friday is the NEC LT170. Nobody can accuse NEC product designers of not thinking out of the box--some of the most creative stuff in the industry comes from their labs. The LT170 is a 3.9 lb, 1500 lumen, 1000:1 contrast XGA resolution DLP product in the strangest form factor we've seen in a while. One of its features--you can set it on its side and project in portrait format rather than landscape. As with a number of NEC products, this looks like a unit that could be an economical dual purpose machine for both portable business use and home entertainment. With its eye-catching street price of $1,795, we are sure to get requests for review. Never fear, we are on it.

Thanks for using ProjectorCentral,

Evan Powell