Casio Ecolite XJ-V110W LED/Laser Projector Review – Picture Quality

Posted on June 11, 2016 By Art Feierman

CASIO XJ-V110W PROJECTOR REVIEW – Picture Quality: This page covers Color Modes with test images, Overall Picture Quality

XJ-V110W Picture Quality

The XJ-V110W has five image modes: Standard, Graphics, Theater, Blackboard, and Natural.

Standard lives up to its name. A presentation-type mode, Standard emphasizes light output and crisp detail, making it a good choice for PowerPoint presentations and other data content. Color balance is shifted towards blue. At factory settings, Standard mode produced 2773 lumens on our projector.

Graphics mode has more open mid-tones than Standard and less of a blue tint, so it’s good for images and photography when clarity and gamma accuracy is key. Graphics mode produced 1900 lumens out of the box.

Theater mode is optimized for video. Color is warmer than either Standard or Graphics. Detail is clear without being overemphasized. Theater mode, at 1827 lumens, is still quite bright, but only about half of the projector’s maximum output.

Blackboard mode is for those times when a screen is not available. Using Blackboard mode, the projector measured 1585 lumens.

Natural mode is the final preset and also one of the most versatile. With Natural mode, you get a bright image with better color balance than Standard mode but more lumens than any other mode except Standard at 2477. Natural mode is a great all-around mode when ambient light is present but clarity is still important.

Overall picture in most modes is sufficiently well balanced (as described above) to serve well. In the batch of photos immediately above, you can see how the projector performed on web based content such as news, as well as a “white paper” in pdf format from my computer.

Skin tones can look extremely good, especially in Theater mode, if they are fully saturated.

Note: All of the images taken of the Casio projecting images have picked up a slight pale green tint (and some extra blue too), relative to what was produced on the screen. I’m not sure why, but we find a tendency for laser projectors and some led projectors to show some shift when captured with my Canon D60 camera (set to 6500K). Something about that solid state light that perhaps causes a sightly different reaction by the camera sensors? (Just speculating – the shift is by no means consistent from one projector to another, but the shift tends to favor stronger greens or blues. I can’t think of any shifting toward red, in the camera capture.

I would say that picture quality was very satisfactory, with the tendency to produce slightly undersaturated images my primary complaint. As mentioned elsewhere, a color saturation control would have been a plus. The amount of undersaturation was not severe, but enough to dampen my enthusiasm a bit.

When handling dark areas – black levels, the Casio performed about as one would expect from a typical low cost DLP projector, which might be described as Reasonably good – typical of DLP models, and with deeper blacks than competing 3LCD projectors. (Not that there are any laser projectors (or LED/laser hybrids) using 3LCD within thousands of dollars of this Casio as of the time of this review’s publication.

V110W Sharpness

Whether looking at a close up shot of a menu, (or my new business cards), or fine stock market quotes (close up) from a web page, or just general web, white paper, or presentation images, I found the XJ-V110W to be more than reasonably sharp. There’s only a little softness in the corners if focused dead center. (It’s always best to focus about 1/3 of the way out from center to side for best overall focus with most projectors.)

Any real limitations in sharpness are the result of this being a typical WXGA (1280×800) projector, so small type, and for that matter, everything else, will appear sharper, of course, on a higher resolution projector such as all those more expensive WUXGA (1920×1200) and 1080p (1920×1080) projectors. Those more expensive models have roughly 2.25 times more pixels to work with, so can obviously resolve more detail.

That said, you won’t find any led/laser or laser projectors with 1080p or higher resolution without spending more than twice the price. The least expensive solid state projector I can think of that’s 1080p is the LG PF1000U we are currently reviewing, but that projector, by comparison, lists for about $1299, offers 1080p, but only 1000 lumens! Get the idea?

Bottom line on sharpness – better than average for a sub $1000 DLP projector (or 3LCD projector for that matter). Nice.