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“This is mostly a review of the Acer X110 with much...”

written by martin99 on 05/01/2010

This is mostly a review of the Acer X110 with much reference to the Optoma ES522, now my 'spare' projector.



The Acer X110 is a budget SVGA video projector which, at the time of writing, can be had online for about £258, inlcuding VAT and overnight delivery from a firm in Birmingham called Projector Planet. I found this company easy to deal with and the goods arrived via DPD on time as promised. Acer X110 comes with a two-year return-to-base warranty and a one-year warranty on the lamp. Although the cheapest price I could find online for a replace lamp (by OSRAM) was about £135, including VAT and delivery, it is likely that this price will come down as more people buy X110s and as the model ages. By way of example, the replacement lamp (the same one) for two of Acer's most popular projectors - P1165 and P1265 - now costs well under £100 probably because these models have been on the market since 2007.



Acer X110 is much lighter and smaller than my other SVGA projector - an Optoma ES522 - and slightly less bright. But since I always watch in a darkened room, or at least under subdued lighting, having super brightness is not terribly important for me. Acer X110 is way bright enough - even in ECO mode, which is supposed to extend the life of the bulb from 3000 to 4000 hours. Time will tell. Acer X110 is also a lot quieter than Optoma ES522 - albeit that model is not particularly loud - and has a better contrast ratio (4000:1).



Acer X110 has inputs for VGA, S-Video and Composite Video as well as a USB-B port, which I understand is for some sort of control mechanism and not for playing DIVX files from a memory stick or external card reader. Moreover, unlike Optoma ES522, Acer X110 has no audio ins/outs, a defecit which again is unimportant to me because I route DVD sound through a separate amplifier and speakers. The other thing I really appreciate about Acer X110 is its tripod mount socket situated dead centre on the base, a feature missing from the Optoma.



However, Acer X110 takes about 90 seconds to fully shut down while the Optoma takes only around 10 seconds. Although I would not be happy packing Optoma ES522 away immediately after switching it off, I would be far less concerned about doing the same with Acer X110, which executes a more gradual and, what seems to me 'fuller', cooling-down process.



Besides a meagre zoom lens - also missing from the Optoma - Acer X110 has a handy slot on the top of the case for its remote control, the button battery for which must be inserted positive side up. As far as I can see this is not mentioned in either the quickstart guide or the manual. At 2.5 metres (my projection distance) the X110 zoom lens only offers a very slight alteration to the size of the screen image. Nothing to rave about really. But better to have than not to have.



In the Acer X110 box you get: a VGA cable, both a European and a UK kettle power lead (the fuse in the UK lead is rated at 3 amps), a CD-ROM containing the quickstart guide, the user manual and Adobe Reader. There's also a lot of other bumf pertaining to the guarantee, wordlwide dealerships and so on: the usual stuff you normally file away for future reference. I had this projector up and running in less than ten minutes. Easy peasy.



Picture quality-wise, in my opinion there is absolutely no difference between Acer X110 and Optoma ES522. So if buying my first projector I might be inclined to save fifty quid and go for the Acer. On the other hand Optoma ES522 is white as opposed to black; is a larger, more robustly-built machine with more sockets; and shuts down a lot faster after switching off. But Optoma ES522 is heavier; in operation it's marginally noisier, though hardly to any extent that most people would notice; replacements lamps are right now slightly more expensive; and, as mentioned, it lacks both a zoom lens and a tripod mount - for what these are worth on the Acer X110. Otherwise Optoma ES522 does not , on the face of it, have quite such a good warranty as Acer X110. Though how these warranties work out in practice can only be tested by empirical means.



Frankly I am delighted with both my units and would happily buy them again.



Therefore, although there might well be other models available that are just as good or maybe even better, I can highly recommend both Acer X110 and Optoma ES522 as sound budget projector buys. They represent jolly good value-for-money - especially Acer X110.