Epson EH-LS10000 review

To 4K or not to 4K?

Epson EH-LS10000

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The LS10000 offers maximum-quality Full HD images, but with native 4K projectors to compete with, is that enough for the long-term?

We liked

Is 4K Enhancement a mathematical fudge or a remarkable innovation? It's definitely the latter, and with the feature ramped up to maximum power there's very little to choose between native 4K and enhanced Full HD – at least on an 80-inch screen – which in itself is astonishing.

Colours, black levels and contrast are all top-notch too, as is the 3D performance. The two pairs of 3D specs in the box, and a completely built-in 3D experience, are also very welcome – and something the Sony VPL-VW300ES doesn't offer. The back panel that keeps all of the ins and outs invisible is another nice touch.

The LS10000 is also very quiet, measured at just 49 decibels in the loudest, brightest Dynamic mode. As a bonus, the LS10000 doesn't need an anamorphic lens add-on; you can project in aspect ratios including 2.40, 1.85 and 1.78, and the LS10000 remembers zoom, focus and lens shift positions.

We disliked

This is one beast of a projector at 553 x 550 x 238mm and a whopping 18kg, and it takes two people to move it into position. And given its permanence, we're not 100% convinced that 4K Enhancement is going to please most home cinema aficionados for long enough.

With native 4K projectors now available, how could it?

Verdict

The Epson EH-LS10000 is an excellent home cinema projector. Blistering black levels, great colours, a huge amount of convenience features and some nifty frame interpolation help produce some of the most fluid, colourful and realistic Full HD images from any projector out there.

However, there's no getting away from the fact that even with the awesome power of Epson's 4K Enhancement feature – which really does work – the native 4K trickery of the Sony VPL-VW300ES, available for exactly the same price, means that the slightly less detailed Epson EH-LS10000 must take a back seat, at least for now.

A price cut however would, at a stroke, make this one of the absolute finest Full HD beamers about.

Jamie Carter

Jamie is a freelance tech, travel and space journalist based in the UK. He’s been writing regularly for Techradar since it was launched in 2008 and also writes regularly for Forbes, The Telegraph, the South China Morning Post, Sky & Telescope and the Sky At Night magazine as well as other Future titles T3, Digital Camera World, All About Space and Space.com. He also edits two of his own websites, TravGear.com and WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com that reflect his obsession with travel gear and solar eclipse travel. He is the author of A Stargazing Program For Beginners (Springer, 2015),