Hitachi CP-RX70 review

Hitachi has put a low price on the CP-RX70 and in return you get a package that is minimalist in the extreme. The slender projector has a painted silver finish that looks rather basic, the remote control is chunky and uninspiring. The black carry case is plain, but it's large enough for the unit and leads. However, you only get VGA and power cables as part of the deal.

It's safe to say that the Wow factor is distinctly lacking, but thankfully the projector proved better than the sum of its parts.

Simple setup

We found the unit incredibly easy to set up, as it uses two drop-down feet at the front and it only takes a moment to adjust settings with the remote. The setup gives you a choice of two menus for Easy or Advanced users. Easy offers you all of the tools you need such as Keystone, brightness, contrast and inputs. All of which can be locked down to stop users from changing default settings.

The CP-RX70 uses Hitachi's favoured triple LCD technology to present a picture that is very appealing with colours that are very warm to the eye. If you're after really bright whites, the Optoma is a better bet, but the Hitachi delivers an image that is a good all-rounder for presentations as well as movies with the best results.

The noise level of 35dB can be a little intrusive in Normal mode, so we switched to Whisper mode, which is substantially quieter and better for meeting rooms, yet the picture remained reasonably bright. In fact, we had no trouble using any of these projectors with the blinds open, so long as there wasn't direct sunlight streaming through the window.

For once we found the mono 1-Watt speaker was perfectly adequate and didn't distort even at maximum volume, which makes a pleasant change.

The Hitachi isn't the best projector, but for all-round performance and value for money it's hard to beat.