One problem for a widescreen business projector is that widescreen resolutions aren't as standardized as, say, XGA, which is always 1,024 by 768 pixels. The Broadview claims WXGA at 1,280 by 768 pixels. But WXGA can also translate to other resolutions, which range from 1,280-by-720 to 1,366-by-768. Which version you have depends on your computer or graphics card.

Boxlight says that Broadview can accept any of these resolutions and will scale the image up or down to fit the screen. But the first rule for choosing a projector is that if you want the best possible image quality, you should match your graphics card output with the projector's native resolution, since scaling an image inevitably degrades it. So although I ran most of my tests at 1,280 by 768 pixels, I ran additional tests at 1,280-by-1,024, to see how well the projector handles scaling.

Boxlight rates the Broadview at 2,600 ANSI lumens. I measured it at 2,295 lumens, which is 88 percent of the claim (compared with a more typical 78 percent for most projectors), easily bright enough to project a good-size image in a fully lit room. The measured contrast ratio is a respectable 262:1.

Image quality was good-to-excellent with a digital connection, and reasonably good with an analog connection, with scaled images showing remarkably few scaling artifacts. With both types of connections, the Broadview handled most of our DisplayMate tests (www.displaymate.com) without a problem, except for the typical DLP issues of yellow appearing as a dull mustard color and the DLP rainbow effect, with some areas of some images breaking up into red, green, and blue. In analog mode, I witnessed severe jitter on screens designed to bring out pixel jitter, and I couldn't fix it by adjusting frequency and tracking controls. Fortunately, most images do not bring out jitter.

Full-motion video, when playing a DVD over an S-Video connection and using the Video mode setting on the projector, was disappointing. Colors were washed out and scenes that look fine with other projectors looked not very well-lit, with details in dark areas getting lost in apparent shadow. Although the video quality was decent enough that I'd consider bringing the Broadview home from the office to watch an occasional movie, I certainly wouldn't choose the Broadview for watching movies exclusively. Audio volume was also an issue: Sound was hard to hear from even three feet away, so you'll generally want to plug into an external audio system, whether you're playing a movie or giving a presentation that includes sound.

One potential problem I found, and confirmed with Boxlight, is that there is no option to turn off scaling, except in the specific case of XGA resolution, since you can switch to a 4:3 aspect ratio. This could be a minor problem in the common situation where several people are giving presentations, each from a different notebook, because scaling can produce artifacts on screen. But it doesn't change the fact that the Broadview is good at what it does. It's a good choice if you want to use a WXGA projector with your WXGA notebook for presentations.

See how the Boxlight Broadview compares to similar machines in our side-by-side projector comparison chart.

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