Pros & Cons
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- LCOS technology sidesteps common problems with LCD and DLP projectors.
- Bright image.
- Good color.
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- Relatively big and heavy.
- Volume is too low to be usable.
Canon Realis X600 Specs
| Aspect Ratio: | 4:3 |
| Built-In Speakers: | Yes |
| Computer Interfaces: | Dual-mode (DVI-I) |
| Depth: | 13.2 inches |
| Engine Type: | LCoS |
| Height: | 4.5 inches |
| Keystone (Optical or Digital): | Digital |
| Measured Brightness: | 2425 lumens |
| Measured Contrast Ratio: | 160:1 |
| Native Resolution: | 1024 x 768 |
| Rated Brightness: | 3500 ANSI lumens |
| Rated Contrast Ratio: | 1000:1 |
| Remote Mouse Support: | Yes |
| RGB Pass-through Connector: | Yes |
| Supported Video Formats: | 480i |
| Supported Video Formats: | 480p |
| Supported Video Formats: | 525i |
| Supported Video Formats: | 525p |
| Supported Video Formats: | 720p |
| Type: | Business |
| Video Interfaces: | Component |
| Video Interfaces: | Composite |
| Video Interfaces: | DVI |
| Video Interfaces: | S-Video |
| Warranty Labor: | 36 months |
| Warranty Parts: | 36 months |
| Weight: | 10.4 lb |
| Wi-Fi connectivity: | No |
| Width: | 8.9 inches |
| Wireless Connectivity: | No |
| Zoom (Optical or Digital): | Optical |
Like most people who've seen an LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon) projector in action, I'm a big fan of the technology. But until now, even the least expensive LCOS projectors carried price tags of almost $5,000, making it hard to recommend one to a small business on a tight budget. The XGA (1,024-by-768) Canon Realis X600 doesn't fully solve the cost issue, but with a street price of $3,000, it's the most affordable LCOS projector yet.
LCOS starts off with a big advantage over other technologies. Single-chip DLP projectors suffer from a rainbow effect, with light areas breaking up into little red-green-blue rainbows when viewers shift their gaze. (I haven't been able to find any studies that show the percentage of people who see the rainbow effect, but I certainly see it, and it's safe to assume that someone in your audience will too.) LCD projectors are known for a screen-door effect, where the individual pixels are so well defined that you can see a grid of lines in the image—much as you would if you were looking through a screen door. LCOS projectors don't suffer from either of these problems, nor do they introduce any artifacts of their own. Even better, they tend to throw a bright, high-quality image, with colors that really pop off the screen.
The one catch for LCOS projectors (besides the high cost) is their size and weight. When Canon introduced the
There's an advantage to its large size, too: There's plenty of room for connectors. The X600 offers a DVI-I connector (for an analog or digital PC connection or DVI video), a VGA connector (for an analog PC connection or component video), a pass-through monitor connector, a USB port to give you mouse control through the projector's remote, and inputs for composite video, S-Video, and audio. And not only does it come with a VGA to DVI-I cable so you can connect to a computer, it has component video and USB cables as well—two more than you get with most projectors.
To set up the X600 you simply connect the appropriate cables, turn the computer and projector on, set the zoom for the image size you want, and hit the auto-set button, which handles everything else. More precisely, the auto-set feature focuses the projector, recognizes the data source, and changes the input setting to match, adjusts keystone (when the edges of a projected image are slanted because the projector is not directly in line with the screen) so the left and right sides of the image are parallel and the top and bottom are parallel, and even adjusts colors to compensate for the color of the surface you're using as a screen. In my tests, I made sure the auto-set worked, then readjusted the keystone settings to avoid the artifacts that digital keystone usually adds to an image.
The X600's measured brightness, at 2,425 lumens, is only 69 percent of the rated 3,500 lumens, but that's enough to make it one of the brightest projectors we've ever tested—close behind the
The 160:1 contrast ratio is low compared with a typical DLP projector, but relatively high for LCOS. And with Canon's version of LCOS, at least, a low contrast ratio doesn't mean a dulled-down image. On the contrary, I'd describe the image as suitably crisp, with rich, fully saturated colors that popped off the screen. And I didn't see any problems worth mentioning on our DisplayMate test screens (www.displaymate.com).
On my DVD video tests (which I ran using an S-Video connection) I saw a slight tendency to lose detail in dark areas, but otherwise the image was of excellent quality and displayed skin tones well. I wouldn't hesitate to bring the X600 home on weekends to watch a movie or sports. That is, as long as I had an external audio system on hand. Even at full volume, I had to strain to hear the X600's sound from only a few feet away—a common, and decidedly minor, issue with business projectors.
At $3,000 street, the Canon Realis X600 doesn't qualify as cheap. But it does count as a big step forward in bringing LCOS technology down to a more mainstream price range. It's also well worth the cost if you have the budget to pay more to get a better image.
See how the Canon Realis X600 measures up to similar machines in our
More projector reviews:
Final Thoughts
Canon Realis X600
The Canon Realis X600 is the least expensive projector available to date that's built around LCOS, a technology that eliminates problems common to LCD and DLP projectors.