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The Epson BrightLink 485Wi ($2,200 street) is far more than just another ultra short throw interactive projector. Among its more interesting features are automatic calibration, the ability to use two interactive pens simultaneously, and the extension of the interactive whiteboard feature to work with other image sources besides computers. The result is a step ahead of the competition in many ways, and also an Editors' Choice.

Like the Editors' Choice Hitachi BZ-1 ($1.795, 4.5 stars), the 485Wi is LCD-based, which means it shares some of the same advantages and disadvantages. Under disadvantages, file the lack of 3D support. Although more and more DLP projectors today, including the Editors' Choice Optoma TW675UTi-3D ($1800 street, 4 stars), offer the feature, 3D isn't available yet in any LCD data projectors. If you need it, this pretty much rules out the 485Wi.

On the other hand, LCD projectors don't suffer from rainbow artifacts, with light areas breaking up into little red-green-blue rainbows. These artifacts result from the way single-chip DLP projectors produce color. Some people see them more easily than others, but if you don't need 3D, you can guarentee that no one in your audience will be annoyed by them simply by picking an LCD projector like the 485Wi.

The Basics, Portability, and Setup

The 485Wi offers WXGA (1280 by 800) native resolution and a 3100 lumen rating. As with most interactive ultra short throw projectors today, it's designed so you can mount it either horizontally or vertically, facing straight down, to create an interactive table top. According to Epson, the cooling system works just as well in either orientation.

Measuring 5.7 by 14.5 by 14.8 inches (HWD) and weighing 11.9 pounds, the projector can sit on a cart for room to room portability, but it's meant primarily for permanent installation. In fact, one of the reasons it costs more than most of its competition is that, unlike most, it comes with a mount. You even have the choice of buying it with either a wall mount or tabletop mount.

Except for the 485Wi's interactive feature, setup is absolutely standard. Connection options for images include an HDMI port for a computer or video source; two VGA ports for computers or component video; both S-video and composite video ports; and a USB A port—for a document camera, for sending images directly from a computer, or for reading files directly from a USB memory key. In addition, you can send images over a LAN connection.

Enhanced Interactive Features

One advantage that most DLP interactive projectors have over LCD projectors is that they use TI's approach to interactivity, which doesn't need to calibrate the pen and projector. The 485Wi not only needs calibration, it needs to recalibrate every time you move the projector, change resolution, or change the image size.

The good news is that calibration with the 485Wi is fully automatic, which is the next best thing to not needing it at all. Simply press two buttons on the remote and wait about 10 seconds while the projector puts a calibration image on screen, analyzes it, and recalibrates.

The automatic calibration is only one of the 485Wi's extras. Unlike most interactive projectors, it comes with two interactive pens rather than one—another additional piece of hardware that helps justify the price. More important, it lets you work with both pens at once, so two people can interact with the screen, adding notations simultaneously. This is particularly useful with an interactive tabletop, with people seated around the table.

Still another new feature, adding up to a hat trick, is the ability to interact with image sources besides computers. An annotation mode in firmware lets you mark up images from any source, including, for example, Blu-ray players and iOS devices (with plans to include Android devices shortly). You can even freeze a video image, so you can mark up the frame. The player will keep going, though, so when you unfreeze the image, you'll pick up at some later point in the video.

Big Picture, Short Distance, High Image Quality

The most impressive feature for any ultra short throw projector, of course, is the ultra short throw. For my tests, to get a 78-inch wide (93-inch diagonal) image at the native 16:10 aspect ratio, I had to put the projector all of 10 inches from the screen. According to Epson, the full range for image size is 60 to 100 inches diagonally, at 2.5 to 12.2 inches from the screen.

The 3100 lumen rating is a touch less than the Optoma TW675UTi-3D  offers, at 3200 lumens. However, unlike the Optoma projector, the 485Wi lets you interact at full brightness, rather than using a separate interactive mode with a lower brightness. In my tests, the 93-inch diagonal image was easily bright enough to stand up to typical levels of ambient light in a conference room or classroom.

Image quality also counts as a strong point for the 485Wi, particularly for data images. The projector handled our standard suite of DisplayMate tests nicely, with vibrant, fully saturated color; excellent color balance with suitably neutral grays at all shades from black to white, and reasonably crisp, highly readable text even at small font sizes.

You won't mistake the video quality for something coming out of a home theater projector, but it's good for a data projector, and good enough to be watchable, thanks in large part to the lack of rainbow artifacts. The 485Wi did a particularly good job for a data projector with shadow detail (details based on shading in dark areas), and I saw little to no posterization (shading changing suddenly where it should change gradually) even in scenes than many data projectors tend to posterize.

With all of its strengths, the Epson BrightLink 485Wi is shoo-in for Editors' Choice, standing alongside the TW675UTi-3D and BZ-1. If you need 3D, the TW675UTi-3D is the only one of the three that offers it, making it the obvious pick. Similarly the BZ-1 is the most portable of the three, and it can save you some money if you don't want to pay for a mount or second pen that you don't need. But if you don't need 3D, and you're planning to mount the projector permanently, the Epson BrightLink 485Wi is a compelling pick, with a bright, high quality image plus innovative features, including automatic calibration and the extension of interactivity to any image source.

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