Pros & Cons
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- Small size.
- Lightweight.
- Bright for its weight, with 1,000-lumen rating.
- MHL-enabled HDMI port.
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- Shows apparent scaling artifacts (lines and patterns added to some screens) even at its claimed native resolution.
Acer K335 Specs
| Engine Type | DLP |
| Inputs and Interfaces | Analog VGA |
| Inputs and Interfaces | HDMI |
| Inputs and Interfaces | MHL |
| Native Resolution | 1280 x 800 |
| Rated Brightness | 1000 |
| Weight | 2.9 |
With its 1,000-lumen rating and sub-three-pound weight, the Acer K335 ($699 street) is part of a new generation of lightweight LED projectors. Earlier models, including the Acer K330 and the Editors' Choice 3M Mobile Projector MP410, were limited to either 300 or 500 lumens. The K335($1,007.19 at Amazon), with its higher brightness rating, offers an even more attractive balance of portability, brightness, and cost.
What defines these projectors as a group is that they're all built around a WXGA (1,280 by 800) DLP chip paired with an LED light source. Where they differ, in addition to their brightness, is their level of portability. Compared with the most recent 500-lumen models, like the Optoma ML550($474.00 at Amazon), the K335 is a little heavier and a little less portable, at 2 pounds 14 ounces. However, it's no heavier than earlier-generation 500-lumen models.
Like most lightweight LED projectors, the K335 further enhances its portability by being able to read a variety of common image, video, audio, and document file formats from USB memory keys, microSD cards, or its 2GB internal memory. It also includes an MHL-enabled HDMI port, which lets you connect an MHL-enabled smartphone or tablet to show images and charge the device at the same time.
Setup is standard, with the microSD card slot, USB A port, and HDMI port on the back, along with a VGA port, composite video port, and mini jacks for audio in and out.
Brightness
Based on SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) recommendations, and assuming a 1.0 gain screen, 1,000 lumens is suitable for a 120- to 163-inch diagonal image for long sessions in theater-dark lighting at the K335's native 16:10 aspect ratio. In moderate ambient light, it should be bright enough for an 80- to 90-inch image. Crank up the ambient light, and the appropriate image size will shrink, but for short sessions, you can get away with larger screen sizes without a problem.
Complicating matters is that, as with most DLP-based projectors, the K335's color brightness is lower than its white brightness in at least some modes. (For a discussion of color brightness, see Color Brightness: What It Is, Why It Matters.) As a reality check, I found the projector bright enough in my tests for comfortably viewing a 92-inch diagonal image for long sessions in theater dark lighting.
Image Quality
The projector's data image quality is acceptable for most purposes. On our standard suite of DisplayMate tests, colors were generally well saturated and eye-catching, but notably different in different preset modes, so you may want to pick a mode based on which colors you like best.
Far more important for most data images is the issue of apparent scaling artifacts at the projector's claimed native resolution. These show most obviously in the form of unwanted added patterns in areas with closely spaced lines or dots. The same problem shows in all the competing LED projectors we've seen, because it's related to the DLP chip they use. That makes it expected, even though, as I've discussed in other reviews, it simply shouldn't happen at any projector's native resolution.
The good news is that unless you use patterned fills instead of solid blocks of color in your graphics, you may never see these artifacts. Unfortunately, the same issue also affects fine detail. White text on black, for example, was easily readable at 9 points, but noticeably blurry at smaller sizes, and nearly impossible to read at 6.8 points. Black text on white was easily readable at 10.5 points, blurry at 9, and hard to read even at 7.5 points.
The video image quality is also usable, but not impressive, largely because colors were flat, as is typical for a low contrast ratio. On the plus side, the projector handled skin tones acceptably, and it did an excellent job with shadow detail (details based on shading in dark areas).
Also helping both data and video quality is that that K335 shows fewer rainbow artifacts—in the form of red-green-blue flashes—as many DLP projectors. The only time I saw them in data screens was with one test image that's designed to make them show. With video, I saw them often enough that anyone who sees the artifacts easily will likely notice them, but infrequently enough so few people, if any, should find them bothersome.
One pleasant surprise was that the built in three-watt mono speaker offers adequate volume for a small room, and good enough sound quality to be useful. Note too that the LEDs are meant to last the life of the projector. Acer rates them at 20,000 hours in Standard mode.
If you're in the market for a light, bright, portable LED projector, the Acer K335 should certainly be in the running. It's brighter than most of the competition, it weighs no more than many older models with half the lumen rating, and it offers more than acceptable image quality for both data and video. If you need a lighter projector, you may prefer the Optoma ML550 or 3M Mobile Projector MP410. But for most people, the Acer K335 offers more than enough additional brightness to make it worth carrying the minimal additional weight.
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