Optoma HD80

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By Philip Wong,Raymond Lim, CNET Asia
Sep 28, 2007

Being a new kid on the block, the Optoma HD80 has certainly made quite an impression among home theater enthusiasts. At first glance, it has a dead-on resemblance to the original HD81. But that's hardly the case as this model is somewhat in a league of its own. At present, this unit is the most affordable full-HD DLP in the market.

Design

The HD80 sports a refreshing pearl white chassis augmented with a shiny chromed zoom lever and focus knob, adding a nice elegant touch to its overall aesthetics. This is besides a sensuous arcing front and plenty of clean lines which are a far cry from the usual boxy design sported by its peers. At its rear-top edges are two banks of LEDs and backlit controls. These glow in soothing blue during initial bootup sequence and provide instant feedback against overheating, etc.

Its petite form factor is among the few attractions the HD80 has to offer. Measuring just 410 x 310 x 185mm, the Optoma is easily dwarfed by the mammoth BenQ W10000. The same applies to its feathery bulk, a reassuring consideration if you have the intention to ceil mount the 4.5kg beamer. Cooling here is catered to by fixed grilles without perforated filters, with intake on the right and exhaust on the adjacent left. Hence, sufficient side clearances are required for proper ventilation.

Near perfect except for a missing backlight button.
(click for larger image)

The bundled remote control has good reception range and an ergonomic feel which makes navigation a breeze. There are also a suite of shortcut keys for input selection and adjustments. This arrangement allows on-the-fly operation at the touch of a button as opposed to laborious manual toggling. Another cool feature is its green backlighting. This has configurable brightness by hitting Enter and gradually fades at regular intervals. It could have been perfect if only there were a dedicate button to activate this function.

Under the software image options, there are many settings which can help enhance picture quality. Putting aside the standard video parameters, we have quite a handful of advanced variants on video post-processing, among others. These include edge enhancement, manual iris and overscan. What is weird though is its integration of the grayscale cuts and gains within color temperature options. This limits fine-tuning to either group, but not both. Last, but not least, two onboard test patterns are available for quick image focus and white-level checks.

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