Mitsubishi Electric HC900 projector

Upside

Mitsubishi Electric tasted some success last year with its first real stab into the consumer projector market, the HC2000. It's hoping to get an even bigger bite with the HC900, a new projector aimed at the entry-level home theatre market.

Priced at AU$3999, the HC900 is a DLP projector with a 1024x576 resolution. Looks-wise, it's no stunner, but it is smaller than the bulky HC2000 and features a pleasing curved front and an overall uncluttered design. Mitsubishi boasts that the HC900 has a high contrast of 4000:1 and a brightness of 1500 lumens, and can project a picture size of 300" from only 3.6m away. The projector's lamp life is rated at 4000 hours, but that drops down to 2000 if it's not used in low light mode. One of the main features Mitsubishi is plugging with this new unit is its use of a seven segment colour wheel (as opposed to three or more). The seven segment wheel supposedly reduces the 'rainbow' effect some people are prone to seeing on DLP-projected images.

Inputs-wise, the HC900 is pretty basic, although it does feature a DVI input for an all-digital connection. Other inputs include one RGB, one component, a composite and one S-Video. It also has a small speaker, which is rated at 2W power.

Downside

The overall specs of the HC900 leave a little to be desired - it's pretty bare when it comes to inputs and its resolution means the best output you can produce is 576 lines (meaning it's not true high definition). But Mitsubishi is aiming this at the beginner market, so it should suit most people making their first stab at home theatre. Another minor quibble is its noise, which is rated at 30db. It's not loud by any means, but there are quieter projectors out there.

Overall

The mid-range HC2000 was quite a decent projector, and from our early views, it looks like the HC900 is set to continue Mitsubishi's winning form in this space. Look out for CNET.com.au's full review of the HC900 coming soon.