Optoma HD27 Home Theater Projector Review
What's up everyone? Steve here for another of my world famous projector reviews. No but really, we're looking at one of my top picks for home theaters.
The Optoma HD27 provides a really high quality for price choice for people looking to setup their own theater. It's also a good pick for gaming. Let's jump into the nitty gritty of it!
Quick takeway - Great home theater unit. Fantastic visuals. Overly loud fan noise which makes it a bad choice for small rooms. Good value for the money though.
See related: Optoma 142X Review
Overview
The Optoma HD27 Home Theater Projector is an overall great projector. It offers a fantastic viewing experience for a pretty fair price.
The image quality is much better than most other projectors in its price range. The projected image is especially bright, the colors are extraordinarily vibrant, and the size of the projected image can get huge. It offers amazing HD visuals as well.
This projector’s outstanding visuals makes for one of the most pleasurable viewing experiences for watching movies, watching TV shows, and playing video games.
However, it does seem to have a little problem with noise. The fan is loud, it can make a humming noise when it is on too long, and the built-in speaker is awful which doesn't make it an ideal choice for presentations.
That being said it's definitely a top 5 pick for me when it comes to home theater projectors.
Specifications
- Size: 9 x 11.7 x 3.7 inches
- Weight: 5.2 lbs
Key Features
- 3,200 Lumens
- Contrast Ratio: 25,000:1
- Resolution: Full HD 1080p
- Image Size: From 41.8 inches to 305 inches
- Lamp Life: 8,000 Hours
- Throw Distance: Up to 12 Feet
PROS
CONS
Beautiful Viewing Experience
The Optoma HD27 Home Theater Projector offers a beautiful viewing experience. It combines its large image size, extra bright screen, vivid colors, and Full HD resolution to make visual magic. It is ideal for those late night gaming parties with your friends or for early morning/late night movies.
Brighter Than Most
The projector’s lamp uses 3,200 lumens. The amount of lumens a projector uses indicates how bright the projected image is.
The average amount of lumens a projector typically uses is between 1,000 and 2,500. Therefore, this projector’s image will look brighter than most other projectors out there.
An image as bright as this will definitely help you see the screen regardless of the darkness levels in the room. It also makes it easier to enjoy the gorgeous visuals in your video game or movie. A higher brightness level like this is also better for your eyes.
The brighter a light it is, the less your eyes have to strain in order to see. This means that you can watch or play something for an extended period of time without hurting your eyes.
This projector has a contrast ratio of 25,000:1. The contrast ratio of a projector refers to the colors in the projected image. It is how bright the whites are compared to the blacks.
You might not think that this is super important, but it actually is. The higher the contrast ratio of a projector is, the more the colors appear vibrant and stand out from each other.
With some projectors, colors that are similar, like red and orange, can blend in with each other, making the visuals harder to see.
This can make or break an online match of a video game and cost you the win, lose track of smaller objects in movies, and make it hard to understand charts and graphs if you use it for business presentations.
Because this particular projector uses such an extraordinarily high contrast ratio, the colors will really pop and help to make the projected image a pleasure to look at.
Crisp HD Visuals
The Optoma HD27 Home Theater Projector has a resolution of 1920x1080p. This particular resolution is also known as Full HD. HD has become the standard resolution for any form of visual media, like projectors, DVD and blu-ray players, and TVs.
Any resolution less than it is considered to be “standard definition,” which can still be good visual quality, but not the best. It is what most older TVs use.
HD is the best and most affordable option for a resolution. 4K is technically a better resolution than HD, but most devices that produce 4K images are not very affordable, which can make them inaccessible.
The resolution of a projector indicates how many pixels can be shown on the screen at a given time. Since Full HD definition is 1920x1080p, it means that 2,073,600 pixels can be shown at once. That is a lot. It enhances the visual quality of the projected image, making it a delight to experience.
See related - best hd projectors
A Massive Viewing Size
One of the best features of this projector is how large the size of the projected image can get. The picture can be anywhere between 41.8 inches to 305 inches.
The wide range in possible sizes allows you to adjust the image to fit just about any wall or screen you want to watch movies or play video games on. This is helpful for those of us who are unable to project things onto super large screens or those others who wish to essentially have a mini movie theater in their own house.
Bigger Than Any TV
The fact that the image this projector can get up to a whopping 305 inches is incredible. Not only is this especially large compared to other projectors, but it is three times bigger than the screen of even the biggest TVs you can find in stores.
This can help you enjoy every single minute detail in your movies and video games in gorgeous HD. This is one of the reasons I included this unit on my list of best projector tvs.
This projector also has a pretty decent lamp life. The lamp life is up to 8,000 hours.
You might be thinking to yourself that “aren’t there projectors out there with much higher lamp lives, like up to 50,000 hours?” Well, you would absolutely be correct.
There are a ton of projectors out there that have lamp bulbs that can last a lot longer than this. More about lamp life here.
However, think about this. 8,000 hours of movies and video games is an awful lot. You still will not have to change the bulb for quite a long time.
How much time a day would you really be using it? It is probably only a few hours. This still lasts much longer than your average household light bulbs.
It may not be the longest lamp life, but it certainly is not terrible by any means.
An Iffy Throw Distance
The throw distance of this projector is a bit iffy. It has a throw distance of up to 12 feet. If you have a smaller living room to use it in, then this is perfect for you. You will have no problem setting the projector up close to the wall or screen.
Even the average sized living room would offer a terrific space for this kind of throw distance as most living rooms have 12 feet of space.
However, if you were planning on using this for a huge home theater, you might run into issues. If the device is set up too far away from the screen or wall, the projected image can appear too blurry.
It is not the worst throw distance as it is enough to suffice for most average sized rooms. However, it is limiting depending on the space you plan to use it in.
Fan Noise Too Loud
As amazing as this projector is because of its visual quality, it still definitely has its downsides. The fan in the projector is super loud.
Like I mentioned in the intro it's best to use this for gaming or movie watching not for office presentations. If that's what you're looking for, I wrote a huge post about best projectors for business presentations.
One of the Weakest Speakers Around
The projector does come with a speaker built in to it. However, it is one of the weakest speakers a projector can possibly have. There might as well not be any speaker at all since you will have to buy an external speaker no matter what.
The audio from the speaker is so weak that the buzzing and the fan noise completely overpower it. Even if you are seated right next to the projector, you will end up just hearing the fan noise instead of the audio of your movie or video game.
So again guys, if you have a small space or a small living room this ISN'T the projector for you. For that you'll want short throw projectors.
In Conclusion
Overall, this is a pretty good projector for its price. The visual quality is astounding. The projected image is in Full HD, offers extremely vibrant colors, and a huge projection size.
However, even though the visuals are just about perfect, the audio is not at all. The audio is pretty horrendous. The fan noise is louder than the audio of the built-in speaker.
You will definitely need an external speaker. There is a huge issue with overheating, limiting the amount of time you can use it for. The buzzing caused by the overheating is even louder than the fan.
Ultimately, if you are looking for a projector with great visual quality, this is a great choice.
However, I highly recommend using an external speaker and not having the projector powered on for too long. Let us know what you think of the Optoma HD27 Home Theater Projector in the comments.
My name is Steve Scott. Father of 2 and owner of Outdoor Movie HQ. I’ve been involved in the A/V industry for most of my life and built this blog to help people better understand projector technology. Please leave a comment if you have any questions.