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Hi,
I've just bought a LG HX301g projector and I'd like to share my thoughts. Some of the things I'll write here are already mentioned in this thread but here are my humble opinion about hx301.
(before i start, hx301g was announced in India, most probably, it is a product for middle east and asia, I live in Turkey, and although it is advertised as Hx300 in the store, when I saw the box, I am surprised to see that the model number is Hx301g. I think the only differences between hx300 and hx301 are ht301 supports 1080p and lacks FM transmitter.)
I am a photographer, and also a photography instructor living in Ankara, Turkey. I have a Panasonic AE3000 full HD and LG AH115 720p projectors, but their lamps are too expensive to spend during the lectures, so I decided to buy a LED projector. I prepare full HD slide shows and use panasonic for these (apart from watching movies ofcourse).. And LG AH115 at home and for remote locations as it is easier to carry. (Panasonic is huge
I will be comparing the HX301 to Panasonic AE3000.. I know it is not fair to campare these two, but this is all I have now in studio. here is the two in the same picture:
I will clarify some of the misleading points about LG HX300-HX301 series in my experience.
1."ultraportable" : When you look at the specs, you can be fooled by the dimensions and weight of the projector, but wait until you see the power brick. It really is a brick and weighs exactly the same amount with the hx301 (~800 grams). So you need a bag that should hold both of them. Together with the power brick, hx301 will be as heavy as good old LG AH115. By the way, out of the box, there is a nice carrying case.
2."No lamp heat, therefore no cooling": It is not true, the lamp becomes hot, and the fan is working. If you choose "Presentation" mode, which is the brightest mode, it seems fan works at maximum speed most of the time. I said "most of the time" because fan speed is not constant, it changes and I should say it is annoying. Fan noise changes continuously. While I am writing this message, it is turned on, the fan noise is noticeable. After watching a movie, if you shut down the Hx301, unlike the other projectors, it shuts down. No additional cooling, nothing. So you can shut it down and take it to its bag immediately and go. But be prepared for a hot bag.
"LED projectors are brighter than the conventional projectors" this seems not true. As I am a photographer, I have a 'light meter'.. Which means I can measure the amount of light falling to a surface. So I made an experiment. I put the projectors to a same distance from a white wall (actually it is not important if it is a white wall or a black curtain, as the light meter measures the light "falling to the surface" not "reflected by the surface". So the type of the surface is irrelevant in this example.
I put HX301 to the same place with AE3000 (which is roughly 3m [9.8 feet] to the screen) So the diagonal of the image is around 2.50m (=100inch)
I connected HX301 to a popcorn hour A110 from HDMI port and played Star Trek 2009. I have found a very bright scene (where the romulan ship is about to go into warp ) and measure the brightest point assuming the amount of the light is the maximum at that point that the projector can give. HX301 was at presentation mode (the brightest mode) during the test. The result was 4.1 EV (EV means exposure value used to measure the amount of light)
HX301:
You may wonder why the picture is so dark, you'll see in the next picture.
to make this meaningless number (4.1 Ev) more meaningful, I repated the same experiment with the AE3000. And the result was 6.3 EV:
Panasonic AE3000:
You can compare the above pictures to see how they look in terms of brightness. The brightness of HX301 is like watching AE3000 with sun glasses.
So I have two numbers 4.1 EV for HX301 and 6.3 EV for Panasonic.. When you increase the EV by 1, you increase the amount of light twice (it is called "1 stop"). So after a calculation we see that, panasonic is 4.84 times brighter than Hx301 (square of [6.3-4.1=2.2]). If 100 photons arrive to the wall from HX301, then 484 photons arrive from panasonic.
If you measure the light from 1.4 meters to the HX301, you can read 6.3 EV.. In other words, you can get the same illumination with AE3000 if you put HX301 1.5m away from the screen which makes an image size of 40 something inch diagonal.
Here is another comparison (with the projectors are in the same distance to the screen):
Hx301:
AE3000:
I took these photos with the same values (aperture, shutter speed and ISO) that's why HX301's results are so dim. If you watch two projectors side by side, you see like this. I hope this is an answer to the question "how bright is HX301/HX300"
If I let the camera measure the light and then take the picture, both pictures (ae3000 and hx301) would be the same for the same scene as the camera wants to gather the same amount of light. Here is the photo of HX301 screen when you use auto exposure modes (or green mode)
Good news is, if you don't compare HX301 with a high end projector, the brightness of the screen seems very good. You can see all the detail in the movies, although i have difficulties adjusting the correct colors. But I'll find somehow.
The usb port is a bonus for me, it can power portable HDs. So I can use a 500 gb portable disk and i can watch the movies in it. Only bad thing is when I use it with a HD if I use headphones, there is a continuous high pitch sound on the background. I think if I use a flash disk, the sound will be gone. it has a built in pdf and ppt reader, but very limited, no animations whatsoever. It can only show pages one after another. You can use remote to change the slides.
The good thing it can read most of the movie formats including mkvs. If the sound is DTS, then is says "Unsupported audio" and you can't hear a thing. But there are some programs which can convert dts to dolby (google 'popcorn mkv audio converter'), then you can watch them with sound. It didn't play a specific mkv and a mp4, i don't know why, but I successfully played a 1080p video which my laptop can't play. It can't read subtitles embedded in mkvs, there must be a separate subtitle file with the exact same name with the movie. You can't change the size of the subtitles. With a specific movie file, the projector shut down itself and I had to turn on again. May be a missing codec or defective file which computer player can handle but projector cannot. The file can play on the computer with media player.
It is surprising to see how good it can down sample HD videos. I thought SD and HD would not make a great difference, but it does. More important for me, it can resize the text very good. So if you use, say, 1280x1024 resolution, the characters are still looking good and readable. My current setting is 1280x720 and even the tiniest words can be read.
I am pleased with the projector so far. I don't use it for watching movies, rather to show Powerpoint presentations during class hours. If you buy it for watching movies, i think you can be happy with it. Although you can buy much brighter pj's at the same price, if you think the lamp life, the overall cost is very low. You should watch it near darkness or otherwise contrast is very low. So if you have a light controlled environment and plan to place it 1.5 - 2m to the screen then you'll be ok with it. If you plan to watch it on 2.5x1.8 meters screen, then you can think of some other alternatives.
If you have any questions, i'll be happy to answer.
Hope this helps,
Melih
