Designed for applications that need to put a lot information on screen at once, the Acer P7505 projector ($1,999.99) offers a 1,920-by-1,080 resolution. That's suitable for, say, a complex engineering drawing with lots of fine detail, or four windows at once, with each one showing a little more detail than a single SVGA screen. Together with the 5,000-lumen brightness rating, it makes the P7505 of obvious interest to anyone who needs to show a lot of detail in an image that's big enough for a midsize to large room.
The P7505 has a lot in common with the BenQ MH680 and BenQ SH940, two other 1,920-by-1,080 projectors that are meant for business use. In particular, all three handle data images, but not video, well, and they all offer a step up in resolution from the 1,400-by-1,050 Editors' Choice Canon REALiS SX80 Mark II.
One other key feature the P7505 has in common with both BenQ models is that it's DLP-based. The Canon SX80 Mark II is built around an LCOS engine, which gives it better image quality despite the lower resolution. The Canon model also offers unusually capable color management, which makes it a particularly good choice for showing photos at top quality.
Whatever the advantages of the Canon SX80 Mark II, however, the P7505 delivers on the single most important issue for a high-resolution data projector by doing a good job with fine detail in data images. It also offers the highest brightness rating of these four models, potentially giving it the edge when producing large, bright images.
Basics
The P7505 measures 5.1 by 15.7 by 12.2 inches (HWD) and weighs a substantial 16 pounds 8 ounces. That makes it most appropriate for permanent installation, although you could mount it on a cart for room-to-room portability. One particularly welcome convenience for setup is the 2x zoom lens, which gives you substantial flexibility in how far you can put the projector from the screen for a given image size.
Aside from the level of zoom, setup is standard, with manual control for focus and zoom. As with most projectors meant for permanent installation, you'll find plenty of connection options for image inputs on the back panel, including three HDMI ports, two VGA ports for computers or component video, and both S-video and composite video ports.
There's also a LAN port, a mini USB Type B port for direct USB display and for controlling the mouse from the projector's remote, a component video input using three RCA connectors, and a USB Type A port for reading files directly from a USB memory key. In addition, you can store files in the 2GB internal memory for the projector to read directly.
Brightness
Talking about brightness for DLP projectors is a little complicated, because most models, including the P7505, offer different levels of color brightness and white brightness. That's important to know, because differences between the two can affect both color quality and the brightness of color images. (For more on color brightness, see Color Brightness: What It Is, Why It Matters.)
As a point of reference, using Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendations, and assuming a 1.0-gain screen, 5,000 lumens would be appropriate in theater-dark lighting for roughly a 275- to 375-inch (diagonal) image at the P7505's native 16:9 aspect ratio. With moderate ambient light, it would be suitable for a 180-inch image.
Not surprisingly, the projector was more than bright enough to stand up to ambient light with the 90-inch-diagonal image I used for most of my tests. For smaller screen sizes and lower light levels, you can adjust the brightness by switching to Eco mode, one of the lower brightness preset modes, or both.
Image Quality
In my tests, the P7505 did a good, though not quite excellent, job with data images. On our standard suite of DisplayMate screens, red was a little dark in the brightest preset modes, which is typical for projectors with a difference between color and white brightness. In most modes, however, colors were generally well-saturated and eye-catching. The projector did an excellent job on color balance, with suitably neutral grays at all levels from black to white. It also scored unusually well for holding detail. Both white text on black and black text on white were crisp and readable at sizes as small as 6 points.
See How We Test Projectors
The one important problem I saw was with screens designed to bring out pixel jitter and moiré. In addition to noticeable dynamic moiré, I saw some black horizontal lines, which simply shouldn't be there. The good news is that you won't see this issue with the vast majority of data images you're likely to use. Also, you can avoid the problem by using an HDMI connection.
The P7505 scored far lower on video quality, with enough digital noise to be distracting and with flat color typical of a low-contrast ratio. I also saw a few too many rainbow artifacts (flashes of red, green, and blue) for comfortable viewing. As with most DLP projectors, they show rarely enough with data images that it's unlikely that anyone will be bothered by them. With video, however, anyone who sees these artifacts easily is likely to find them annoying.
One final plus for the P7505 is its audio system. The two 3-watt speakers don't provide any noticeable stereo effect, but they deliver good sound quality and are loud enough to fill a small to midsize room. For more of a stereo effect, more volume, or better quality, you can also connect an external sound system to the audio output.
If you need 1,920-by-1,080 resolution, and don't need the P7505's promised level of brightness, you'll likely be better off with the BenQ SH940 or BenQ MH680, which both offer the same resolution with lower brightness ratings. If you need a projector that can handle video well in addition to data images, and particularly if you need one that will let you precisely adjust color, the Editors' Choice Canon REALiS SX80 Mark II will definitely be a better fit. If you simply need to show detailed data images at large enough size for a midsize to large conference room or classroom, however, the Acer P7505 is a more than reasonable choice.
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