Epson - Home Cinema 3800 4K 3LCD Projector with High Dynamic Range - White

I'm reviewing with bias as the Epson 3800 projector is my first home theater projector but after 11 months of heavy use. My main concern was picture quality and refresh rate as this was being purchased to replacement the family room’s 4k Samsung 65” tv that died right outside its warranty coverage. Meaning it was going to be used for Movies, steaming and GAMING! So, the PS5 at 4k was a huge concern for me because my kids were in the mist of a big gaming kick since we just got our hands on the new “Next Gen” console. I’m happy to report that this projector is a perfect fit for the PS5 as this console will not play games higher than 60 frames per second at the 4k resolution setting which is exactly what the 3800 is rated for. The only issue we had was while playing games on the huge 120 screen was eye fatigue when kids would set to close the projector screen. For movies and streaming I’ve built a small(ish) form computer with parts from my old work PC. It’s fitted with an Intel 9700k CPU and the new Intel Ark A770 GPU. The Ark GPU was more of a curiosity purchase for the new contender in the GPU market, but it does extremely well, but you can find better value cards out there for this application. Pro: HDR, 60hz RFR, high contrast, bright, huge 100”+ screen Cons: Harder instillation that a TV, more costly Please forgive the poor mounting solution for the projector as we will be moving soon and haven’t bothered properly mounting yet.

For the price-point of this projector, I am extremely happy with it. We upgraded from a 10+ year old Viewsonic 1080p DLP based projector, and the difference it just astounding. While the jump in resolution from 1080p to 4k is good, the real winner is the difference in color and brightness. This thing is an absolute light canon, plenty of brightness to have bright scenes in HDR pop on my 100" screen. Lense flairs, light sabers, etc. look fantastic, and the colors are very rich and vibrant. My old projector looked very flat and dull in comparison. The auto-iris feature is fantastic and is probably my favorite feature. It very quickly adjusts the amount of light coming through the optics to match the scene. This makes dark scenes show good contrast and not look "black crushed" like my old projector did. We watched Pan's Labyrinth as one of the first movies on the new projector and the dark scenes looked incredible. Animated movies look extremely vibrant and colorful as well, we watch a lot of anime with our kids and have been really happy with how they look even though the majority of them only release in regular 1080p blu-ray and do not have HDR. Being able to physically shift the lense up/down/left/right instead of using key stoning correction to make the image project correctly onto the screen results in a much sharper image. This projector still has plenty of key stone options, we just chose to mount this projector lower off the ceiling compared to our last one so we could disable them, and were very happy with the results My last talking point is 3LCD technology versus DLP. DLP projectors in this price range are typically a single wheel. My last projector used this technology, and I constantly saw a rainbow effect on the projected image, especially in dark scenes. Some people are sensitive to this, and some aren't. I have a friend who owns a new BenQ DLP projector and I also see rainbow effects on his, while he doesn't. This problem does not exist on 3LCD projectors. This was a major point for me in purchasing this projector, and not being subject to that constant nagging issue was alone worth upgrading for me. My room has plenty of curtains (including extra ones we put up if we watch movies during the day) but is not a dedicated blackened home theater room. In my semi-light controlled environment I am extremely happy with this unit. It has tons of brightness to spare, while not ideal I could even see inviting people over to watch football during the day with the lights on. This is not something every projector can do, in my opinion this thing is genuinely a light canon. Last thing to note is we have an electric pulldown screen. I was able to buy a cable and hook up the projector so when you turn it on the screen automatically goes up and down. Not having to deal with the electric screen remote is a godsend and very easy to setup. In the past my wife has been too intimidated to use our home theater by herself but since we got this projector she watches movies on her own, and that puts a smile on my face.

I purchased the 3800 after trying several other projectors that just were not the visual quality (color, brightness) I wanted in a movie room. Installation was simple enough with a ceiling mount purchased from Amazon using one leg in front and 2 in the back. (Vivo-MOUNT-VP02B) The picture quality is amazing and extremely bright. I find it also shows well when watching with my curtains open. What I didn’t like is the setup! It’s a pain!!! No matter how level it was and going through an iterative process of making it fit to my 120” projector screen, it just wouldn’t fit all the corners. I tried using the keystone, and it’s useless. It really distorts the picture. I had to finally decide that I was going to accept that some movies might have a slightly lopsided edge. There are times the entire screen is filled, but many times, due to a movie’s natural format, it shows in a rectangular shape in the middle of the screen. This is fine, except the left side of the image is always slightly smaller than the right, giving a lopsided look. For the price, this projector should have automatic focus and auto keystone. My family is ok with trading this small imperfection for the picture quality. The other thing I didn’t like is, I could never get it to connect to Bluetooth devices through the built-in Bluetooth on the Epson. It would recognize the item, yet still not connect to play through my Onkyo speakers. The instructions say the devices need to be A2DP compatible which all were. It would show it found the device but still wouldn’t play. What I eventually did was connected a Bluetooth device (Esinkin- W29-us) purchased from Amazon directly to my purchased firestick. In this case, the Bluetooth device is connected to my Audio input through the red and white cords in the front of my Onkyo. I went to the settings of the Bluetooth on my firestick, and selected the Esinkin. Voila!! It plays through my surround sound. I do have DirecTV hooked up, but I’ve not quite figured out how to play it through the speakers. I’m going to try one more device and will update. All in all, my family loves it. It gives a very movie like experience. For this reason alone, I would recommend.

I said fake 4K projector because it’s not native4k. Putting that on the side, this projector out of the box looks great. Before i got this projector i was in the market for a 75” tv since I been all in on the Dolby Vision since I got my oppo 203 years ago so I hesitate to buy a projector. But I have a dedicated room and I said I will get a projector so I can have a better experience. With the size of the screen (110”) and the quality of the image i don’t miss the Dolby Vision at all. This projector has a good features like: Vertical and horizontal lens shift that it makes the screen adjustment a lot easier. 3000 Lumens so you can get a good image even with the lights on. 3d which is a plus and it looks great, my family enjoy the 3d movies. A lots of options to calibrate the image. One thing I recommend is to use cinema with eco mode not only will save the life of the lamp and you can still have a great quality image but if you go with a higher set up the fan became loud and hot. I don’t notice the fan sound when I’m using the home theater Sound but even listening the movie with my sound I use the cinema and eco mode. Overall it’s a great projector if you don’t want to spend more money on a native 4K. I’m really happy I got this projector even more for the price I paid for it, it was on sale $1299 the price at the moment of this review is $1699 so if you see it on sale get it.

I hope my story will help someone. Initially I had BENQ 2050 - very nice projector but only FullHD not 4k. I started to look what I can buy on a market with 4k. First I got Optoma UHD50X - was nice but black level was bad, also some issues with focusing on the screen, time by time half of the screen went to green - returned it. Second I decided to back to big TV instead of projector (after 3 years watching only projector) , got Sony 85" X91J - nice picture, nice colors, black level is awesome, but I found out that my eyes were hurt by watching this big TV at night (after a couple days) - still have that TV but watching only on day-time. Third I tried ViewSonic PX748-4K - overall pretty nice projector for the price (~900), no black level at all, picture was not super crispy with any settings and it was pretty LOUD - returned. Finally I got Epson 3800 - picture is awesome, crisp and detailed (need to tweak some settings), color are fantastic (pretty much the same as on 85" Sony TV), silent (on ECO mode - I am using it all time), black is not too black, but as I understand, after I got TV with perfect black, that's not important, you need to check whole picture not just black level and no more hurt eyes. I am happy!!!