Customer Ratings & Reviews

Projectors used to be clunky and not user friendly. From setting them up, to adjusting their images, to getting your input set up, using a projector was a hassle....until now! The Epson EpiqVision Mini EF21 takes almost all of the pain out of using a projector! It's compact size makes it easy to travel with, no matter where your destination takes you! It is lightweight and portable! The built-in Google TV means that, as long as you have some sort of internet connection, you can use the projector without carrying around any type of streaming device or other input device along with it. Simply plug the power into the projector and you instantly have access to Google TV! Setup was a breeze as, once you turn the projector on, it walks you through the necessary steps to get you watching videos! The picture quality is also great, as this projector puts out a full HD image with HDR, and the image is super bright! According to Epson, the laser light source lasts approximately 20,000 hours. It is so nice to know that I will not have to mess with replacing expensive lamps/bulbs on this projector. On the back of the projector is one HDMI port allowing you to use the projector with an external input. It also has a headphone jack and USB port as well. There is also a built-in speaker so you can hear the audio from whatever you are watching. The speaker is surprisingly loud and would work well for most activities. The projector also has bluetooth which is great because sometimes I enjoy using a larger, external speaker. My favorite part about this projector is the auto image adjustments. Simply point the projector at a wall or screen and it LITERALLY does everything else on its own! You can hear the motors inside the projector and see the image move and adjust onto the surface where you are projecting the image. This product takes projectors to a new level. If you were on the fence about purchasing a projector, you will love this one! It is too easy!

While I have large screen TVs and AVRs with surround sound, I have never owned a projector and thought I'd give this one a try. I don't have an ideal space for one, but for testing purposes I had a large enough wall to act as my screen. I consider this a respectable portable HD projector. From a table about 10 feet from the wall, it offered a large enough image I had to zoom it in a bit to not have too large an image for the wall. That was still giving me an image at least 10 feet across (not diagonal). It's not sufficiently bright to use in a well lit room if you're looked for a really good image, but it's more than enough to project a sports broadcast with an acceptable image. The audio quality was actually much better than I was expecting from such a small package. Once the sun went down even the image, as large as it was, was quite acceptable for general viewing. Using a dedicated projection screen would undoubtably improve the image even better, and feeding the audio to an AVR would be better of course. It does have internal settings for proper orientation if mounted to a ceiling or behind a projection screen. For my testing purposes, I mostly used two different apps: Smart Tube for playing content from YouTube, and Kodi to stream from my media server on my network. I did also test MAX, Prime Video, and Disney+. The Epson is connected to my WiFi on a 5 GHz access point within 6 feet of the projector, and it was reporting about 500 Mbps on my Gigabit home network and Gigabit Internet connection. This is a 1080p projector. As such, it doesn't support the video codec most commonly used for 4K, H.265/HEVC. So, playing a 4K movie from my media server means the server must transcode the video to H.264. This requires a significant amount of computer power, and was affecting my streaming to a different player on my network. I'm not certain if it was my server being maxed out or the projector processor, but it would occasionally need to buffer the video when playing a 4K movie. I didn't see any issues with HD or SD quality video. When my server transcoded the video from H.265 to H.264, the HDR metadata was retained and the projector did indicate it was receiving HDR content. Even sitting within two feet of the projector, it was nearly inaudible. So it should not be an issue in a controlled room for noise levels. Since the projector also has an HDMI input, one could connect a 4K Blu ray player and let the player handle the H.265 playback, just with the output restricted to 1080p. The Epson uses Google TV, which is a user interface that I really don't care for. My Shield players have the older Android TV UI, which is also intrusive but not as badly as the Google TV version. It takes more clicks on the remote to reach my apps than it does on the Shield, and there are far more "recommended" shows/movies on the home screen with no way of changing what is displayed. But being Android based, there's a huge library of apps available for it in the Google Play Store, and many more that can be sideloaded. The remote is simple to use, has brightness adjustment buttons (so you don't need to dig into a menu). Focus and keystone adjustments happen automatically, but can also be adjusted manually. It also has a direct access button that opens the screen adjustments menu, so no digging into the main menus to reach it. There is no mute button, so to silence the sound you must push the volume down button until it reaches zero. I would never consider this projector for a true home theater since it's not 4K. But that's not what it's designed for. It's small, lightweight, and since it uses a laser instead of a light bulb it should last for many, many years without worrying about the light source. You can take it with you for a desktop presentation, or a casual projector for watching a movie with some friends. It does not have a TV tuner, so you can't use it to have a game day unless you use a different source for the TV. There are ATSC TV tuners with HDMI ports that could connect directly. I have a HDHomeRun TV tuner on my network, so with something like that it would make a good source for watching sports. Just keep the bright lights away from the wall you're projecting on.

I got this to use in my living room, which is open to the second floor, so the ceiling is about 18’ high. The walls are white so I can project directly onto the lower half of one wall to get a video screen that’s about 12’ wide. It’s very impressive for watching movies or sports. The projector was super easy to set up, get connected to the WiFi, and update the firmware. I was already familiar with Google TV and Google Home, so setup was a breeze. It installed the streaming apps that I selected during setup, then I had to install another one manually, Fanduel Sports, because it wasn’t one of the choices. More on that app later. The EF21 has a standard tripod screw hole on the bottom, so I decided to use a sturdy tripod that I already owned. It worked great for the projector, both for getting it in the optimal spot to project the image and for the maximum airflow around it for cooling. The projector does get pretty hot, so it’s best to keep things away from it while it’s projecting. In a dark room, the projected image is really nice for viewing. It’s sharp, the colors are bright, and motion is smooth. The first thing I watched was a basketball game and it was pretty fantastic. The projector has auto focus as well as auto keystone (to square up the picture) and it seemed to work very well. You can override and adjust focus and keystone manually, but I never saw the need to do that. The sound from the onboard speakers was surprisingly adequate. We watched the basketball game then a couple of movies over the course of the weekend and only used the built-in sound. Of course, external speakers and a home audio system would be much better, but it was about like the normal speakers on a TV. It was loud and clear enough that everyone was perfectly happy watching the movies that way. One small complaint I have is the volume seems to adjust up and down very, very slowly with the remote. The built-in Google TV application is just adequate. There is plenty of storage space for apps, but I’m a little concerned about the processor speed. I expected it to be pretty smooth and “buttery” moving around the apps and settings, but many times there was some lag in the response. This doesn’t bode well for the future as more apps are added and updated for use on faster systems. Worst case, though, you can always plug in an external streaming device to the HDMI port and use it that way. One example of some processing problems was when I used the Fanduel Sports Network app (formerly Bally Sports). I use this to watch local NBA games. It’s not the best app in the world, but I have been using it just fine for a couple of years on a Roku and a Google TV device. On the EF21, however, the app isn’t usable. It displays the video, but the frame rate seems to be about 3 frames per second which makes it so jerky it’s impossible to watch. It could very well be a problem with the app, but it does work okay on the standalone Google TV streamer that I also have. Overall, it’s still a great projector and I’m happy I got it. It’s not something I’ll use every day, but I’ll definitely bring it out when we have friends and family over to watch games or movies. Everyone that has seen it so far has been impressed with our home “movie theater!”

This review is for the Epson EpiqVision Mini EF21 Portable Smart Laser Projector (and, likely, others within this projector family). Overall, this is a great prosumer-level of project that you can get today, and it's completely worth the price to be paid for it. I'll cover specific points as we go forward. First, it's essentially a computer in a box. From the time that you turn it on, it steps you through a setup process that is, of course, completely controlled by Google (if you do have some issue with Google, fair warning -- this is a Google box!). The setup ends at a dashboard screen of sorts, very similarly to what you'd find on a smart TV or some other box that is a STB service aggregator -- meaning you have immediate access to pretty much every streaming service app available. Second, the projection aspects are fantastic. Out of the box without further setup (and everything is customizable via a setup menu in the aforementioned home screen/dashboard), it automatically adjusts focus by sensing how far it is away from your viewing point, whether that's a screen or the side of a wall). And every time you pick the box up to move it, it senses that movement, and will automatically readjust focus, among other things. Further, there is a sensor for the lasers it projects for pictures such that if you walk in front of the box, it will display a message that it has stopped displaying a full image so that your eyes don't get bothered -- this is one of those features that can be good, but if you're always getting up and crossing in front of the box, it might get annoying. As mentioned, this otherwise great feature can be adjusted. And thirdly, this device integrates seamlessly with current sound equipment and such. It is Bluetooth-enabled, and we also use HDMI cords to pass through from our Apple TV box through to a sound bar receiver with zero issues. As mentioned, this is a great projector and I'd definitely recommend it.

The Epson EpiqVision Mini EF21 Portable Smart Laser Projector is a small, well built, obviously high quality little projector. The unit weighs just over 5 pounds, and includes a power cable, a remote controll, some documentation/instructions, and a set of batteries. The resolution is 1080P and it uses Lazers to achieve it's 1000 Lumens of brightness. It has Blutooth, Wifi, and HDMI 2.1 connections. It is about 8" x 8" x 5" in size, so it's easy to find a spot to set it up. The small size and light weight make it easy to throw into a bag and take it with you. I was able to fit mine inside my lunch box to carry it to work so I could set it up and watch videos large format on my lunch break. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to connect to the Wifi at my work because the wifi requires a log in name and then a password, but the Epson Mini EF21 only had an option for selecting the wifi to connect to, then it jumped straight to the password request and I couldn't get it to let me use my log in name. When I set it up at my house it worked fine, but it didn't seem to be very bright, even with the blinds pulled down. It looks pretty good at night time when the whole house is dark though. I think it would have been nice to include a carry case to protect it and the lens when travelling, something with a carry handle would be nice. Overall I had really high expectations for this projector and it didn't quite live up to them for this price point.