Sony VPL-HW45ES review

WHAT IS THE SONY VPL-HW45ES?

The VPL-HW45ES is the successor to a classic Full HD projector, the VPL-HW40ES. That's a formidable heritage, but Sony has had two years to come up with ways to improve on it. The result: it's really, really good. Your movies will look great, but low input latency means this projector is great for gamers too. If you're after a Full HD projector, this is one to look out for.

SONY VPL-HW45ES – DESIGN AND FEATURES

From the outside, the VPL-HW45ES is a dead ringer for its predecessor. Available in white or black, the large body has the same striking and mostly pleasing mix of gentle curves, steep slopes and sharp angles. I applaud the decision to mount the promisingly large lens inside a recess on the front edge, so that it doesn’t protrude awkwardly beyond the rest of the bodywork.

The VPL-HW45ES vents hot air from its front edge, making it easier to mount in a recess or against a rear wall. It also makes the viewing experience more comfortable in setups where the projector sits in front of the viewers.

Connections are mounted under a lip on one side of the projector: a pair of HDMIs, an RS-232 "remote" port, an IR input, and a USB port. The USB is for service updates only, so you can’t play multimedia from USB storage devices through it. It’s also a pity there’s no 12V trigger output. Some may rue the lack of a D-SUB PC port too, although an increasing number of computers now ship with built-in HDMI ports.

The projector system at the heart of the VPL-HW45ES is based on Sony’s own SXRD technology. It delivers a Full HD resolution and standard dynamic range images rather than 4K and HDR, which is entirely as you'd expect of a device costing £1,800. The cheapest projector to offer any 4K and HDR support is JVC’s £4,000 X5000, and even that projector doesn’t do HDR convincingly.

Sony has managed to up the VPL-HW45ES’s brightness to 1,800 lumens from the 1,700 lumens of its predecessor. We can’t bring you Sony’s claimed contrast figures as the company refuses to provide them.

Despite the familiar exterior, Sony claims the internals have been completely redesigned to deliver improved colour performance and reduced noise levels.

Even more promising is the development of a new alignment layer element within Sony’s SXRD chipset. That is supposed to improve contrast and black-level depth by retaining greater light focus and efficiency.

A further hardware improvement sees lamp life for the VPL-HW45ES being extended to 6,000 hours, provided you use the low-intensity lamp mode. This is one of the highest figures I’ve seen from a projector that isn’t using LED lighting.

With projectors at the affordable end of the market looking increasingly homogenised, it’s highly unusual to find a one delivering the sort of wholesale hardware changes that Sony is claiming for the VPL-HW45ES. Let’s just hope the changes all prove to be for the better.

Joining the new hardware arrangements are a pair of familiar Sony processing systems. Reality Creation is for greater sharpness and colour precision. MotionFlow tackles motion-related issues such as blur and judder.

Also catching our video game-addicted eye is a new "low latency" feature. That's designed to reduce the time the projector takes to render images from the data it receives, something that can make the difference between life and death in the virtual world.

The VPL-HW45ES continues to offer 3D support, with the necessary 3D transmitter built into the projector’s chassis. Sadly, you don’t get any 3D glasses provided with the projector.

SONY VPL-HW45ES – SETUP

For the most part, the VPL-HW45ES is exceptionally friendly to set up. The combination of a large 1.6x optical zoom and simple horizontal and vertical image-shifting wheels make it a doddle to get your image in the right place on your wall or screen, no matter how awkwardly shaped your room.

The on-screen menus provide a decent level of control over how pictures look. It's worth familiarising yourself with some of the menu-based adjustments if you want the best picture quality. One is the Contrast Enhancer, which should be turned off or set to low – anything higher causes dark areas to look dominant and hollow. Also, if you have a blacked-out room, I’d strongly recommend using the lamp on its Low setting.

Finally, the VPL-HW45ES’s pictures are so accomplished in a relatively "naked" state that, if you’re watching any decent-quality HD source, I'd advise turning off all noise reduction and motion-processing systems.

SONY VPL-HW45ES – PICTURE QUALITY

Initially, black levels didn't look very satisfying. There’s a grey look to parts of the picture that should look black. The High lamp mode also appears to increase noise levels in the picture and adds a curious yellow tinge to colour tones. Fortunately, the VPL-HW45ES’s pictures move from being slightly disappointing to gorgeous the moment you switch the lamp to Low.

At this point the superlative contrast performance introduced with the VPL-HW40ES returns. Exceptionally rich, deep black colours share the frame with bold, punchy whites, vibrant and dynamic colours. Best of all, shadow detailing is extremely impressive for such an affordable projector.

At the VPL-HW45ES’s price, I’d typically expect to see significant detail in dark pictures becoming crushed out of the picture, as the projector removes light in order to deliver a convincing black colour. But this just isn’t the case. Dark scenes look natural and full of depth, helping them sit more consistently alongside accompanying bright scenes.

The projector even manages to achieve its exceptional contrast without its dynamic light-control features causing the image to look distractingly flickery.

The level of detail the VPL-HW45ES ekes out of HD sources is simply stunning. I was able to see subtleties of colour, shade and texture that I can’t recall ever seeing before at this level.

You can add extreme sharpness to the mix if you use the Super Resolution processing option, but I think this makes the picture feel a little forced. A more effective way of adding sharpness – as well as a more tangible sense of depth and space – is the Reality Creation system. I generally opted to leave switched on, but die-hard image purists will prefer to leave this feature off.

With the Low lamp setting doing away with the slight yellow dominance of High lamp mode, the VPL-HW45ES also provides dazzling colour performance. Its strong black levels provide an excellent foundation for the rest of the colour palette. The lack of low-contrast greyness relative to other similarly affordable projectors also lets colours enjoy a more natural look.

There’s plenty of tonal subtlety on offer too. There’s no need to worry about vibrant content – even computer animation – starting to look one-dimensional and plasticky.

Gamers will be ecstatic to learn that, using its low latency mode, the VPL-HW45ES takes just 15ms to render its images. This is an incredibly low figure by projector standards, which makes it impossible to blame the projector for any deaths or other gaming fails.

It’s difficult to find anything negative to say about the VPL-HW45ES’s pictures at all once you’ve made a few minor tweaks to its picture settings.

The best I can manage is that pictures don’t look quite as bright as they ideally might once they’ve been tweaked to optimise black levels and contrast.

SONY VPL-HW45ES – 3D PICTURE QUALITY

Although the VPL-HW45ES doesn't come bundled with 3D glasses, Sony provided me a pair for testing. The results weren’t entirely convincing.

The good news is that the projector's 3D images deliver an effective sense of scale and depth – a result of the projector's impressive contrast performance, which enables it to achieve the sort of subtle light differences that help your eye perceive distance in the real world.

The projector’s excellent eye for detail continues in the 3D domain, too. It was a relief to find this detail relatively unaffected by the ghosting noise that’s so common with video devices that use the active 3D format in play here.

My issue with 3D is the serious lack of brightness. Active 3D images always look less bright than 2D images, but the extent of this brightness reduction on the VPL-HW45ES is unusually extreme, making the switch from 2D to 3D feel uncomfortably like a performance compromise rather than a gateway to an exciting new dimension.

I’m also not a fan of Sony’s latest 3D glasses. Even if you push them uncomfortably high on your nose, they still let in too much of the outside world around the lenses.

SHOULD I BUY A SONY VPL-HW45ES?

As long as you’re able to black out your room and use the VPL-HW45ES on its Low lamp mode, this projector has to be right up there on any projector buyer’s wish list.

The Epson EH-TW7200 costs around the same, but it’s two years old now and the VPL-HW45ES makes it look its age. The new Epson TW7300 might give the Sony more competition – but it isn't ready for launch yet.

You could consider saving £300 or so with BenQ’s W3000, but that projector doesn’t perform as well, exhibits rainbow-effect striping issues, and suffers with very high input lag.

Looking upwards, Sony’s own VPL-HW65ES certainly provides a boost in performance, especially where contrast is concerned, but that costs £1,000 more.

VERDICT

Sony might have taken its own sweet time updating the VPL-HW40ES, but the VPL-HW45ES proves worth the wait. Its best pictures are even more exceptional than those of its predecessor, and its brilliant new low-latency mode should see it reeling in gamers and home-cinema fans alike.

Acer Switch Alpha 12 review

ACER SWITCH ALPHA 12 – DESIGN AND BUILD

2016 has seen an influx of Surface Pro rivals. The majority of them are cut-down copies of Microsoft’s convertible and their only real selling point is a moderately reduced price tag. At first glance the Switch Alpha does little to change this trend.

The boxy all-metal tablet section’s silver-grey finish hardly exudes the same class you'd get from a Surface Pro. The attachable keyboard is also almost identical to a Surface Type Cover, which is a good thing.

This all may make the Switch Alpha 12 sound a little dull, but up close I noticed a few design changes that fix some of the Surface’s niggling flaws.

For starters the keyboard cover has a loop for the Switch Alpha 12’s optional stylus to fit into. This sounds small, but considering the hefty £40-plus that most active styluses cost, the loop’s presence is a serious bonus that makes it harder to misplace the pen.

The addition of a USB 3.1 port that can be used to power devices, transfer files or attach the device to an external monitor is another nice bonus. The accompanying full-sized USB 3.0 port makes the Switch Alpha 12 significantly better connected than many competing convertibles, which only have single USB-C ports, like the Huawei Matebook and Samsung Galaxy TabPro S.

I’m also a fan of the Acer’s take on the Surface’s kickstand. The stand disconnects from the back and can be used to sit the device at a variety of angles. Many rivals only allow for two or three sitting angles, so this is a great ddition. It also has a grippy rubber bottom, which helps stop it sliding or moving when you’re using the Switch Alpha 12 on your lap.

Build quality is solid. After a week and a half lugging the Switch Alpha 12 in my satchel around London, the device remained scratch- and chip-free.

The Acer Switch Alpha 12’s configuration options are also generally in line with the Surface’s, outside of the use of an Intel Core i3, rather than a Core M CPU in its cheapest specification. Buyers can choose to load the device with a sixth-gen Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 U-series CPU and 4-8GB of DDR3 memory.

The lack of a 1TB storage option is a bigger issue for me. Acer’s only offering the Switch Alpha 12 with 128-512GB of SSD storage. This won’t be a problem for most people, but it will be an problem for people with large media libraries, or designers looking for a mobile touch-up station. I reviewed the basic Core i3 version with 128GB of storage and 4GB of RAM.

ACER SWITCH ALPHA 12 – KEYBOARD AND TOUCHPAD

My only qualms with the Switch Alpha 12’s design stem from its slightly lacklustre keyboard dock.

First, the good: the backlit keyboard section is better than average. The keys aren’t as tactile nor as pleasant to type on as a proper laptop’s keyboard, but they’re miles better than the MateBook and Galaxy TabPro S’s attachable covers. Keys feel reactive and have reasonable travel, too. They’re also nicely spaced out, which makes it easier to comfortably type without making constant mistakes.

I’m less enamoured of the touchpad. The pad’s palm detection works well and it has a nice smooth finish. But the device features a horrid all-in-one design where the discrete right- and left-click buttons integrate into the main pad. This makes it all too easy to have the pointer go flying off your intended target when you try to click and drag.

Sensitivity for basic tasks is fine and the pad feels reactive, but its multi-touch abilities aren’t up to scratch. The touchpad struggles to recognise basic tasks like scrolling up and down using two fingers. All too often the pad wouldn’t recognise my commands, and would then inexplicably jump into action and enact every instruction I’d given it. The problem was intermittent but fairly annoying and would regularly cause chaos on spreadsheets or text files I was editing.

ACER SWITCH ALPHA 12 – SCREEN

The Acer Switch Alpha 12’s 12-inch screen features some impressive specifications, on paper at least. The 2,160 x 1,440 resolution easily matches its key rivals, including the Surface Pro 4, and ensures text and icons are uniformly sharp.

To the naked eye colours are also solid and, thanks to the use of IPS screen tech, whites are nice and clean. I didn’t notice severe backlight bleed either. If all you want to do is watch Netflx, browse the web or doodle a few quick notes in OneNote, the screen is more than up to scratch.

However, more in-depth testing with a colorimeter revealed a few issues with the display that will put off some buyers. The 456.7nits max brightness is very bright, but the 0.56 black level gives it a distinctly average 795:1 contrast ratio. The 8,712k colour temperature is also well above the 6,500k ideal.

The screen’s 81.3% coverage of the sRGB colour gamut is OK for regular use, but its 57.8% coverage of the Adobe RGB is disappointing.

For regular folks who just want a tablet to watch Netflix, or a laptop to web browse, these figures won’t be a problem. The Adobe RGB coverage will, however, be a serious negative for professional artists and designers looking to take advantage of the Aspire’s stylus.

The inaccurate colours make the tablet a poor choice for editing photos or digital painting. A few years ago this would've been fine, but since the arrival of stellar tablets like the Galaxy TabPro S, there are better convertibles available for artists.

ACER SWITCH ALPHA 12 – AUDIO

Hybrid devices generally offer pretty poor audio quality. The thin dimensions and focus on portability mean they always come loaded with tiny, generally underpowered speakers. This remains true on the Switch Alpha 12. The tablet section’s speaker is good enough for Netflix watching in bed, but it's underpowered for pretty much everything else.

Maximum volume levels aren’t as high as the Surface Pro 4’s and rapidly become tinny when you try to play music on them. Being fair to Acer, though, they’re no worse than on most other Windows tablets and this is an issue I’ve encountered on close to all of the hybrids I’ve tested.

ACER SWITCH ALPHA 12 – PERFORMANCE

I reviewed the cheapest Intel Core i3 configuration of the Switch Alpha 12 with 4GB of RAM. This makes direct comparisons with other convertibles I’ve tested slightly tricky, as the Surface Pro 4 I reviewed had a Core i5 configuration and the Huawei Matebook and Galaxy TabPro S units we've tested ran using lower-power M chips.

The i3 model performed moderately better than the ultra-low-power Intel Core M devices during my synthetic benchmark tests.

On the generalist Geekbench 3 benchmark, which gives a rough gauge of a device’s overall performance, the Switch Alpha 12 ran in with 2,662 single-core and 5,449 multi-core scores, which put it above competing Core M-powered devices. The MateBook ran in with 2,250 single-core and 4,254 multi-core scores on the same test.

The Switch Alpha 12’s lead continued on the PCMark Home test, where it scored 2,369, offering a slight performance boost on the Matebook, which scored 2,074.

Intel HD graphics aren’t suitable for even moderately demanding gaming, but the Switch Alpha 12 managed to run Minecraft at a playable framerate during my tests.

The Switch Alpha 12 also performed admirably during my digital painting sessions. Despite the screen’s poor colour gamut coverage, the stylus is pretty good. The palm-detection tech isn’t the best around, but it’s good enough for basic sketching and I didn’t notice any latency when drawing onto the screen. The machine began to chug when I started trying to 3D model on the tablet section, but this was for a big project.

The CPU's liquid-cooling system also ensured the device ran quietly, through the back did noticeably heat up with prolonged use. Still, having no fan noise is a big boon.

My only serious performance issue with the Alpha 12 is its bloatware infestation. Acer’s loaded the Switch Alpha 12 with more unneeded and unwanted applications than you can shake a stick at. The moment you power up the device you’re bombarded with requests from numerous products. Lowlights include Acer Documents, Care Centre, abFiles, abPhoto and McAfee security. The one piece of welcome software, HoverAccess for the stylus, doesn't work properly.

Most of these offer superfluous clone services to those already included on Windows 10 and are nothing but an annoyance. Some will welcome the inclusion of McAfee, but I prefer to pick my security service provider and not have one pushed upon me, especially when the package is very aggressive and eats up memory and battery life.