Tired of lugging a large laptop and bulky projector, we selected the Epson 1775W-LT to review for on-the-road presentations connected to a tablet.

The Powerlite comes in a slim form factor that is just slightly larger than a letter sized piece of paper and a mere 2.1” tall including the feet. It is also ultra-light, weighing just 3.8 pounds while still able to product a bright display with its 3000 lumens output.

Most importantly, the projector offered many connection options, including HDMI, USB and 802.11 wireless (which works with Windows 7 computers), making it a contender to replace an older projector limited to just VGA and DVI connectors.

Keystoning

One of the first things we noticed in our initial tests of the projector is that the device natively detects and manages keystone adjustments on the fly, leaving us with no work to do to get a perfectly square image, even when set at odd angles. This is a helpful feature when you need to quickly set-up in a boardroom and want to spend your time networking with potential clients and suppliers, rather than fiddling with your projector to get a decent image display.

HDMI and HD Video

In our next test we used the HDMI connection from our ASUS Transformer Prime (Android) tablet, which smoothly connected with the projector and had no difficulty displaying HD video.

The display was crisp and we were impressed with the image quality.

With many apps available to run sophisticated presentations on tablets, it is now very feasible to replace the bulkier laptop presentation set-up with a tablet and HDMI projector like the Epson Powerlite 1775W.

Wireless connection

Since we set-out to test the Epson Powerlite 1775W with tablets, we were disappointed to learn that the wireless connection only works with Windows 7 machines. While we hope to see the wireless connection extended to tablets in the future, it will be best to run any data intense projections like HD video through the HDMI connection, so we ultimately didn’t see this as a big drawback.

Noise

Some users have complained that the fan on the projector is noisy, although we didn’t find it much different than many of the other projectors we have worked with. With a 3000 lumens bulb, a powerful fan is required to provide adequate cooling.

Conclusion

If you are looking to trade the bulk and weight of an older laptop and projector set-up, the Epson Powerlite 1775W is an ultra-light option that has all the features needed to offer high quality, professional imaging in a slim form factor that is both compact and ultra-light.