Epson EH-TW6250 4Ke Android TV home projector (review)

The Epson EH-TW6250 4Ke Android TV home projector streaks to the top of the class in its use of 3LCD technology that gives brighter, more colourful images than DLP-based projectors.

It is probably the first mid-range home projector that I would spend money on, although, like all projectors, I would be more tempted to buy a $2000, 75″ Dolby Vision/Atmos TV.

But I digress – this is a projector and must be reviewed as such. And as you will see later, a projector is only as good as the surface it projects on. You will need a screen.

A note on projectors in general. Unless you spend many more thousands of dollars on a true 4K projector and ALR screen, low-and-mid-range projectors can never match a TV, even a low-cost edge-lit. You buy a projector to get a larger screen and perhaps for its portability.

As such, while we measure it against things like colour gamut, colour purity, black levels, traditional brightness, contrast etc., it is all about whether an image is poor, acceptable, or good under various conditions.

Epson EH-TW6250 4Ke Android TV home projector

Website	Product range, Product Page and Manual
RRP	$2099 (the lowest price is currently VideoPro $1,880 plus delivery)
From	All Epson resellers
Warranty	2-year upon registration
Made in	Philippines
Company	Epson is a Japanese electronics company. It is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of inkjet printers for consumer, business and industrial use. It also makes scanners, video projectors, watches, point-of-sale systems, robots and industrial automation equipment, semiconductor devices, crystal oscillators, sensing systems and other associated electronic components.
More	Cybershack Epson news and reviews

We use Fail (below expectations), Passable (meets low expectations), Pass (meets expectations), Pass+ (near Exceed but not class-leading) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below.  You can click on most images for an enlargement.

First Impression – typical Epson cream – Pass

Style is increasingly important in a home. This has none, and it looks like any business-like cream-coloured projector. While that is acceptable in business use, it is not where the home industry is heading with innovative designs like the Samsung Freestyle (not 4K), Nebula Cosmos (4K) or Philips PicoPix. Consider this substance over style.

At the top are manual sliders for Focus, Zoom, and image movement (horizontal and vertical). Ten points to Epson for manual sliders over digital impreciseness. There is only a power and source button on our model.

It is large at 275 x 333 x 131 mm (D/W/H) x 4.1kg, so placement is important. It has an amazingly long power cord (thanks Epson) – I am so tired of 1m cords. Underneath is an adjustable front foot.

Made in the Philippines, it is excellent Epson quality.

Ports – limited – Pass

The rear has HDMI 1 (2.0 ARC), 3.5mm Audio out, and a micro-USB service port. Under an adjacent cover is the Android TV dongle that draws power from a 5V/2A/10W USB-A port and has HDMI 2 (2.0) Port.

 If you want to connect a PC/Mac/iPad/Android, you will need an HDMI port or a Thunderbolt/USB-C 3.1/3.2 Gen 1/2 port that supports alt DP and a USB-C to HDMI cable. Maximum res over HDMI is 4K@50/60fps.

External amplified speakers can connect to the 3-pole 3.4mm port.

If you want to connect to a soundbar, the HDMI port is ARC-compatible.

Two Remote controls – Curious

It has two remote controls – the standard WH-55 and a more modern-looking WH-5674, and neither is backlit.

The WH-55 is a Bluetooth/IR for Android TV and the projector settings menu.

The WH-5674 is a remote control for streaming media and is related to the pre-fitted Epson streaming media player ELPAP12 (A$161). This is Android TV 10 (August 2022 security patch and not likely to be updated) – not the later Google TV 11 dongle. We could not get that remote to work.

We must assume that the ELPAP12 is 4K (although there is no reference anywhere) and supports Chromecast. As it connects to HDMI port 2 (default), you could assume that any HDMI (not ARC) source could connect to this port.

We successfully used a Google 4K Chrome TV dongle and NVIDIA Shield on HDMI Port 2. The only issue is that the standard remote WH-55 does not access these devices’ features. Interestingly the image quality with the NVIDIA Shield was perceptibly better.

Upscale – Not sure

We can’t answer this problem due to the 4Ke nature of the sensor. While we assume the Android TV dongle is 4K, it may well be 1080p upscaled. Again, we presume 1080p content is displayed natively, and 480/720p is upscaled using the same technology to get to 1080p.

Setup – easy – Pass

Android TV is like a pair of comfy slippers. Enter your email address/password and Wi-Fi (5GHz preferred) SSID and Password. Now Google knows what you watch, so look at privacy settings.

Then you install steaming Apps like Netflix etc., (Google has them all), digital TV channels and any other Apps you may be interested in. You can read about Chromecast with Google Android TV 4K (review), as it does the same thing.

Then if you are game you can access the Projector settings but our best advice is to limit changes to brightness and chroma only.

Placement – Typical of all projectors – Pass

Like most projectors, it needs to be on a level surface and reasonably square on to the screen. It projects the image upwards from the lens, so the projector needs to be placed at the height where you want the image to start. The keystone and image angle adjustments are for finer tuning.

In practice, the manual and auto adjustments allow for 30° up/down/left/right movement from the centre. A quick corner adjustment makes it easy to correct an image.

It can project front or rear in desktop or ceiling mode. It cannot project facing up or down.

Heat – Can be a little hot in a small room – Pass

The air from the vent ranges from 60-70°, and the projector body does not exceed 40°. Heat is only an issue in a small room.

Noise – Pass

Epson claims 28dB on Eco mode. On Vivid or Dynamic (the mode you will use), it is 74dB at the heat vent but elsewhere around 42 dB. It should be fine if the device is a couple of metres away.

Screen – you will need one – Pass

We test on a 1:1 (neutral gain) off-white satin surface. Painted walls and cotton sheets absorb light (negative gain sucks the life out of the image). Some projectors have settings for different wall colours – this does not.

If you want the best image, you need to buy at least a neutral gain screen – for every lumen it receives; it reflects a lumen. A tripod-mounted 100” 1:1 portable screen is $215 from Officeworks. Larger screens are more costly and require permanent wall mounting.

The good news is that you don’t need an expensive ALR (Ambient Light Rejection) screen that ultra-short throw projectors need.

Epson claims it is capable of 40 to 500” screens with a throw ratio of 1.32-2.15:1. It is best not to use the 1.6X digital zoom to enlarge the image as it noticeably reduces brightness – move the projector instead.

 Our tests show that it will reproduce HDR content quite well to about 100”, but brightness drops too quickly after that. 500” is about bragging rights – not the practicalities of having the projector nearly 15m from the screen.

It can do 16:9, 16:10 and 4:3 formats.

Image Size	Installation Distance
92″ (16:9) 2030x1140mm	From 2.7m to 4.3m
100″ (16:9) 2130x1200mm	From 2.9m to 4.5m
110″ (16:9) 2435x1370mm	From 3.3m to 5.2m
120″ (16:9) 2657x1494mm	From 3.5m to 5.7m
135″ (16:9) 2990x1681mm	From 4.0m to 6.4m
150″ (16:9) 3320x1867mm	From 4.5m to 7.1m

4K technology – Pass

Despite the moniker, 4K Pro UHD it is, in fact, what we call 4K enhanced – hence 4Ke or Faux K. This means a 1920 x 1080 FHD resolution sensor and 2 x 2 pixels are sequentially ‘dithered’ on the sensor. The effect is a slightly softer 4K without the cost of a 4K sensor. The untrained eye will never notice.

It also uses a superior 3-chip (RGB) LCD instead of the Texas Instruments DLP found in many lower-cost projectors. This means no rainbow effects, higher colour saturation and more extensive image processing.

Colour – Pass

It has

• Dynamic – prioritises brightness over colour accuracy, verging on a green tint – best for bright rooms
• Vivid – more saturated colours verging on a blue tint, and probably the one you will use most
• Natural – use this to adjust or calibrate colour manually
• Cinema – closest to DCI-P3 colour gamut and warmer (red tint) but for dark rooms only

None are particularly colour-accurate (Delta E >4), but we really don’t expect that of a projector at this price.

Expert settings allow for manual adjustment if you intend to use this regularly. But you really need an expert with Calman colour calibration equipment to get Delta E to around 2. Search for ‘TV colour calibration services Australia’. Typical costs are <$500 if the projector is calibrated at their premises but remember that proper calibration depends on the screen size and type and environmental conditions (ambient light), so it is best to get it done where you intend to use it.

Brightness – Pass

Claimed brightness is 2800 lumens at the optics (on its High setting). While that looks good, it is a rubbery figure used by all projector makers. The actual brightness is divided by 3.426 to get 730 nits. Hence it is HDR/HDR10 capable (400/600-800 nits).

The other issue with all projectors is that for every 2X increase in distance to the screen, brightness needs to increase by 4X to maintain constant brightness.  For example, at a 2m throw (70” screen), we measured nearly 475 nits at the screen. At 3m (80”) and 4m (100”) throw, it was 225/125 nits.

It works best in darkened rooms but will defeat typical office light. Leave it on the high setting.

Contrast _ Pass

Contrast is claimed at 35,000:1, but that is ‘Dynamic Contrast’ – a very rubbery figure.

Our tests are about 500:1 screen contrast which is what your eyes see.

It uses an iris (like the pupil in your eye) to regulate the light output. In dark scenes, it reduces the light to make blacks look blacker and vice versa for light scenes. In theory, it will support HDR/HDR10. You can adjust the iris speed from Normal to High speed to off – High Speed gives better contrast.

Uniformity – Pass

All projectors suffer from a centre hotspot, and this is no different. We measured a 20% difference between the edges and the centre.

Motion smoothing – Pass

It uses simple Frame Insertion (FI inserts an intermediate frame) to add frame interpolation for motion smoothing. Remember that it is 4Ke. That means if you watch 4K@24 frames per second (typical movie), you get 1K/FI/1K/FI/1K/FI/1K/FI, and the soap opera effect can be noticeable in 4K movies.

Image processing – Pass+

It has other image processing settings that may help – Noise reduction, colour temperature, detail enhancement, 4K enhancement, screen adaptive gamma, RGB, and Expert settings. It is a matter of experimentation, starting from defaults and seeing if a setting enhances your content. Do not play with Expert Settings unless you know about professional colour calibration.

One of the most important settings is the colour temperature which you can adjust from warm to cool. If you want the brightest images, move it towards the high setting, which is at the expense of colour accuracy. It can also help compensate a little for the screen colour (if using painted walls). Aim for 6500°K.

Hint: Don’t forget to save the settings (there are ten memory slots).

Gamut = Pass

Epson claims 10-bit colour HDR processing, but the Projector Info says 8-bit, 16.7m, 4:2:0 colours. Regardless of semantics, no lower-cost projector can display 1.07 billion colours.

We tested 70% DCI-P3 (approx.) in BT.2020 colour space – a tad low but again excellent for the price.

HDR10 – Pass

HDR10 means High Dynamic Range using static metadata (the protector changes settings once at the beginning of HDR10 content. The projector displays HDR10 content to the best ability of the sensor, and there is a perceptible difference between details in the low and highlights compared to SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) content.

Gaming – Pass

Epson claims <20m2 latency. This is only with HDR10, 1080p@120Hz refresh via HDMI 1.

You can use 1080p@60Hz and 4K@30Hz, but the input lag increases.

It is not fast enough for premium console or PC games. It should be fine for Cloud-based games via Android TV.

Voice Control – Pass

Google Assistant is included (as part of Android TV) and accessed via the remote control. You can also add this to Google Home to use smartphones or speakers.

Sound – Pass

It has a mono 10W speaker and presets for

• Standard – default
• Vocal – for clearer voice
• Music – brings back mids for a more neutral response
• Movie – emphasises bass and treble

The problem is that the pre-sets make little difference. The native frequency response is average and choppy (clips the tops off higher frequency sounds). It is listenable, but there is no low-or-mid-bass, almost no high-bass, reasonably flat from 200Hz to 5kHz, then it dips to avoid harshness and is flat to 20kHz.

It is a mid-sound signature (bass-recessed, mid-boosted, treble-recessed) – for clear voice. Pre-sets can only recess from the native signature – not boost it.

The maximum volume is 77dB, and being mono and forward-facing, it assumes the projector will be behind you.

If you are not using a soundbar, you can use Bluetooth to connect a stereo speaker/s or headphones. However, only sound from Android TV can be played – HDMI 1 only outputs via the 3.5mm jack.

Maintenance – Pass

The air filter ELPAF54 needs regular cleaning and occasional replacement ($24).

The 200W UHE ELPLP97 lamp is $128 and has a life of 4,500/7500 hours on normal/eco settings.

Power – Pass

Maximum power is 310W, but on Dynamic and High, it was about 270W. Electricity costs about 30 cents per 1000W/hour or about 10 cents per hour.

Image samples (High brightness setting)

The first of each is in a<40-lumen room. The second is a 400-lumen room. All content is 4K@30fps

CyberShack’s view – For the money, Epson EH-TW6250 4Ke Android TV home projector is a class-leader

Performance for the price is very good. It beats any DLP projector we have seen and has many more image-processing smarts.  

A videophile would eschew 4Ke via 2 x 2 1080p pixel shifting, but for Joe and Jane Average, it is more than acceptable for the price.

The most important thing is that it has enough brightness and contrast to defeat office light (300-500 lumens), so it is usable in average conditions and best in low light.

Epson EH-TW6250 – Rating Explanation

• Features: 85 – tonnes of adjustments, Android TV 10 but limited ports stop it from earning a higher rating
• Value: 90 – it is easily the best value 4Ke projector with 3LCD and Epson’s pedigree
• Performance: 85 – Assuming you want to watch digital TV and streaming, it is fit for purpose and capable of much better performance if calibrated.
• Ease of Use: 85 – Out of the box, it is easy to set up and use
• Design: 75 – way too business-like for Aussie lounge rooms

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