As the successor to the Acer H5370BD( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window), which is discontinued but still widely available online at this writing, the Acer H5380BD ($549.99) shares the same basic description. It’s an entry-level home-entertainment projector for 2D and 3D, and it’s a potential alternative to an 80- or 90-inch HDTV at a savings measured in thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, it also shares some limitations with the Acer 5370BD, most notably a potential issue with image quality.

Built around a 720p DLP engine and rated at 3,000 lumens, the H5380BD($1,227.50 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) is in the same size, weight, and resolution class as both the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 730HD($890.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window), our Editors’ Choice for budget-priced 2D home entertainment projectors, and the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 750HD($1,495.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window), our top pick for budget-priced 3D home entertainment projectors. In fact, the resolution, size, and weight are a big part of what puts all three of them in the home entertainment, rather than home theater, category.

All of these models weigh between 5 and 6 pounds, with the H5380BD coming in at 5 pounds 8 ounces. That’s light enough so you can store it away when you’re not using it and then set it up quickly when you need it. It’s also light enough so you can carry the projector to a friend’s house for a movie night or the like. Acer even ships the H5380BD with a soft carrying case to make it easy to store away or carry it.

Setup
Setup is standard fare, with manual focus and zoom controls. The zoom is only 1.1x, which is enough to give you just a little flexibility in how far you can put the projector from the screen for a given size image.

Similar Products

3.0

Average

Acer H5370BD

 

Check Stock

at Amazon

(Opens in a new window)

Read Our Acer H5370BD Review

4.0

Excellent

Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 730HD

$890.00

See It

at Amazon

(Opens in a new window)

Read Our Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 730HD Review

4.0

Excellent

Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 750HD

$1,495.00

Check Stock

at Amazon

(Opens in a new window)

Read Our Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 750HD Review

One unusual design touch is that the connectors are on the side of projector rather than on the back. For permanent installation, that means you have to live with an ugly mess of cables sticking out from the side. Not surprisingly for a low-cost model, the connectors are somewhat limited, with only one HDMI port, two VGA ports, an S-Video port, and a composite video port. On the plus side, the HDMI port supports Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL), for easy connection to compatible smartphones and tablets. Acer also sells an optional MHL Wi-Fi adapter ($69.99) that plugs into the HDMI port.

Brightness
Comparing brightness between DLP projectors like the H5380BD and three-chip LCD projectors like the Epson 730HD and the Epson 750HD is a little complicated. All three of these projectors claim the same 3,000-lumen rating, but the two Epson models also have the same rating for color brightness as white brightness. Most single-chip DLP projectors like the H5380BD have lower color brightness than white brightness, which can affect both the brightness of color images and color quality. (For a discussion of color brightness, see “Color Brightness: What It Is, Why It Matters.”)

In my tests, using a 1.0 gain screen, the H5370BD was bright enough for a 90-inch (diagonal) image to stand up to the ambient light that’s typical for a living room or family room at night. For theater-dark lighting, or for smaller images, you can lower the brightness by choosing a different preset mode, by switching to Eco mode, or both. Eco mode also increases the rated lamp life to from 5,000 hours to 6,000 hours.

Image Quality and Rainbows
Image quality for the H5380BD is limited by its native 720p resolution. Aside from issues related to resolution, however, the projector scored reasonably well for 2D image quality. In particular, it handled skin tones well, and I didn’t see any motion artifacts. I saw some minor posterization (shading changing suddenly where it should change gradually) and some moderate to major loss of shadow detail (details based on shading in dark areas), but only in clips that tend to cause those problems.

Unfortunately, the projector tends to show rainbow artifacts (flashes of red, green, and blue) easily. These are always a potential concern with DLP projectors, because of the way DLP chips create colors. With the H5380BD, I saw them often enough, and they were obvious enough, particularly in night scenes and black and white clips, that anyone who sees these artifacts easily will likely find them annoying. If neither you nor anyone you watch with is bothered by rainbow artifacts, however, you might not consider this a problem.

3D and Audio
Like almost all recent home entertainment projectors, the H5380BD offers full HDMI 1.4a 3D support, to let it show 3D from video sources like Blu-ray players. In my tests, it worked as promised. As with most manufacturers, however, Acer doesn’t include any glasses with the projector, so if you want to use it for 3D, you’ll have to buy glasses separately. You can use 120Hz or 144Hz glasses with games, but for 24 frames-per-second video, you need 144Hz glasses.

Image quality in 3D was roughly the same as in 2D for all of the aspects that 2D and 3D images share, including rainbow artifacts. In addition, the projector handled 3D-specific issues well. I didn’t see any crosstalk, and I saw only a hint of 3D-related motion artifacts in clips that tend to show them.

One final potential problem is that there are no controls on the projector itself, except for a single button you can press and release quickly to turn the projector on or off, or press and hold down to change input sources. If you lose the remote, you can’t change any settings until you get a replacement. Also note that the 2-watt speaker is barely strong enough for a small room. For more volume, good audio quality, or stereo, plan on using an external sound system.

If you’re not interested in 3D, you’re better off with the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema, our Editors’ Choice for budget-priced 2D home entertainment projectors, which is only a little more expensive than the Acer H5380BD and, as an LCD projector, is guaranteed to be rainbow-free. Similarly, if you want 3D, be sure to take a look at the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 750HD, our top pick for budget-priced 3D home entertainment projectors, which is significantly more expensive but worth the extra cost, with better image quality. Both Epson models also have the advantage of higher brightness for color images, which will let you use a larger image for any given level of ambient light. That said, if you want 3D and neither you nor anyone you watch with regularly sees rainbow artifacts easily—or isn’t bothered by them—the H5380BD can be a perfectly reasonable entry-level choice.