If you’re looking for a reasonably low-cost XGA projector that’s the right brightness for a a small room and is light enough to carry with you if you need to, the Epson PowerLite 98 XGA 3LCD Projector ($599) is a good place to start. Among its stronger points are its high quality for data screens and its unusually watchable video for a data projector. The combination is enough to make it our Editors’ Choice in the category of low-cost projector for a small room.

The PowerLite 98 shares a similar design with the Epson PowerLite 965 XGA 3LCD Projector ($863.98 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) . Other than price, its key differences from the Epson 965 are its less expensive lens, with a 1.2x zoom instead of 1.6x, and its slightly lower brightness level, at 3,000 lumens rather than 3,500. The difference in brightness is just enough to make the PowerLite 98 less appropriate for using in a midsize room, while the lower zoom level gives you less flexibility in how far you can put it from the screen for a given size image.

Basics
The PowerLite 98 is built around a three-chip LCD engine, like the Epson 965 and the Epson PowerLite 99W WXGA 3LCD Projector ($770.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) , which is essentially the WXGA (1,200-by-800) version of the PowerLite 98. The three-chip design gives all of these projectors the advantage over most single-chip DLP projectors of never showing rainbow artifacts (flashes of red, green, and blue). It also gives them the same color brightness as white brightness, so you don’t have to worry about a difference between the two affecting brightness or color quality. (For more on color brightness, see Color Brightness: What It Is, Why It Matters.)

The main disadvantage of the LCD engine is that, unlike almost all recent DLP models, none of these projectors support 3D. For most applications this won’t be an issue. But if you want 3D, you’ll have to consider a DLP projector, like the BenQ MX522 ($230.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) .

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Setup and Brightness
At 3.5 by 11.6 by 9.7 inches (HWD) and just 6 pounds, the PowerLite 98 is small and light enough to carry with you, but also suitable for permanent installation or for a cart, for room-to-room portability.

Setup is standard, with manual focus and zoom controls. Image inputs include HDMI, VGA, and both S-video and composite video ports. There’s a USB Type B port for direct USB display and for controlling the computer mouse from the projector’s remote, a LAN port for sending images and audio, as well as for controlling the projector over a network, and a USB Type A port for reading files directly from a USB memory key or for connecting the optional ($99) Wi-Fi dongle.

At the PowerLite 98’s native XGA resolution, and assuming a 1.0-gain screen, 3,000 lumens would be bright enough for roughly a 200- to 270-inch (diagonal) image in theater-dark lighting, according to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendations. With moderate ambient light, it’s bright enough for a 130-inch (diagonal) image. For smaller screen sizes, you can lower the brightness by switching to the projector’s Eco mode, one of its lower-brightness preset modes, or both.

See How We Test Projectors

Image Quality, Lamp Life, and Audio
The PowerLite 98 handled data images nicely in our tests, without any problems worth mention on our standard suite of DisplayMate(Opens in a new window) screens. Colors were well saturated and eye-catching with all preset modes, and the image held detail well. White text on black was crisp and readable at sizes as small as 7.5 points, and black text on white was easily readable at 6.8 points.

Video quality is necessarily limited by the XGA resolution. But with wide-format input scaled to a little higher resolution than standard definition (SD), the video was roughly equivalent to what you’d see on a good-quality SD TV.

The PowerLite 98’s audio system also earns praise, with the 16-watt mono speaker delivering good sound quality and enough volume to easily fill a small to midsize room. You can also connect an external sound system to the audio output. Unfortunately, with the lamp in Normal mode, the audio has to fight to be heard over the cooling fan, which is loud enough, at a rated 37 decibels (dB), to be both noticeable and potentially annoying if you’re sitting within a few feet of the projector. If you switch to Eco mode, however, the fan noise drops to a much quieter, and lower-pitched, hum, at 28dB.

Epson claims a longer-than-typical lamp life for the PowerLite 98, at 5,000 hours in Normal mode and 6,000 hours in Eco mode. The long life, combined with a low price for the replacement lamp ($99), translates to a promised low total cost of ownership.

If you need to show 3D content, you’ll have to look at a DLP projector like the BenQ MX522. If 3D isn’t an issue, but you need the flexibility of a zoom lens with a greater range or you need higher brightness—whether to stand up to bright ambient light or because you want a slightly larger image that’s more suitable for a midsize room—you’ll be better off with the Epson 965.

If 3D isn’t a must-have, and you don’t need the Epson 965’s additional brightness or greater zoom factor, the Epson PowerLite 98 XGA 3LCD Projector can give you excellent image quality for data—along with watchable video and a wide range of connection choices—at a significantly lower price. If you want a higher-resolution version of the Powerlite 98, take a look at the Epson Powerlite 99.