The Epson Home Cinema 2200 projector ($899.99) is similar to the Epson Home Cinema 2250 ($999.99), which we recently reviewed, but with key differences that explain the slightly lower price. Both offer the same brightness, the same native resolution, and the same integrated Android TV version for streaming. However, the HC 2200 has a different lens, with 1.2x zoom rather than the HC 2250’s 1.6x, and no vertical lens shift. In addition, Epson rates the HC 2200’s contrast ratio at half the level of its more expensive cousin. Given these downsides and the relatively small price difference, it’s hard to see any reason to settle for the HC 2200.
Home Entertainment, Streaming Included
Built around three LCD chips, the HC 2200 offers a native 1080p (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) resolution. The 3LCD design delivers an image free of rainbow artifacts and ensures that color and white brightness match—in other words, color images are fully as bright as you would expect from the white brightness. Epson rates the projector at 2,700 lumens.
At 7.9 pounds and 4.8 by 12.2 by 12.4 inches (HWD), the HC 2200 is a touch lighter than its cousin. Both offer similar physical setup, consisting of pointing the projector at a screen, plugging in a power cord, optionally connecting an HDMI video source, and manually adjusting the focus and zoom.
Compared to the HC 2250, the HC 2200 is more challenging to position. It has a smaller zoom range, which affects how far you can position it from the screen for a given image size, and there’s no vertical lens shift to assist with vertical positioning. You may need to tilt the entire projector up and then use digital keystone correction to square off the image.
The Android TV setup is standard for Android TV 9, as covered in detail in our Epson EpiqVision Mini EF12 review. The Quick Setup guide indicates that you have to set up Android TV as your first step after turning the projector on. But if you’re in a hurry to watch something on an HDMI video source, you can bypass the setup routine by pressing the Input button on the remote and choosing HDMI. You can then come back to setup later.
For the best possible color accuracy, the HC 2200’s color management system lets you adjust hue, saturation, and brightness for each primary (red, green, blue) and secondary (cyan, magenta, yellow) color. You can also save up to 10 sets of custom settings in memory, which lets you tune the settings differently for different levels of ambient light or for different video sources.
The input lag, which my Bodnar meter measured at 27ms for 1080p and 60Hz, is a touch too long for serious gaming. However, most casual gamers will consider it short enough, and will appreciate the support for 21:9 aspect ratio and the built-in speaker.
As with most projectors, you’ll need an external audio system for the best sound quality. But for portable use, whether for a backyard movie night or for gaming at a friend’s house, the onboard 10-watt speaker delivers quite usable audio with enough volume to fill a large family room.
Acceptable Picture Quality
The HC 2200 has four predefined color modes. Most people will consider the default color accuracy for Bright Cinema, Cinema, and Natural to be more than acceptable. The fourth and brightest mode, Dynamic, adds a green bias, but it’s not as obvious as with many projectors. The color is good enough for casual viewing on an occasional basis—on a bright afternoon in a family room with lots of windows, for example—but the projector is better suited to darker rooms where one of the other modes can be used. Natural and Cinema are a little more accurate than Bright Cinema, but all deliver neutral color.
The lower contrast ratio means that the HC 2250 far surpasses the HC 2200 for shadow detail. Of the three primary modes, Bright Cinema has the best shadow detail, while Cinema offers the best sense of three-dimensionality for dark scenes. Natural mode comes in a distant third on both scores. Your preferred mode will depend on whether you care more about shadow detail or three-dimensionality and color accuracy. I chose Bright Cinema, which kept much of the dramatic visual impact in challenging dark scenes.
The HC 2200 doesn’t support HDR and does not accept 4K UHD (3,840-by-2,160) input, but it does offer Full HD 3D with support for Epson’s proprietary glasses. I didn’t see any crosstalk in my tests and saw only a hint of 3D-related motion artifacts. And as with most Epson projectors that support 3D, you’ll get much brighter 3D images relative to the 2D brightness than most of the competition can manage, which is a particularly strong point if you want to watch 3D movies in ambient light.
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Using the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendations, the 2,700-lumen rating for the HC 2200 means it’s bright enough to light up a 235-inch diagonal 1.0-gain 16:9 screen in a dark room. In moderate ambient light, the size drops to 130 inches. In my tests, even the lower-brightness Cinema mode was easily enough to fill my 90-inch screen in a dark room. In daytime in my family room, which has lots of windows, Bright Cinema mode at full power delivered a highly watchable picture on an 80-inch screen for brightly lit scenes, but dark scenes were hard to make out.
Weighing the Value
The HC 2200 is a home entertainment projector in the widest sense. It’s bright enough for a family room, it includes built-in streaming, and its lag time is short enough for casual gaming. If you want streaming and either prefer Android TV to other choices or don’t have a preference, it’s at least worth a look. Be sure to also consider Epson’s other Android TV streaming models, including the tiny EF12 ($999.99), our Editors’ Choice for streaming projectors.
If you don’t want streaming, you might want to consider projectors without it that are slightly less expensive but otherwise comparable, including the ViewSonic PX703HD and the BenQ TH685. Later on, if you change your mind, you can add streaming to almost any projector by purchasing an Android TV dongle, Amazon Fire Stick, or other streaming dongle. The total cost of projector plus dongle will be about the same as for the HC 2200, or even less.
The Epson Home Cinema 2200’s most direct competitor is Epson’s own HC 2250. It costs only about 10% more than the HC 2200 but delivers a big step up in image quality for dark scenes. If you care even a little about the difference in image quality—and if you plan to use the projector in a dark room, where the difference will be most obvious—the small difference in price is well worth paying.
