Viewsonic Pro6200 review

Home cinema projectors are continuing to fall in price. Viewsonic's Pro6200 is a high definition model that can display video at 720p resolution but costs less than £450.

It's reasonably compact, measuring just 284 x 234 x 82mm, has a glossy black look and there are plenty of vents to aid cooling. Around the back are HDMI, component, composite and S-video ports as well as a pair of VGA connectors so you shouldn't have much trouble connecting your devices.

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Basic settings, such as power, video source and onscreen menu can be handled from controls on the top, but most are concentrated in the remote. Focus and image size are adjusted manually using the rotary dials on the lens.

Controls in the menu include keystone correction for correcting skewed images in case you can't position the projector absolutely perpendicular to the projection screen or wall. This worked well in our tests.

The cooling fans can be heard during very quiet passages in a movie or TV show, but it's not normally distracting. What is distracting is the rainbowing effect caused by the Digital Light Processing (DLP) chip used to create the actual image. During night scenes in a programme, for example, even a slight movement of the head can momentarily show red, green and blue fringing to elements in the picture. The degree to which you can notice this varies from person to person, but we found it annoying.

This is a shame, as the image is bright and sharp with realistic looking colours. It's 3D compatible, with the right glasses, is bright at 2,700 lumens and has a good contrast ratio of 3000:1. A fair amount of room is needed to create a large projected image. The projector needs to be two or three meters away from the projection surface to create a 40in image - this is about average for a projector at this price.

The lamp is rated at 5,000 hours and you can increase this to 6,000 hours by using eco mode, which reduces its brightness but this is still bright enough to display in most light conditions, though. A replacement lamp is currently around £150, which is low compared to replacement lamps for other projectors.