Mitsubishi HC1600 720p HD 1700 lumens DLP Home Theater Projector Review

The Misubishi HC1600 is an extremely bright, 1700 ANSI lumens, affordable priced home theater projector. While this projector shares an almost identical specification with its predecessor, the Mitsubishi HC1500, which has been a bestseller and popular with gamers one significant difference may change this.

Mitsubishi HC1600 720p HD 1700 lumens DLP Home Theater Projector

The native resolution of the Mitsubishi HC1600 is 720p High Definition (1280×720 pixels) matching the output resolution of many of the latest games. The contrast ratio is a respectable 2500:1 despite not having a dynamic iris or other blackness deepening features which speaks well of the Texas Instruments DarkChip2 performance. You have to move up the more expensive HC3000 model to add a dynamic iris to the specification. Also included from Texas Instruments is BrilliantColor technology which provides image enhancement and well saturated (deep or rich) colors.

The HC1600 shares with its predecessor a single DLP chip projector design based on the 0.62 inch DarkChip2 with DDP3020. The significant difference with the HC1500 comes with the slower 2x speed color wheel with five segments rather than seven. One is white for brightness boosting. The slower color wheel speed and reduced number of segments increase the likelihood of the small proportion of susceptible viewers seeing a rainbow effect with on screen motion. So if you are thinking of using the HC1600 for sports or gaming you need to arrange a test viewing the Mitsubishi HC1600 will determine if there is a problem.

Mitsubishi HC1600 Projector for Gaming

As mentioned, the projector has high brightness and good contrast both of which are important for gaming. DLP has a response time some 1000 times faster than LCD however, it’s important to match the output resolution of your gaming console to the 720p native resolution of the HC1600 if you want to be sure to avoid any scaling lag.

The Mitsubishi HC1600 might actually be considered as a business projector with its portable 6.5 lbs (2.9kg) weight, high brightness for coping with ambient light and PC connection options.

Placement Flexibility

The manual zoom lens ratio is fairly small at 1.2:1 giving limited flexibility with the distance from the projector to the screen for a given size projected image. As an example, for the common 100 inch projected image the projector can be placed between 11.9 feet and 14.5 feet from the projection screen.

Lens shift is not included however, there is horizontal and vertical digital connection options available including HDMI, PC connection, a trigger for a motorized screen and a command and control connection. An RGB cable for PC connection is included.