Full HD PJ That's Flexible To A Fault?

Impressively for its price, this Vivitek projector offers multiple lens options. But John Archer finds compromises elsewhere

- John Archer

IT’S FAIR TO say that Vivitek’s H5098 DLP projector doesn’t exactly follow the herd.

For starters, extremely unusually for a projector at this price point, it can be bought with any of four lens options (at an additional cost) depending on the size and layout of your room. The standard lens delivers a 1.54-1.93:1 throw ratio, but you can also get it fitted with a Wide Fix lens (throw ratio 0.78:1), a Wide Zoom lens (throw ratio 1.10-1.30:1), plus two Long Zoom options (delivering throw ratios of 1.93-2.89:1 and 3.0-5.0:1). Measure up your room and screen and specify accordingly.

Yet the H5098 is also unusual in today’s £2,000-plus projector price bracket for only providing Full HD resolution and standard dynamic range playback. There are now a number of projectors on the market that offer both 4K and/ or HDR support, some for not huge amounts more than the asking price here (such as Acer's V7850, reviewed on p52).

By no means all of these more forward-thinking projectors deliver on their 4K/HDR promise particularly brilliantly, so there’s certainly still space in the ‘step-up’ projector market for a serious HD model – provided it delivers a genuinely premium image.

The H5098 cuts a passable rather than truly handsome figure on your coffee table or ceiling. Its black finish looks and feels a touch plasticky for a £2,600 component, but some artfully curved corners and angled sides stop it from being just another member of the boring AV rectangle club.

Connections include two HDMIs (one with MHL support); a PC VGA port; a 12V trigger output and RS-232 port to aid system integration; and two blasts from the past: composite and component video inputs. Hopefully these latter two ports and the lack of 4K and HDR are the only slightly dated things about the H5098.