@gasman
Brightness has never been a problem for me. I watch it in full daylight without needing to darken the room. The one exception is really dark and dim night scenes in some TV shows and so far only one program has been difficult for me personally. That’s “Falling Skies” the new Sci-Fi drama on TBS. but it’s really exceptionally dark in places by the intention of the producers since they don’t have a movie-sized budget for depiction of the aliens. So they’re often depicted in dark night scenes to camouflage that. So I just make it a point to watch that show at night only. Everything else is fine in broad daylight.
The Moviemate has a lamp output of 2,000 ANSI Lumens which is higher than most other units at the same price and size.
Regarding wall space, it hasn’t been a problem for me personally. Right now I’m just using my bedroom wall which is ordinary white and the pic is fine.
Eventually I’m going to get the companion screen for this projector. It’s called the Epson Ultra Portable Duet and it’s one of the few projector screens I’ve seen with dual aspect ratio. Most are one or the other and are significantly more costly that this. And most are far more difficult to set up.
It’s difficult to explain it because a simple demo shows it all. If you just put it into YouTube Search there are some excellent videos posted for both the screen and the projector.
One of the most interesting things I saw in those was where folks had tacked up a white sheet to their garage doors and were sitting in their driveway watching a DVD Movie.
I love this unit. It really is a “home theater in a box”. Just watch some of the promo vids and I think you’ll see what I mean. One of the best ones is from HSN when they had it on special sale about a year ago or so. It’s very comprehensive and covers everything. And its obviously shot in real time in their studio and I think they even have it showing a few mins before they dimmed the studio lights. I was surprised at the picture quality.
I bought mine from Best Buy and called ahead requesting a demo and that was the tipping point for me. Obviously, they couldn’t darken any area of the star so they just put in a DVD and the pic was decent in spite of the brightness of the store lights.
Considering it’s reasonable price and all of the inputs it can handle, this is a really good deal in my opinion. I’m really glad I got it. Plus, Epson has been a leader in the quality projector business for a long long time.