Can an office/home crossover unit really handle movie nights?
Projector | £499| whf.cm/EpsonCO_FH01
The Epson CO-FH01 feels like a blast from the past in some ways. For starters, as with many projectors in days gone by, before companies started to ‘specialise’, it is positioned as a crossover model capable of handling both office and home-entertainment environments.
It also has no truck with the 4K and HDR features that projector buyers are starting to expect these days, and it places a premium on portability and affordability rather than uncompromising home cinema ‘goodness’.
While this doesn’t make the CO-FH01 sound like a recipe for home cinema heaven, experience suggests that some of its limitations could actually be strengths. And we also happen to know first-hand plenty of people who are happy to bring office projectors home for gaming, a kid’s party or sports nights.
At just £499, the Epson CO-FH01 is the cheapest projector we have tested for years. Even Samsung’s ultra-portable The Freestyle ‘lifestyle’ projector still costs a couple of hundred pounds more.
The CO-FH01 is cuter than it arguably needed to be given its focus on value and utility. It is dressed in a crisp matt-white finish and features an appealing corrugated effect around its front and sides. Its lens is tucked attractively – and safely – within a window cut into the right-hand side of the front of the unit.
While it is not small enough to class as ultra-portable, the CO-FH01 is smaller than the vast majority of projectors we see, and could easily fit into a briefcase or laptop bag. Or it will take up relatively little space in a cupboard in your home or office when it’s not needed.
A small, round grille on the top edge provides egress for the sound from a built-in speaker, and next to this is a rotating focus ring.
The Epson’s cute, white form is joined by a similarly cute, white remote control that is comfortable to hold and that sports an unusually ergonomic button layout. The only pity is that it’s not backlit – but then, as we will see, this projector is probably not often going to find itself running in a really dark environment.
Full HD feature set
This projector uses a long-throw LCD optical system illuminated by a regular lamp rather than a laser lighting system. It sports a Full HD native resolution and doesn’t carry any e-shift technology that might have allowed it to deliver some s
