30 Reviews for a Projector: Mixed Feedback on Image Quality, Brightness, and Portability

Should not be used in a well lit room...

Cannot get the damn thing to work. Instructions are horrible. I would return but I waited so long to every attempt to work that I am not sure Amazon will take back. Would love it IF there were reasonable instructions on how to operate.

The Optomo ML was a very effective piece of equipment. We will continue to use it during future Board meetings for PowerPoint presentations.

I've had this projector for a little over 2 years. When I first unpackaged this little beast of a machine I was pleasantly surprised and actually a little impressed with what it could actually do. My main uses for this product was entertainment (movie night, game night), I didn't really use it for presentations. About a 1 year in the color started doing weird things where it would switch back and forth from a warm to cold undertones, I contacted customer support and didn't get much of a resolution from them except it has to be something I'm doing wrong not the projector. Now just over 2 years the projector has stopped working completely, it was working fine then just shut itself off and no matter what I try won't turn itself back on.

I love the portability of this project. I am a teacher and need to move from one class to the next. Doing so with this projector is hassle free! It's a short throw projector which is great because I dont need extra extension cord. I would have preferred that the dongle would be integrated within projector rather than purchasing it apart. Overall I love the projctor....great product!

Fantastic little machine! Very powerful and image is superb. Easy to set up too! Everyone always wants to know where I bought it. Highly recommend.

Picture is dim and photos are muddy. I returned it.

Not as bright as I’d like, unless you’re indoors can’t use it during the day. Speaker is super weak in my opinion, but I normally use my iPad or iPhone so I Bluetooth to another speaker.
The auto horizontal adjust doesn’t kick in for a few seconds, but sometimes it’ll randomly readjust a few minutes in. Not a huge deal but kind of a big deal when doing large murals and the whole picture moves...

Do not buy this product. Don't get me wrong, it is a fabulous little workhorse. You will fall in love with the size and lumens and short throw. However, at about the 16 month mark, this cute little thing will die an untimely and confounding death. Heart attack, unresponsive. Dead as a doorknob. It's happened to me twice now. (2017 and 2018 purchases). Needless to say, I'm not going to try for a third time. Expensive mistake.

I initially tested in a room with ambient light and gave this projector 2 stars because it didn't do as well as I had expected based on other reviews but then I raised my rating to 4 stars after testing it in a dark room and experiencing the full capability of the projector and I could have raised it to 5 stars but you'll understand why I didn't if you get to the end.

I bought this to replace an excelvan CL720 projector that annoyed me with its truly obnoxious fan noise terrible image left edge to right edge brightness uniformity and the fact that the projector was incapable of focusing both the center and the outer edges of the image simultaneously. The Optoma ML1050ST+ gets all of that stuff correct right out of the gate. It is also brighter by a smidge over popular cheap 720P native projectors like the CL720 or GP100 or GP90 etc but don't expect to see a remarkable improvement in terms of picture brightness if you're upgrading from one of those.
Where this projector really destroys the cheap chinese projector versions is when you use it in a dark room. The black levels/contrast (when viewing in a dark environment) is ASTRONOMICALLY better than any of the native 720P offerings from excelvan, vivibright or vankyo. The color accuracy on the ML1050ST+ is also head and shoulders above the cheaper chinese projectors as well (thank god because there is no way to adjust the primary color levels either). It also does way better in terms of edge to edge picture focus and edge to edge brightness uniformity. It was really pleasant to see the outer edges at the right and left of the screen just as in focus and just as bright as the center of the screen (if not brighter).

This projector's light engine is wonderful. The power consumption is rated at 77Watts but that figure is misleading because that's what it uses ONLY in full bright mode and you can't use that mode because it looks truly horrific. In cinema and photo modes you would expect the brightness to be significantly lower than bright mode but that's just not the case. In reality the modes do more to change the color of the image and the fan noise level than affect brightness. Think of the modes like this. BRIGHT mode= highest fan noise + useless green picture, ECO mode = 0 fan noise (inaudible) + useless dark green picture. The next two modes: CINEMA & PHOTO mode= very low fan noise and exactly the same brightness as bright mode but just with accurate colors. (maybe I got a lemon but that's how mine works.) Anyway In these 2 usable modes the projector ONLY consumes 27 WATTS of power. YES you read that correctly just 27watts plus the lamp life is basically eternal and it doesn't get very hot so you can use this for extended periods like you would a TV set and it would actually lower your electricity bill(that's mainly why I bought it). Add that to the very low fan noise in all modes except bright mode(useless mode) which is probably less than 1/10th of the CL720 fan (possibly quieter) and then consider the colors are accurate the black levels are good the image focus and brightness is good and uniform and you can easily see why the cost is totally worth it right? Well not so fast. Here's the problem.

Two things will REALLY hurt the way this projector is perceived. The first issue is the PRICE$$$$!!!!. At $650 just about every other projector in that price range does native 1080P and that brings me to the second and the BIGGEST weakpoint of this projector. 720P native resolution REALLY hurts the picture quality and therefore the potential of this projector. Also, the black levels while good are not $650 "good" so just because of how much the item costs, you will constantly wish the black levels/ contrast was just a bit better. If your intended use for it is mostly TV show or movie viewing the tradeoff of brightness for black performance is a sketchy one and you never get the best brightness as well as the best black levels at the same time even in a dark room. It's REALLY close but not quite there and you'd be really happy as is if you paid $300 or even $400 for this level of performance but for $650 you'd constantlly wish you had better performance on screen.

I FIRMLY believe that optoma's decision to prioritize adding a headphone jack and the autofocus feature to the 1050ST+ over just simply making it native 1080P to take full advantage of the brighter light engine was just a terrible decision. You can live with the fact that the projector doesn't get super bright because in reality it only consumes 26-28 Watts in the only two modes that matter (cinema & photo). That's half the power consumption of a regular tv set while producing a much larger image; You can also live with the fact that it doesn't have world endingly amazing black level performance for the $650 you spent because it still does a very decent job in that regard; Even though you don't have to as these features are now present, You could have lived without a headphone port or autofocus, because you can work around all of these types of quirks and it only hurts the viewing experience SOME of the time. However, The lack of 1080P native resolution hurts the projector ALL of the time.

So in concluding, do I recommend it? Well it depends. I've decided not to return it but that may not be the best decision for you depending on your needs.

Does light weight/ small form factor/ portability/ very low fan noise & heat/ lower power consumption than the average laptop mean a lot to you? Are you satisfied with decent image quality that only lacks finer HD detail? Are you willing to pay a premium to have those features? Then this projector is perfect for you

However if you're after the best bang for your buck and you don't mind having a projector that's bulkier, or you don't care that the average projector consumes about 6 times more power than the ML1050ST+ and you can't stand to see an image that looks less sharp and lacks detail almost like a 480P image does, then you really should look at a different model.

Audio not enough evn though aux connected to a jbl xtream. Need an amplifier to increase volume. Brightness good for very low light. In dark very good. No game or cinema mode. Color accuracy not so great.
But if you ask me will i buy it yes due to 3 reasons
1. Portable
2. Great picture wxga is enough for 80 inch in a small room. Above need to stand at least 10 ft far to have great clarity.
3. Any day a better option than a TV of 50inch 4k unless oled.

Me agradó

Bummed me out. Uneven (left side/right side) focus with a really strange focus range. Like the focus ring was misadjusted. Beautifully sharp 9in picture but when I pulled back to any decent size only the right side remained sharp. What's worse is it hit the end of its ring adjustment at around 60in.
Oddly, didn't seem any brighter than my ml550.

I carry this with me everyday. It's constantly getting attention. My work is very color and detail oriented and can really shine with this projector. Im usually in very tight, bright spaces and the picture is perfect!

I had this projector for less than a year when the bulb partially burned out, this was less than a fifth of their claimed bulb life. There are no replacement bulbs available anywhere and my emails to optoma tech support have gone completely ignored. This is basically an expensive disposable toy that will work ok until it doesn’t.

My arts collective is constantly using this projector. It’s portable, small and strong and it comes with a nice carrying case. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a quality projector that you’re planning to use for a while and definitely if for professional use.

Replaced a much smaller micro, which had 50 lumens, so my bar was set pretty low comparatively, but this thing worked great for a couple holiday party slide shows, and then some training presentations.

Bought it as a replacement for my at the time misplaced gt750st.
And it worked well enough.
Unfortunately the internal fans wouldn't operate on there own without a little headstart from me.
But I returned it and got a refund so no incredible harm done.

It did definitely put a damper on my field ops though...

I was looking for a solution that was compact and had a low-energy usage. For my application in an off-grid solar powered RV traditional projectors use too many watts for prolonged battery use. This unit can run hours on my 180 AH battery with a draw of around 60-80Watts on the battery (incl. apapter loss) The image is vibrant and crisp. I believe the aperture is quite large so the image needs to be carefully focused. Brightness is more than adequate for my usage, any more and it would blind on a 1.1 gain screen. The price is hard to beat and in applications where a TV takes too much space its a winner. Fan noise is noticeable!!!

The product was great, the problem I encountered was that even though on the website, it clearly states that the wi-fi adapter is included it isn't. In trying to get some resolution from both Optoma and Amazon I have found that it doesn't matter if it is advertised that the item is included or not, if they say it isn't included then it isn't.... but they were happy to send me a shipping label to return it. What... huh? Apparently customer service has completely gone out of the window for Optoma and Amazon. Cheers to acting like a monopoly and truth in advertising!

Great projector. Speakers too weak and some limitations.

Small-sized and good for traveling, which is why I bought it. Fairly good projection, especially in smaller, mostly darkened rooms. Some of the included cable attachments felt a bit flimsy; e.g. some had small screws that didn't actually work and were unable to bond two cables more tightly. After less than three years, the color wheel developed a problem and the projected images were purple. Out-of-warranty repair for this problem is no less than $200-$250, and there are no authorized repair centers -- the product must be shipped to the central service center in Fremont, CA -- and repair would take a minimum of 8-10 days. Therefore, you're paying for the portability of this item, but my experience has shown that this product is poor value in terms of maintenance

I didn't buy this on Amazon since I needed it sooner than it was available for purchase here. I've had it for about a week now and it's a great projector. I previously bought the ML750ST but I returned it because it was not bright enough for business presentations in a fully lit room without washing out all of the subtle colors of the presentations. No such problem with this one, as the image is much brighter and the colors pop. It's exactly as small as the ML750ST (which means TINY), so very easy to carry around. I added a small tripod (can buy for $7 on amazon basics), which is really helpful since the projector doesn't have a front foot to help aim the image and I'd rather avoid having to use the keystone if possible. I've used this with the HDMI connector and don't have the wireless USB connector. Since the projector is so small, its important to find a lightweight chord, otherwise the weight of the chord itself will move the projector around unexpectedly. I ultimately ended up going with a wireless HDMI projector (Actiontec ScreenBeam Mini2) which I bought on Amazon, which so far is working really well with my windows 10 laptop and my Android phone (haven't tried it with iPhone). I wanted something a little bit less proprietary than the Optoma WUSB connector, since I can use the Actiontec wireless HDMI adapter with any HD TV and other projectors as well.

I'd say that for just over $100 more, this projector is well worth the extra cost over the ML750ST. The auto-focus is a huge help, although I did find that you have to make sure you are projecting on a completely flat wall, otherwise it continuously tries to correct the auto-focus every 2 seconds and this drives everyone nuts. It would be nice if it could just auto-focus on the center of the screen and let the user worry about whether the edges of the screen are completely flat of have a picture hanging, etc. This is important since the projector doens't have zoom capabilities that I am aware of, so getting a larger image for business presentations doens't always mean you get to control the quality or clutter of the screen being presented on to. I first thought the auto-focus was broken until I figured out that some pictures hanging on the wall overlapping the ~60 inch projected screen area by about 3 inches on the edges was what was driving the projector crazy. If a firmware can't be applied to focus to the center of the screen, it would be nice if the auto-focus could be turned off in such cases.

I also wanted to point out that although the projector is natively a WXGA projector and not Full HD, presentations in Full HD are downscaled well and still quite readable. Word docs, etc. a bit less so (never found another projector that overcame this limitation). When I switch my laptop to 1200x720, the images are perfectly crisp all around and word docs / visio drawings / etc. are all very sharp and easy to read. This really does make a great traveling business projector.

I just used it for the first time yesterday and was very disappointed in the brightness. I was in a normal sized conference room that seats about 25 people. I had to turn all the lights off in order to see the screen. The only problem with that was the audience could not see me. I was like a ghost talking from the dark. We opened a door to let outside light in which helped to see me talking but my PowerPoint was still very faint on screen and barely recognizable.

Overall, I am disappointed in the product. I can't return it unfortunately because the return time limit has passed. I am really not sure where this product can be used. I know others like it and I wanted to as well. The size is perfect for us Road Warriors is why I gave it 2 Stars.

Alright so I didn't buy it on here or pay 500+ for this. Newegg has refurbs going for 350ish plus 20% off. So I basically got it for half price. For the money I paid for this. I'm blown away. This is the smallest thing ever....I bought a 100 inch screen for it and it is really amazing. Even with out a screen it it amazing. Now....if I paid 560 for it.....I don't know what I would think.... The picture is really good. It's sharp across the screen.
Cons-
Its hard to focus. The throw is really short. So moving 1/16 an inch is...kinda a big deal. You have to be patient and steady.
Pros
Really really really small. I thought I knew how small. I opened the box and was still surprised.

Comes with a travel case

I shoot around 70-80 inch screen. And it looks great.
I travel for a living, hotel to hotel. This has been great for that. No more 32 inch TV. Even at 55 inches on bare wall looks good.
I took a chance on this and it paid off.
If I were paying full price.... I'd get a optoma gt1080darbee refurb, buy an extra bulb and call it a day. $560 I think it too much honestly. 400 brand new.... Maybe.... Sub $300 for refurb...YES well worth it.

The pic I added is 84 inches bare wall in my hotel room.