The Optoma HD28DSE is the world’s first projector with built-in DARBEE Visual Presence processing, and I was lucky to have it in my house for a few weeks to play with it. I tried out the HD28DSE by projecting onto different surfaces (plain walls, white bedsheets and curtains) and plugged all sorts of devices into it (Apple TV, Nintendo Switch, MacBook Pro, iPad and a Blu-ray player). It didn’t disappoint.

Once I opened the quite small box I started with setting it up, plugging in my MacBook Pro and playing a few of our BRWC FiLMiXes using the default video settings, which wasn’t great in all honesty. So I grabbed the lovely neon-lit remote control and went straight into the well laid out settings. Once sorted I had a lovely, sharp, reliable image. Bear in mind the projector fan starts getting noticeable. Nothing a decent speaker setup won’t fix. I then played with the mentioned DARBEE demo mode – this shows you how much more detail you can achieve. Going through a photo album you can really see the difference. A black line will glide back and forth and show you the image with/without the DARBEE image enhancement. Very impressive.

The Optoma HD28DSE impressed me the most when watching movies and TV with the Bluray player and Apple TV. While it would have been even better to see better black levels and detail in darker scenes, the projector has plenty of brightness to be watchable. The same went with gaming on my Nintendo Switch.

All in all, if you are going to place your projector in a dark, light-controlled room, there may be better options. However, if you plan to use the projector under real-world conditions, the Optoma HD28DSE’s combination of brightness, colours, and DARBEE Visual Presence processing will get you a good, enjoyable picture that makes this projector worth a closer look.

Thanks to Penny for sorting this out.

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