4K HDR LASER Projector from.. Dell?? S718QL Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,281 words · ~6 min read
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back when the sony playstation was hot stuff only one person i knew had a big
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screen tv the screen size was just under 50 inches
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it took up half their living room and it weighed as much as the country squire
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now with a projector you can get a much bigger screen size out of something you
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can carry under your ARM but not everybody's into the washed out
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instagram filter over all of their movies could there be a solution
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introducing the dell s718 ql the world's
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first high brightness 4k uhd ultra short
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throw laser projector the mass drop and
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sennheiser hd6xx open back headphones are available now for only 199.99 us
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check them out at the link below
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we have never reviewed a laser projector before and that's because up until now
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their prices have been so high that they were only used in premium large format
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applications i mean now this one is still six thousand
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dollars but when you're talking about high-end installations that is getting
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pretty close to mainstream prosumer i
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mean consider that an 82-inch 4k HDR tv
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would run you about 5 grand and that sony's groundbreaking short throw laser
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projector debuted at 50 grand
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so the s718 ql i'm just going to call it
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kylo ren looks pretty good by comparison it
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projects much brighter images up to 130
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inches while also overcoming many of the installation headaches of traditional
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projectors you see because kylo is an
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ultra short throw model his lens can generate a 100 inch image from just 15
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inches away so you can just chuck him on a normal tv stand for a normal looking
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living room no matter what the dimensions of your room are plus you
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don't have to worry about people blocking the shot or presenters getting
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blinded
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guess i won't be needing these
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okay so projectors are cool short throw projectors are even cooler
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but why pay more for laser well there are actually a lot of reasons starting
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with brightness conventional lamp projectors shine a
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single white light at a spinning color wheel which separates the light into the
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desired colors unfortunately this means that about 80
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percent of the light from the bulb is actually wasted and ends up being
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diverted or blocked at any given time by
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contrast laser projectors emit light using lasers
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that switch rapidly on and off as needed
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this allows them to power on instantly because lasers have no warm-up time it
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allows them to take the same amount of power from the wall but shine much more
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brightly up to 5 000 lumens in this case
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and it even contributes to lower black levels because they don't have a bunch
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of diverted white light bouncing around inside the projector giving the dark
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areas of the scene an lcd-like glow
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now to be clear it's a very different technology but the
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result ends up more similar to OLED in
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the sense that black areas get very little to no illumination at all
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so all of this culminates then in kylo not just managing to look good even in a
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lit room but also support HDR content
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while doing it still not seeing the big picture
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because laser projectors don't have a super hot light bulb inside you won't
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hear as much fan noise while watching a movie kylo here operates at around 36
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decibels even quieter in eco mode and the laser
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system is rated for twenty thousand hours of use which is a far cry from the
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three thousand hours of a typical bulb so that's nearly a decade of screen time
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even at 40 hours a week but
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alas not all laser projectors are created
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equal dell was able to hit this price point because kylo here doesn't have
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dedicated lasers for rg and b
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instead he's got an array of blue lasers which like many lamp projectors still
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rely on spinning color wheels one of the biggest downsides to this approach then
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is something called the rainbow effect which is most noticeable when you move
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your eyes quickly around on the screen some people don't notice it or care
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about it but others will find it bothersome with some people even
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complaining that even when they're staring in one spot it can make them
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feel sick as for the experience of using this one
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though honestly everyone who saw it including brandon was really impressed
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by the contrast of the image even at 100 inches in a lit room and how subtle the
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rainbow effect was as for gaming it should serve console gamers just fine
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but if you're used to playing competitive shooters with a mouse and
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keyboard the input lag might be less than ideal
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so this is a really different generation of projectors one with the advantages that
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they've always held and without many of
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the disadvantages that have made them hard to recommend for all but the
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biggest cinema nerds with dedicated
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theater rooms with blackout blinds in the past
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and it'll even look good in your living room i mean we've obviously been teasing
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dell about the look of it but the industrial design is pretty clean with a
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mix of matte and glossy black on top and a brushed metal motif on a completely
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unbranded front which we really appreciated now
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i was personally a little disappointed at the lack of displayport inputs
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because we're kind of all pc dorks around here but overall it's got a
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pretty solid mix of i o as well including the ability to connect it to
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wireless speakers over bluetooth if the dual six watt integrated speakers aren't
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enough for you or even operate without a pc because it can accept network sources
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a capability that i plan to use for remote employee motivation
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so time to buy then well if you've got six g's burning a
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hole in your pocket then sure i mean 10-bit color HDR there's nothing else
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quite like it on the market right now but there's still some room for
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improvement right now smart tv like functionality like plex or netflix will
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require a separate box like a roku or an apple tv and
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actually it's pretty awesome um i don't know maybe future ones will be cheaper
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who knows i can't project the future videoblocks is the place to go to get
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studio quality stock footage audio and
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images for a fraction of the cost it's great and we've used it for a ton of
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projects in the past you can download all the stock media your heart desires
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from their member library including a hundred and fifty thousand videos and a
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hundred thousand audio clips all the content is royalty free so you can use
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it for commercial or personal projects new content gets added regularly so
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there's always something fresh to download and it starts at just 149. so
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go to videoblocks.com Linus to save on millions of studio
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quality stock media from videoblocks
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so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to
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where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also linked in the
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description is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one
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yep and our community forum which you should totally join