Acer H6543BDK DLP Projector Review – 4500 ANSI lumens allows this to be used in bright rooms

I have covered quite a few projectors over the past year or two, and these tend to fall into two categories:

• Portable Projectors
• Affordable Desktop Projectors

I have been happy with all the samples I have reviewed. They have all performed well for what they are designed to do and generally offer good value for money.

However, they have all felt like they miss the mark for what I perceive most people (or maybe just me) would want in a projector.

Due to the portable nature, or budget price point, all the projectors I have reviewed have a relatively low brightness, which limits where and when you can use the projector.

The Acer H6543BDK DLP is different from my past reviews, priced at around £500, it is certainly not expensive, but it is more than double the price of affordable options such as the Yaber Pro V9.

The reason for that is that this has a brightness rating of 4500 ANSI lumens, which is nine times the brightness of Yaber Pro V9.

Specification

Design

This is a full-sized desktop / mountable projector.

On the underside, you have three M4x8mm holes allowing you to easily mount this to a ceiling. You also have a small unscrewable leg to adjust the angle of the projector if you have it placed on a table.

Then on the rear, you have the two HDMI 1.4 ports, 3.5mm audio in and out, an old RS232 port and a USB-A DC 5V out port. The USB-A port was able to power my Amazon Fire TV 4K Max.

On the top of the projector are the basic controls, or you can use the included remote. Then there are two black dials to manually adjust the zoom and focus.

Set-Up

Functionally, this is a very basic projector. Unlike portable projectors, there are no fancy features like Android or things like automatic focus.

You just plug it in, attach your device via HDMI and power it up.

You will then need to manually do the zoom and focus. In my scenario, I set up the projector on a table, so I’d have to manually adjust the zoom and focus each time I used it. That’s not as annoying as it sounds, as it only takes a couple of seconds, but ideally, you’d mount this in a fixed position and then not have to worry about it again.

Performance / Brightness / Day Time Use

As this is the first lamp-based DLP projector I have reviewed, the main selling point, and easily the best feature of this projector, is the brightness.

With portable projectors and affordable LED projectors, you have brightnesses of:

• 300 ANSI lumens – BenQ GV30
• 375 ANSI lumen – Nebula Capsule 3 Laser
• 650 ANSI Lumen – Yaber Ace K1
• 900 ANSI lumen – XGIMI Halo+

I was eager to review the XGIMI Halo+, thinking the extra few hundred lumens would make it loads more usable in brighter environments. It was better, and it did give me a bit more flexibility on when to use it, but it suffered the same issues as all the other projectors. In a moderately lit room, you have a very washed-out image.

The Acer, with its brightness going up to 4500 ANSI lumens, is entirely different. It can produce a usable image in all environments I tried.

My living room has eight GU10 spotlights on the ceiling, plus several Philips Hue bulbs and the Signe Gradient Floor Lamp. I’d never sit in the room with all these switched on, it is far too bright, but with them all switched on, the image is still perfectly watchable. Obviously, some of the colours start to look a bit washed out, but I could quite happily watch sports or play games in this setting.

In darker environments, the performance is superb. The settings menu has various options to improve the quality of the image. If, like me, you are not projecting onto a white surface, you can set the wall colour, and the image will adjust to give you more natural colours.

In the video mode, the brightness dialled back a bit, giving you a richer colour palette and darker blacks, which worked well with movies.

If you are gaming in a slightly brighter room, the bright game mode dials up the brightness. Blacks look less impressive, but it is easier to see what’s going on.

Performance / Image Quality / Throw Ratio

Compared to my other projector reviews, it is not all perfect.

The image quality is excellent, it obviously won’t compete with a 4K TV, but the high brightness makes a huge difference to the image quality when not using it in a completely black room.

Even up close, the image quality seemed better than other projectors I have reviewed, which run at 1080P.

The main downside is that the variable throw ratio is between 1.50 and 1.65, which gives up to 62″ at 2m. So, at 1.50:1 the throw ratio will give 1 metre of image width for each 1.5m you place the projector away from wall/screen.

Looking at my other reviews, the projectors all produced larger images, examples include:

• XGIMI Halo+ – 1.2:1
• Nebula Capsule 3 – 1.2:1
• BenQ GS50 – 1.21:1
• Yaber Pro V9 – 1.39:1
• Yaber Ace K1 – 1.54:1

The above examples are all lenses with a fixed throw ratio, so there isn’t as much flexibility on placement as you have with the Acer.  

Looking at the projectors I have listed as alternative options below, many of these have a similar throw ratio. For example, the Optoma UHD38x is 1.5:1 ~ 1.66:1. You’d have to get the £1k Asus H1 for a larger image with its throw ratio of 1.3:1 ~ 1.56:1.

This projector is also classed as a gaming projector because it has a relatively low input lag of 16ms though some of the other Acer projectors go down to 5ms.

Fan Noise & Audio

All projectors make quite a bit of fan noise, and the Acer is no exception. The volume of the fan noise isn’t too bad, but the sound profile is a little irritating. It is slightly high-pitched and doesn’t sound very smooth.

It is also worth noting that because this uses a bulb, it has a reasonably high power consumption of 309W. That’s about the same as other projectors in this category.

The 3W single speaker is useless for anything other than presentations.

For external audio, you have the option of a 3.5mm stereo jack or the most logical solution for home users would be to plug this directly into an AV receiver or soundbar and feed the video through that. The specification doesn’t list HDMI ARC support, so I don’t think you will be able to feed the audio back to a soundbar.

Lamp Life

One big caveat for this projector is the lamp life. It uses a 245 Watt Osram UHP lamp, and this is rated for:

• Standard: 4,000 Hours
• Eco:  10,000 Hours
• EcoPro: 20,000 Hours

This is the standard lamp life for bulb-based DLP projectors. LED or laser projectors have a far superior lifespan, but they either have much lower brightness or a significantly higher price point.

The cheap desktop projectors I have reviewed use LED lights, and these are rated for 120,000 hours.

It looks like the lamp should be replaceable. You can either replace the bulb within the housing or replace the entire housing. Replacing the bulb itself is tricker but cheaper.

A bit of Googling indicates that the lamp and housing for this projector will cost around £280.

Price and Alternative Options

The Acer H6542BDK FHD DLP is available from Scan for just £499.99 + £5.48 delivery.

Acer has some excellent alternative options of their own. They are all more expensive but may represent better value for money overall:

• Acer Vero Projector PL2520i for £900 – a similar specification but a much better throw ratio, and this uses a laser-based lamp, so long-term running costs may be less.
• Predator Projector GM712 for £1300 – a lot more expensive and still lamp-based, but this is a 4K 240Hz projector with a throw ratio of 1.21~1.59 and similar brightness.

For other brands, you have:

• The Optoma HD146X 1080p Home Entertainment Projector is a tenner cheaper and rated for 3600 ANSI lumens with a similar lamp life.
• The BenQ TH685P is 3500 ANSI lumens with the same lamp life. This is also 1080P@120Hz but has a better throw ratio of 1.27-1.46. However, it costs about 50% more at £753.
• The Asus H1 only has 3000ANSI lumens, but the LED light source means you can get 20,000 hours in the normal mode. The downside is that this costs about £1000.
• The BenQ X1300i is about the same spec Asus H1, but it seems to be no longer on same.
• The Benq TH690ST projector is £1100 running at 1080P 120Hz. This is a 4LED DLP projector that can get 20000 hours but is only capable of 2300 ANSI lumens.

Overall

The Acer H6542BDK is very different from the projectors I have reviewed in the past.

The main selling point is that this can be used pretty much any time of the day without needing to black out your room. Due to the high brightness, the overall image quality is significantly better than affordable alternatives or portable projectors.

This makes it the first projector I could actually use on a regular basis.

It’s far from perfect, though.

The main issues with this also apply to most/all of the projectors this is directly competing with.

The big one is that this uses a lamp, and these will need replacing a few times if you use this on a regular basis. At full brightness, if you used it for 4 hours per day, it would last a bit over 2.5 years. So it probably isn’t the best option if you plan to use this extensively as your main way of watching TV/movies or playing games. For high-use households, you would be best at spending significantly more upfront and getting an LED/Laser-based projector.  

I would have also preferred a better throw ratio, but again, if you look at the alternative options, you’d need to pay about 50% more for something with a much better ratio.

Overall though, I think this is a superb projector for the price/specification. As far as I can tell, there is nothing at this price point that is capable of this brightness. It is perfect for anyone that wants to use a projector occasionally without worrying about blacking out the room.

James Smythe( Editor-in-chief )

I am James, a UK-based tech enthusiast and the Editor and Owner of Mighty Gadget, which I’ve proudly run since 2007. Passionate about all things technology, my expertise spans from computers and networking to mobile, wearables, and smart home devices.

As a fitness fanatic who loves running and cycling, I also have a keen interest in fitness-related technology, and I take every opportunity to cover this niche on my blog. My diverse interests allow me to bring a unique perspective to tech blogging, merging lifestyle, fitness, and the latest tech trends.

In my academic pursuits, I earned a BSc in Information Systems Design from UCLAN, before advancing my learning with a Master’s Degree in Computing. This advanced study also included Cisco CCNA accreditation, further demonstrating my commitment to understanding and staying ahead of the technology curve.

I’m proud to share that Vuelio has consistently ranked Mighty Gadget as one of the top technology blogs in the UK. With my dedication to technology and drive to share my insights, I aim to continue providing my readers with engaging and informative content.