The SP-A400B, as you might expect, falls somewhere between the portable proportions of a business projector and the larger stay-at-home variety. Thankfully, it does manage to remain reasonably quiet, with a rated audible noise figure of 32dB in bright mode and 28dB in the dimmer theatre mode.

A comprehensive selection of connections ensures that you’ll be able to hook up all manner of equipment: HDMI, VGA, composite- and component-video inputs are all provided, along with a monitor pass-through VGA connector.

Not as bright as other projectors with lower lumen ratings

To measure the performance of the projector, we used Datacolor's Spyder 2PRO calibrator, which is able to measure brightness and colour performance. While it doesn’t produce ANSI-standard results, it does allow us to compare projectors against each other quite accurately.

First of all, we flipped the projector into Standard Mode and took a look at the brightness output. While its performance is reasonable, it turned out to be a fair bit dimmer than some projectors with lower lumen ratings, such as the business-oriented BenQ MP721C or the HD65 home-cinema projector from Optoma, rated at 2200 and 1600 lumens, respectively.

Switching to movie mode caused the image to become around half as bright, while subtle colour details such as skin-tones were seen to improve. This gives you a great-looking picture in a darkened room, but it’s not ideal if you want to watch movies during the day and you don’t have some pretty heavy curtains.