Acer X1161P SVGA 800x600 2700 Lumens 3D Ready DLP Projector

Pros: Affordable. Really clear and decent picture (if you are not sitting within 4 feet of the screen). Easy to use, focus and enjoy.

Cons: fragile and appears to be super sensitive to heat and humidity. The first one died at 6 weeks old. Used it every day and it got left on over night more than once (fell asleep while watching my 10' picture!). Then... no light, but bulb was good. Our heat supplemented with filtered dryer air = added humidity and comfortable warm temps in the house and an appearant hazard to the projector.

Other Thoughts: Acer's customer service has suffered greatly since the Gateway/eMachines merge. It borders on un-friendly. I purchased a replacement unit and will take better care of it. Dead at 6 weeks and weeks to have fixed (and do without a picture)?? = Not acceptable.

Pros: I looked into fixing the projector myself. The DMD chip might cost as little as $118+ Shipping from China. The real question is can this be a simple disassemble -plug in new chip-reassemble repair? The service manual gives no hint as to that possibility and if adjustments are needed then specialized knowledge, tools and software is required. And maybe there was something else wrong with the projector beyond my repair capabilities. I chickened out and went for Acer repair.
In a short time a large part of the screen was filled with both white and black dots, hundreds of them. I have a theory as to how this happened. My unit shut off unexpectedly after a sensor detected an overheat or slow fan situation. When this happens the entire unit shuts off. Clearly this is not a good thing as the cooling fans are not operating. When this happened a second time, I quickly pulled the power cord out, pushed it back in and pressed the on button and it started up again. This happened three times. I believe this unnecessary heat build-up caused the microscopic sized 'mirrors' in the DMD chip to warp and fail. With each shutoff more of these mirrors failed or were compromised. I also use the projector in a dusty environment and this may have contributed to the overheat problem (I now plan on gently blow the dust out with canned air from a short distance from the vents once a month.)
NOTE: Recently the repaired projector shut off again. I looked back at my notes on the dates of previous shut-offs and a trend seems likely:HIGH HUMIDITY! I believe the unit has a humidity sensor or temperature sensor that is sensitive to humidity that shuts itself off. I now don't use the projector in high humidity situations.I also am keeping the unit as dust free as possible since high humidity plus high dust may also shut it off prematurely.
Acer repair starts with an on-line chat session via Acer Support web site. The section was called 'Fix My Acer" from the Home->Support page. You should initiate a chat session rather than a phone call to reduce the unintelligability problems of foreign support staff. You request that your Acer projector be repaired. They ask for the Serial number from the underside label of the projector. They will inform you if the unit is still under warranty. Don't argue with the support rep that you know it isn't under warranty, the rep is just following a script. You will also have to give them your full name, address, e-mail contact address, and phone number. Either covered by warranty or not you will be given a web address for your claim process. Using this web page you will enter your personal info and you can enter a credit card payment if necessary. This payment will appear on your Credit Card On-Line Statement (if you use one) as a 'Hold' and later disappear until you actually get the unit repaired (the 'hold' apparently assures Acer that the Credit Card is proper and has sufficient credit to cover the repair.) A Debit Card will be charged in full

Cons: Keep this projector's capabilities in perspective. Really what do you expect for less than three bills.
Thus far I have put over 300 hours on the repaired machine. I am satisfied.

Other Thoughts: I got my projector repaired by Acer for around $20. I bought it from Newegg with my Capital One card which doubles the warranty period and retains special warranty benefits. Be forewarned, there is a lot of paperwork involved. In my case they paid the 199.00 + local tax. I paid for shipping.
In the interim I picked up two more used Acer projectors on the cheap. Now I will always have big screen happiness.

Pros: Cheap

Cons: bought 2 months ago, since day 1:
1. image blur
2. image is not shown as rectangle, left side image height is shorter than right side
After one month:
3. Intermittently shutdown automatically
4. wireless control not responsive, took 3-5 pushes to power on or off

Other Thoughts: talked to several Acer supports they could not take care the problems. Eventually talked to level 2 support manager Mr. Banks in Texas about replacing the unit, but got same standard answer - would take several weeks to check, fixing, sending back... Extremely disappointed, no more Acer!!

Pros: cheap, portable, lightweight easy to use.

Cons: sound not built in, lamp life rated at 5000 normal mode had it for two years lamp has died twice at 600 hours

Other Thoughts: don't understand why the lamp died, but it works pretty good.

Pros: Uhh, it's shiny?

Cons: Plugged the thing in exactly to quick-start guidelines, the power button was initially red, pressed it as the instructions said. Turned around to clean up packaging, turned back around to see how it was doing only to find that it stopped working entirely. The red light won't come back on, there are no lights, no sounds. The thing is a paper weight right out of the box. I noticed rather significant crumpling of the front-right top corner of the actual ACER box itself (which was contained inside of the newegg box) which tells me that Newegg's shipping department couldn't care less how your stuff arrives. This is the first and last thing I'm ordering from Newegg. I'd rather pay 100$ more ANYWHERE else for something coming from a company who hires employees with integrity, who take pride in doing a good job and being a human being.

Other Thoughts: The review guidelines specify that there can be no hate or incitement of violence, well, I just paid hundreds of dollars to be completely disrespected. I'd say Newegg is the one inciting hate, and causing harm.

Pros: I bought this projector about a year ago from another retailer. I mounted it to the living room ceiling and ran a 25 ft vga cable across the ceiling to the back of my HTPC. Made a homemade screen out of a white full sheet and two long dowels from Lowes and hung it from the ceiling. made it removable for when the wife wants it down. We run it in 16:9 mode at 1360 x 768 resolution and it gives us a 100" widescreen for the length of our living room. It is not a true HD picture since the projector does 800 x 600 and interpolates it into the 16:9 picture. But it still looks great! and the kids love having family movie night with the big screen.

Cons: about once every couple months it gets clogged with dust and will shut itself off with the built in overheat protection. I have to take it down, remove the bulb and use compressed air to blow through all the vents and clean the fan up. Be careful removing the bulb! connectors to it get caught on the edge of the hole it comes out of when it gets pulled out. I took away 1 star for the dust/ overheat issue. The manual shows there are dust filters available but I could not find them, even on Acer's website. I bought a pack of that black air conditioner filter foam and cut strips and taped them on the outside to see if that would help.

Other Thoughts: All in all this is a great projector for the price. Acer says the bulb will last 6000 hours in eco mode. we have had it for a year and used about 1500 hours. this is Friday and weekend use over long school vacations. We take the screen down and don't use it during the school week .so the

Pros: Incredible picture. Easy to use. Has a different menu displayed when hooked up to a 3D capable device. Bulbs are not cheap but not overly expensive. Very quiet.
I project it onto a Da-Lite screen. Really good picture!

Cons: Picture depends on source./ Play a DVD or Blu-Ray and it looks superb. Play a downloaded 400 meg heavily compressed and trans-coded movie and it might not look excellent (but even these files are still very watchable.)
My real complaint is that after 16 months and around 530 hours on the bulb the projector started to fail. The screen showed several white dots. The DMD chip is starting to fail. The unit is out of warranty. I have a double warranty with the Capital One VISA card company but the process of getting it repaired is becoming a nightmare. I will report back if I succeed.
I had other problems such as the fan not starting error (twice) and the color wheel error (once). Neither problem persisted.
BUY THE EXTENDED THREE YEAR WARRANTY! You will not regret it. You WILL need it. Or better yet get an LCD projector, much fewer problems.
oh yeah, I almost forgot than nearly all of these units use a ton of electricity and produce lots of heat.

Other Thoughts: I really like this projector and I still use it daily, even with the white dots. I was raised on black and white TV in the 1960's so a few bad pixels is not enough to turn me off. Others who have seen the issue have said it would drive them nuts.

Pros: Very portable and lightweight. Can go in the same laptop back-pack. Easy to connect to a laptop.

Cons: Not cristal clear, but I guess it is due to the resolution.

Pros: Had this projector for almost a month now, I use it everyday.
Let me start off by saying I have read a lot of reviews and some of them are just bad.
This unit is really quiet and i wouldn't even know the fan was on if i didn't look inside.
Picture is great even running at 16:9 aspect 160+ inch, Just beautiful.
Looks great with lights on and windows open.
3D looks great and I can not say enough good thins about it.

Cons: None, Unit was just what i ordered.

Other Thoughts: Easy to focus.

Pros: Great price. Great picture. Easy to use

Cons: none