Dell 1430X

By M. David Stone

Add the Dell 1430X to the list of inexpensive XGA (1024 by 768) data projectors that are both suitable for a small to mid-size conference room and light enough to serve as a regular traveling companion. More expensive than the Editors' Choice Epson PowerLite 93+ , it justifies the extra cost by being both brighter and lighter. That's not enough to make it Editors' Choice, but it is enough to make it a strong contender.

Like most projectors in this category, with the notable exception of the LCD-based 93+ but including the NEC Display Solutions NP-V300X? for example, the 1430X is built around a DLP chip. It offers a 3,200 lumen rating, which is at the high end of the brightness range for this class of projector, and it weighs in at only 5 pounds 11 ounces, making it more than a pound lighter than the 93+.

It's also a bit smaller than the 93+, at 3.6 by 11.4 by 9.3 inches (HWD), which helps make it a touch easier to carry. As with the 93+, it comes without a carrying case, although Dell offers one as an option ($59.99 direct). Be sure to add that cost to the price if you compare the 1430X with other models that include cases.

Setup and Data Image Quality
Setting up the 1430X is standard fare. Plug in the appropriate cables, point the projector at the screen, adjust the 1.2x zoom, and focus. Note that the connection choices are a little meager by today's standards, with image inputs limited to VGA (with support for component video) plus composite video and S-Video. The lack of an HDMI or DVI port means you're limited to analog connections only, whether for data or video. As a practical matter, that also means that for video sources, you'll usually wind up connecting using standard-definition composite video.

The 1430X's saving grace, and its strongest feature, is its high-quality data image. The projector did swimmingly on our standard suite of DisplayMate tests. Colors were fully saturated; color balance was excellent, with suitably neutral grays at all levels from black to white; and both black on white and white on black text was crisp and highly readable down to the smallest sizes we test with.

Also worth special mention, given that the 1430X doesn't offer a digital connection, is that the autosync worked unusually well. I saw no hint of pixel jitter in my tests, even on screens designed to bring out jitter. Having a digital connection wouldn't have improved the image, because there was no room for improvement.

Rainbows, Video Image Quality, and Other Issues

One other key plus for the data image quality is that it doesn't suffer from much of a rainbow effect, with light areas breaking up into little red-green-blue rainbows. Rainbow artifacts are always a potential concern for single-chip DLP projectors because of the way they create colors. However, some projectors show them far more often than others.

I see these rainbows relatively easily, and saw almost no sign of them on data screens with the 1430X. Odds are that few, if any, people in your audience would see them often enough with data images to find them annoying.

Unfortunately, the same is not true for video images, which show the artifacts far more often than many DLP projectors. In addition, the video quality has other shortcomings too, making the 1430X a poor choice for showing video in any case.

To begin with, if you use the composite video port, you're limited to 480i. And even if you take advantage of a component video adaptor for 720p or above, the projector has to scale the image down to make it fit in the number of pixels available in the native 1,024 by 768 array. Beyond that, colors were a little dull in my tests, as expected from a low contrast ratio. I also saw minor to moderate noise in the form of graininess and moderate to major loss of shadow detail (loss of details based on shading in dark areas).

As is typical for projectors in this weight class, the 1430X's audio system is all but useless. The 2-watt mono speaker can't put out enough sound to fill even a small conference room. If you need audio in your presentations, you'll almost certainly need an external sound system. Also note that the projector offers 3D support for 3D computers with a quad-buffered graphics card, but you'll need to buy DLP-Link glasses separately, with 10 pairs costing as much as the projector itself.

The Dell 1430X is clearly the wrong choice if you need to show much video. That's largely true of any XGA projector, in the sense that if you need good video, you need (at least) a higher resolution. However, even the PowerLite 93+ handles video better, which is part of what makes it Editors' Choice. That said, if you need to show video only in short clips or not at all, the Dell 1430X offers a brighter image than the 93+, it's smaller and lighter, and it offers a more than acceptable balance of brightness, data image quality, and portability.

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