Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K Review: A Hefty Projector Worthy of a Dedicated Screening Room

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Many of us fantasize about switching over to projection and ditching our current cumbersome home entertainment setups. The consumer digital projectors out there, after all, have gotten slimmer in both physical size and price tag. Maybe, you think, you’ll dabble with a mid-tier portable projector to supplement your HD TV.

The Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K isn’t for that. It’s on another level. From Epson’s industry-benchmark Home Cinema line, this is a beastly machine, designed for and optimally suited for the pickiest cinephiles out there.

We recently tested Epson’s Home Cinema 4010 4K projector after we were loaned a review unit from the brand — keep reading for our honest review.

Related: We Tried the Best Projectors for Every Budget and Viewing Experience

Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K Projector: Overall Opinion

The weighty machine is built for the discriminating cinephile with a dedicated home screening room. Epson nails the upper-echelon 4K home projector with a startlingly clear, virtually flawless image and full-color spectrum. But with no built-in battery or speaker, this isn’t for casual, on-the-go viewing.

Pros:

Cons:

Buy Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K Projector, $2,000:
Amazon | Epson | Walmart

Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K Review: Overall Design

The first thing you notice about Epson’s 4010 is its heft. It takes up most of the space on top of my home office desk (though to be fair, I live in a relatively tight studio apartment, and the desk is on the smaller side). If you’re looking for casual, on-the-go viewing, look elsewhere for a portable projector. There’s no battery, and no built-in speaker (not that you would want such tinny sound for such a maximalist device). You should pursue this if you want to replicate the experience of theatrical moviegoing at home, and if you have the space and money to spare. Maybe you’ve been dreaming about turning that wasted den into a customized home screening room. (You may feel fine never returning to the multiplex—Hollywood’s nightmare!)

Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K Review: Setup

Just as there’s no built-in battery or speaker, there’s no Bluetooth or Wi-Fi on Epson’s projector. You’re left with a down-to-basics wired setup: HDMI for your image input, and an audio jack for your audio output (a surround sound speaker system with a subwoofer would do nicely). Since you won’t be taking the 4010 out for a ride in your car, you’ll want to optimize the setup, including focus and projection angle, for your home theater. Luckily, the autofocus is fast and accurate.

Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K Review: Image

The optics of the Epson 4010 are sublime: The 4K image—the resolution is the current gold standard for technophiles looking for the best of the best—is startlingly sharp even when blown up to a ridiculously gigantic 80-plus inches on a bare wall in my humble home. But for this kind of machine, you should get a proper devoted screen. Blacks are inky and whites are luminous, with 2,400 lumens of brightness and a contrast ratio of up to 200,000:1, significantly higher than specs on the lower-cost projectors featured here. And subtler hues are all accounted for, thanks to the three-LCD chip processing power that displays the full three-dimensional DCI-P3 color gamut. I couldn’t catch any hot spots or other weird visual aberrations.

For testing purposes, I rewatched Tenet on the Epson 4010 — projected in the Christopher Nolan 2020 blockbuster’s native 4k resolution. As I was watching, I admired how rounded the image is: Nothing from the camera’s eye seems to be flattened or missed. I no longer regretted skipping a visit to see the movie in theaters during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. This thing looked as sparkling as it likely did from a professional projection booth. Nolan’s precise visuals managed to be crystal clear across the fame in both wide action shots with many actors (that plane crash! Those sailboats!) and in intimate close-ups. I spotted the tiny crevices on John David Washington’s beautiful movie-star face that I hadn’t even realized existed. But there they are.

The Verdict: One of the Best High-End Home Projectors Out There

If you’re hunting around in the upper echelon of home projectors, or if you want to upgrade your mid-tier projector, it’s hard to beat the Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K. It comes from a trusted brand that has cornered this category. And the 4K image and full-color spectrum live up to the advertising. You won’t miss the sticker shock of multiplex tickets.

Is the Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K Worth Buying?

Absolutely. Get the Epson 4010 for your home theater if you want to ride the high of best-of-the-best 4K resolution. Ebert himself would be proud.

Epson 4010 4K Projector Specifications: 

What’s Included with the Epson 4010 4K Projector:

Buy Epson Home Cinema 4010 4K Projector, $2,000: Amazon | Epson | Walmart