Basic, but with several well thought through amenities, Sharp's XP-M401H-W is not only small, light, and easy to set up, but its laser lighting components put more than 4,000 lumens on screen with close to zero maintenance. Aimed at schools and business conference rooms, the projector not only shines above its class but for most material, the room lights can stay on and the shades up.

That said, the XP-M401H-W lacks things that we are used to seeing on other projectors in its class. The no-shows include networking, wireless screen casting, and legacy video ports that go beyond HDMI to fit into older schools and businesses stuck in the analog video age. Still, its most promising aspect is that at $1,269, it is hundreds of dollars less than the competition and, compared to the projector it's likely replacing, can save hundreds of dollars a year in replacement lamps and filters. In other words, it is a projector that seems custom designed for businesses and schools that have gone fully digital and are looking to light up the room.

Insights into Our Reviewer's Process

Check out this interview with Brian Nadel, comparing the Sharp XP-M401H-W 1080p Laser Projector and InFocus Nemesis II IN1028SL 1080p Conference Room Projector.

Features

Available only in white, the M401H-W weighs in at 6.6 pounds and measures 10.9 x 4.5 x 8.5 inches (WHD). Unobtrusive and easy for one person to install, the M401H-W even has an optional soft carrying case for when the projector needs to be portable, although I'm not sure I'd like to be lugging it to Gate B-101 when late for a flight.

One way the design kept to a strict size and weight budget by using a 19.5-volt external power supply like those used with high-performance notebook computers. The M401H-W has a place underneath to use Velcro straps to attach it to the projector's bottom if it is ceiling mounted.

The M401H-W has three attachment points. Because it is relatively lightweight, this should be enough for proper installation, but some might feel better with a fourth location to stabilize the projector. Sharp's $110 NP01UCM bracket is an inexpensive way to hang it from the ceiling, although you will have to ignore one of its four arms. Alternatively, the three "feet" below the M401H-W can be adjusted for use on a tabletop, shelf, or nook.

The projector's laser illumination engine means no more inconvenient and expensive lamp or dust filter changes. Its solid-state elements have an estimated lifespan of 20,000 hours of use or more than a decade of a rough duty cycle of eight hours of use every business or school day. That can be extended to something like 30,000 hours in the low-power Eco mode but expect a 33 percent brightness loss in this setting.

Its diode laser sends a beam of blue light to the projector's phosphor disk that converts it into yellow light that's divided into red, green, and blue components with dichroic mirrors. All three beams converge on the M401H-W's four-segment color wheel and on to its 0.65-inch DMD DLP micro-mirror array from Texas Instruments. The final HD image emerges from the main lens.

Able to be aimed in any direction—including straight up or down—the M401H-W can project 4,000 lumens on-screen. To keep its cool, the projector has a hefty fan and needs a foot of clearance on the sides and four inches in the back for proper ventilation. In use, it hit a peak temperature of 108.5 degrees Fahrenheit and a tolerable noise level of 40.1dBA. Of more concern is the power brick, which peaked at 129.2 degrees F, making it too hot handle.

While it can't touch the latest projectors that emulate 4K resolution, the M401H-W's HD (1920 x 1080) resolution should be fine for most educational and corporate uses. In fact, it will be a huge step up from the elderly XGA or SVGA projector that it will likely be replacing at many installations.

Like others in this class, economy is paramount, and the lens's focus and zoom are manual. Still, the M401H-W's 1.3X zoom lens can accommodate a variety of screens at work or school. The M401H-W's 1.16 to 1.47:1 throw ratio translates into a 51-inch image at 40 inches from the screen, and it can fill a 10-feet screen from nine feet away. Its sweet spot, however, is closer to about a seven-foot image, before the image starts getting washed out.

Go to ProjectorCentral's Sharp XP-M401H-W Throw Calculator to see how well the projector will work in a variety of rooms.

It may lack the convenience of being able to shift the image up-down and right-left for perfect placement, but the M401H-W can correct keystone distortion of up to 30 degrees off axis horizontally and vertically. The M401H-W can be set to automatic vertical correction, but I prefer the four-corner approach where I was able to pull and push the image until it was squared off.

The M401H-W comes with a lens cap, rather than an automatic slide open panel and can be set to automatically start projecting when an HDMI video signal is detected and shut itself off after up to three hours of inactivity.

There are six display modes to choose from, ranging from the high-output High-bright and Presentation to settings for Cinema and Sport. It offers 3D (glasses sold separately), although there's no Dicom Sim mode for medical schools, hospitals, and nursing programs.

The M401's stand-out feature is its HDR HLG Sim mode. It decodes High Dynamic Range (HDR) encoded programming using the Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) function to enhance the image. More on this later.

Without Composite and VGA video ports, the XP-M401H-W has been designed with digital infrastructure in mind. This might be a turn-off in older schools and businesses that rely on analog video. It has a pair of HDMI inputs but no video-out port.

The biggest miss is a lack of wired networking or Wi-Fi connectivity. This makes the M401H-W a digital island where presenters or students can't connect and project wirelessly. It also means that it lacks the LAN monitoring and control pages that most competitors have for an administrator to remotely turn the projector on or off, adjust its parameters, and check on usage patterns.

Its single speaker is better for spoken word programming like lessons, video conferencing, and video calls than for music or movies but should be fine for a mid-sized classroom or conference setting. The projector's headphone jack can send the sound to an external sound system, but the M401H-W does without a microphone input jack that some competitors provide for amplifying the speaker or teacher's voice.

The projector's USB Type A port provides 5 volts of power for an accessory like a streaming module but can't lift and display images or videos from a flash drive or work with a USB mouse for flying through the projector's menu. Its RS-232 serial connection will help with remote operations, although the projector lacks the software links to popular third-party remote operating protocols like Crestron RoomView, Extron, and PJ-Link.

Its control panel has buttons for turning the projector on and off as well as adjusting keystone correction and synchronizing the image. Its menu has the expected four-way keys and Enter buttons for navigating among its many choices. There are LED lights for power, laser, and overheating.

The mid-sized remote control, which has a 30-foot range, takes this a step further with everything from selecting the source and muting the audio to adjusting the volume and changing the aspect ratio. Access to its four test patterns is a level below the surface, though. It uses a pair of AAA batteries, is backlit for work in the dark and comes from Sharp's parts bin with motorized focus and zoom keys, neither of which are applicable with the XP-M401H-W.

With five years of warranty coverage, the XP-M401H-W is among the best protected projectors available. Unfortunately, the Sharp's support site is not filled out with firmware for the projector or start-up help. Its throw calculator, however, is among the best.

Performance

At a start-up time of 22.6 seconds, the M401H-W is reasonably fast to project an image after powering up and should be fine for on and off use in a common space. It took a quick 3.4 seconds to shut down. While being used for hours at a time, its exhaust never got above 108.5 degrees Fahrenheit. On the other hand, the projector's external AC adapter hit a peak of 129.2 degrees F, a little too hot for me.

Color Modes. The M401's six display modes start with its top illumination High-bright and Presentation modes. There're also settings for Cinema and Sport and 3D. It lacks a Dicom Sim (for medical scans) or an sRGB mode for neutral color presentation.

Presentation Viewing. High-bright was the brightest with 4,595 ANSI lumens on tap, 15 percent over its 4,000-lumen spec. This unexpected light level will allow the room's lights to stay on during most lessons or presentations. It, however, is at the cost of a naturalistic color balance. Everything looked greenish yellow, making for some scary photos. It is fine for tabular material and when brightness counts for everything.

That said, the Presentation mode adds some pink tones to compensate and delivered 3,848 ANSI lumens, which is just below the projector's lumen spec. The Sport mode was the surprise of the bunch with an output of 3,006 ANSI lumens and an acceptable balance between brightness and color fidelity. Without an sRGB or Rec. 709 setting to use, if you choose one mode and forget about it, Sport should be it.

Video Viewing. The biggest disappointment of the M410H-W was its Cinema mode. Sure, it warms up the image considerably with a little too much purple, but its output is limited to only 1,362 ANSI lumens, which really only works for a lights-out film-class screening.

Its HDR/HLG Sim mode really made a cinematic sunset more intense and vivid and the highlights from a waterfall sharper. It excelled at 3,694 ANSI lumens and came into its own when projecting the BBC's One Perfect Planet video. The volcano scenes were vivid with red and yellow tones as well as extra highlights in the flames. For some material it goes too far with image solarization, visible blooming, and oversaturation; the effect isn't adjustable.

In addition to adjusting the light output in one-percent increments, the M401's Eco mode reduces the power requirement by 26 percent but at the cost of illumination. The light output dropped by 32 percent at 3,119 ANSI lumens in High-bright mode.

Conclusion

Sharp's XP-M401H-W is all about affordability. At $1,269, it's an inexpensive way to light up a conference room, lecture hall, or small auditorium with more than 4,000 lumens. It sells for several hundred dollars less than competitors like Epson's PowerLite L260F yet it can work with High Dynamic Range (HDR) programming, its laser illumination engine should last the life of the projector, and the M401H-W comes with a class-leading five-year warranty.

While it's small, light, and quick to set up, the M401H-W's design uses an external AC adapter and strips the projector to its essentials. It does without networking or analog ports that some schools and businesses will likely miss. Still, the M401H-W will fit the needs of a classroom or conference room quite well.

For more detailed specifications and connections, check out our Sharp XP-M401H-W projector page.

To buy this projector, use Where to Buy online, or get a price quote by email direct from Projector Central authorized dealers using our E-Z Quote tool.