Epson Home Cinema 2250 projector review: "A jack of all trades - and not far off mastering most of them"

Epson has a long history in excellent visual tech and upgrades its well-received Home Cinema 2150 with the 2250 (known as the TW5825 in the UK due to a slightly baffling naming convention). It’s a great HD streaming projector with a wide range of apps - even including Netflix, a surprising rarity!

With a dedicated game mode and a good range of setup options thanks to using zoom and image shifting, it’s far from a one-trick pony. It’s a well-rounded unit with a lot to offer, whatever your needs are when looking for the best home projector.

Design & Features

The built-in Android OS runs smoothly and has a good range of apps including an authorised Netflix app! Netflix very rarely lets projectors use its app for some reason but here it’s front and centre - even available directly from a dedicated button on one of the remotes. 

Yes, ONE of the remotes. The Epson Home Cinema 2250 ships with two: one with extra features for initial setup and a second which is dedicated to streaming apps, with only an additional volume control. This is handy as having the more technical controls was useful only in the first few days of use while I made tweaks. However, the streaming remote lacks a dedicated button for selecting the HDMI input, which was quite annoying when switching from streaming video to a console.

More irritating is the single HDMI port: this is fine when I was just using the PS5 but when I needed to switch to a live TV feed I had to fumble with cables and eventually used a switcher. If you regularly switch between consoles, this could be aggravating. 

The initial setup showed the versatility of the unit, with not only useful zoom features but a vertical lens shift of 15% available - which can open up a lot of options for how you place it. This isn’t a common feature in projectors at this price and could be very handy if you’re limited in where you can place the projector. There are physical ways to alter the projection angle too - with back screws and a clever leg at the front to angle the unit. The sound is good, with excellent volume available from the 10W speaker and good clarity even when you crank it up. 

Performance

Key to the image is the 3LCD technology, which gives excellent colour brightness and excellent colour reproduction. The 3LCD tech also eliminates the rainbow effects which some users may from in single bulb projectors. Even when competing against ambient summer sunlight, it fills the screen with excellent picture, particularly in the slightly brighter modes. The picture was great out of the box, but there is definitely enough 'tweakabilty' to satisfy those who want to get into the settings a little. 

In gaming mode, it’s had input lag measured at around 27ms at 60Hz, which is fine for casual gamers looking for a 1080p projector for PS5 or Xbox Series X. The competitive gamer will require faster, but for the vast majority, this is fine. In a projector which seems so focussed on streaming, this is very welcome.

In terms of image quality, the HDMI port is rated to accept a 4K signal but it is not compatible with HDR. At this price (around US$999), one might expect a 4K image reproduction (although likely with good pixel shifting rather than native). But the 1080p image is very sharp and I didn’t find myself pining for a 4K unit while I was living with the Epson Home Cinema 2250.

Overall - should you buy it?

To call this a solid all-rounder is not to damn it with faint praise. It does a number of things very well: a great streaming projector that has a good gaming mode and really strong colour reproduction. To be able to stream Netflix directly feels like an odd thing to be such a feather in its cap, but given how rare this is it’s really worth flagging as a huge virtue. Some practical issues (one USB slot, the quirks of the remote control) are odd own goals, but by no means are enough to decide against buying it.

The retail price (around US$999) might give hesitation though: it is priced among projectors which specialise more in some areas and do one thing exceptionally well and offer at least pixel-shifted 4K images. But the 3LCD gives great colour and an excellent image. It’s a jack of all trades, but it’s not far off mastering most of them.

How we tested the Epson Home Cinema 2250 

A lot of streaming - She Hulk and a Bob’s Burgers rewatch on Disney Plus. We also began the new series of The Great British Bake Off (or Great British Baking Show), with the cakes and biscuits looking truly delicious and detailed enough to be fully scrutinised.

I continued my adventures through the Forbidden West, with landscapes full of colour. A frenetic few rounds of Fall Guys went well, still chasing that elusive victory but the projector coped very well with the rapid movement. Being able to stream so much directly rather than needing to fire up another source means I used this as the house’s main projector, although flipping between HDMI sources was annoying and I’d have needed to buy a bigger HDMI switcher if I was using it long term.

You can read more about our holistic approach to gaming tech in our hardware policy, and read more about how we test gaming projectors at 12DOVE here.

If you are shopping for a projector this year, don't forget to pick up one of the best projector screens or one of the best outdoor projector screens if you're looking to embrace the last of the long evenings too.