With projectors becoming cheaper and better, choosing between a TV or projector has never been easier, specially with the main advantage a projector offers and that is being able to easily carry it from room to room! With a projector such as the EZCast Beam V3 gives you the ability of watching anything virtually anywhere you can project the image on, including a ceiling over a bed, which is safe unlike mounting a flat TV face down above your bed. The sleepless nights of worrying falling on you wouldn't be worth it!
On the rear of the EZCast Beam V3 projector there is a single 5-watt speaker, which delivers surprisingly big sound despite its size. The intake fan is located on the bottom of the unit, which is not the most ideal placement since projectors run hot. Luckily, the EZCast Beam V3 is an led projector so, it doesn't run as hot as an LCD or DLP projector, which uses a traditional lamp that can reach up to 300 degrees during operation.
The cooling fan inside the Beam V3 works well at keeping the projector cool but to minimize any potential overheating you should place the projector above a hard surface to allow fresh air to enter from the sides of the unit. The internal fan generates noise but at medium/high volume, it is virtually unnoticeable.
If you want to mount the EZCast Beam V3 projector on a ceiling or tripod, you can do so by removing the riser screw from the the 1/4-inch thread on the base of the unit. Be mindful though, the Beam V3 projector weighs 1.2 kig and measures 23 cm long, 17cm wide and 9 cm tall. The required screw size for mounting the Beam V3 on a ceiling is a 1/4-20 UNC bolt, which is not included. On the base of the unit, you will also find more ventilation outlets, four circular rubber feet (5mm high) and the spec info tag.
The EZCast Beam V3 projector has 120Hz refresh rate and low input lag between 10ms and 50ms, depending on the connection method (wired or wireless). Anything over 120Hz refresh rate and below 40ms latency delivers a good experience for casual gaming and online multiplayer. If you plan on doing highly competitive gaming though, you should look for a projector with input lag below 33ms. Another advantage of having a high refresh rate is that it also produces a 3D depth perception, which makes viewing content easier on the eyes. That said, it's worth pointing out you cannot watch 3D movies because the EZCast Beam V3 projector does not have the necessary 3D sync-signal hardware to pick 3D signals.
As far as 4k gaming, it is not supported since the maximum resolution of the EZCast Beam V3 projector is 1080p. The Beam V3 HDMI port is also not capable of transferring 18Ghz, which is needed in order for a 4k projector to render 4k resolution. The Beam V3 projector can upscale to 1080p and downscale 4k video to 720p without losing detail or rendering speed.
After powering up the EZCast Beam V3 projector, you are given a choice to choose the language interface and the option to connect the projector to the Wifi network of your router via the included Wifi USB-A dongle. Some projectors have a Wifi module built-in, while others are removal like in the case of the Beam V3 projector.
Having a detachable Wifi module adapter is actually not a bad thing since it gives you the option to replace it should it become faulty. That said, the connectivity port for the Wifi adapter has a recessed housing that makes it almost impossible to remove once you insert it, unless you use a flat head tool to pry out the Wifi adapter.
Wifi network connection to a router is optional but it's handy if you want to do DLNA streaming from connected devices on on your home network. After Wifi connectivity is setup, you are taken to the main menu where you can access the Settings page and select several ways to connect the projector to an Android/iOS phone via USB connection (requires USB debugging to be enabled) and computer (via HDMI). You can also cast the image from a phone or computer to the Beam V3 projector, using the wireless display function or using the Google Home app. The wireless function supports both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz radio bands.
Bluetooth speaker mode is another neat feature that turns the EZCast Beam V3 projector into a standalone bluetooth 4.0 speaker by automatically powering off the led lamp. The 5 watt speaker driver fires very loud (mono) sound that fills a small/medium size room. The sound is clear and detailed between the mids and treble. Considering it's just one speaker, there is good amount of bass to reproduce movie sound effects. When disconnecting the bluetooth connection from the phone, the Beam V3 projector automatically powers on the led lamp restoring whichever screen you left off.
The Settings page can be accessed via the remote control or by pressing the settings button on the projector. This brings up a brightly lit main menu, containing ten sub-menus for accessing various features such as 2D keystone to skew the image horizontally (up to 14 degrees left and right) and vertically (up to 25 degrees up and down) and achieve a proper rectangular image. You won't be able to achieve a square image due to the Beam V3 projector only supporting 16:9 aspect ratio. A 4:3 aspect ratio is needed to achieve a square image with 2D keystone. There is also a dedicated "4 Corner Correction" setting to further correct the shape of the image and even all four sides.
When projecting content, the system will only bring up three main options: color, audio and image, making it super convenient to tweak the projection image without having to go through the entire menu. The Color menu brings up various options to manually tweak the brightness, saturation and sharpness of the image.
You can also choose from two display preset modes (standard and bright) to automatically adjust the image color. Another setting you will see is "portrait mode" to allow you to turn the Beam V3 projector from landscape to portrait so, you can orient it vertically via two foam holding brackets, which are included. The holding brackets are made of thick, closed-cell foam and securely hold the projector in the upright position.
The Beam V3 connectivity ports are located on the left side and, includes a SD card slot that supports 64 GB memory cards. There is also a USB-A port, which supports FAT32 and NTFS files; hence you can stream movies from a USB drive without having to split the movies into parts. The control panel, phone stand and focus ring are located on top of the unit. The power port is located on the right side, while the IR receiver is located on the front of the projector. The focus of the image is physically adjusted by manually spinning the focus ring with a finger, which in turn moves the lens inwards or outwards, protruding a couple of centimetres out. When the lens is turned all the way out, the protective cover will not fit over the lens unless you move the lens all the way inwards.
The focus ring on some projectors can be hard to spin but not on the Beam V3, which is smooth and noise-free. The focus ring is made of hard plastic with grooved indents, making it easy to operate with a single finger. Being manual focus, there are fewer things that can go wrong compared to an automatic focus system, which uses electric motors.
The EZCast Beam V3 onboard control panel contains 9 buttons, including 4 navigational buttons to move across the menus up/down and left/right. The buttons are made of plastic and have mechanical switches that make a clunking sound when pressed.
The EZCast Beam V3 projector has good ventilation throughout, thanks to perforations on the plastic outershell of the unit. The Beam V3 Projector firmware is easily upgraded to the latest version by selecting Internet mode, which does it automatically. There is also a USB mode option to upgrade the Beam V3 Projector firmware by putting the upgrade firmware file in the root directory of a USB drive and rename the file to ACTUPGRADE.gz. After this is done, you simply insert the USB drive into the projector and select firmware upgrade "USB".
The throw distance is between 1 meter and 5 meters, being able to generate a viewable screen size between 32 inches and 176 inches without the room being completely pitch black. A 176 screen size does require you setting the projector 4.5 meters away from the projecting screen.
The Beam V3 projector can technically project up to 5 meters and create a 200 inch screen size; although this is not realistic due to the 720p native resolution and 200 ansi lumen lamp, which means the further you project the dimmer the image will appear. At 200 ansi lumens, the EZCast Beam V3 projector isn't one of the brightest projectors but then again, the Beam V3 projector costs twice as less as other similarly specced projectors. The Beam V3 projector was tested at a 1.5 meter projection distance.
The included remote uses two AAA batteries, which aren't included. The wireless adapter (EZC-5201BS) doesn't seem to be available to buy from EZCast website. There isn't any RCA video jacks or HDMI cable included either. You can buy the EZCast Beam V3 on amazon and get 10% off using promo code GADGETEZBEAM. Check out the review of the EZcast MiniBox phone screen streamer.
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