The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is a 4k HDR LCD projector. The projector has Epson's 4k PRO-UHD technology with a 3-chip design, allowing it to project colorful images and sharp images with double the resolution of 1080p. It also comes with Epson's UltraBlack technology for enhanced contrast capabilities. It's fully 10-bit HDR capable and comes with manual focus and lens shifting options, as well as manual keystone correction. The projector has two HDMI 2.0 ports for full 4k @ 60Hz gaming but no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth support.
Our Verdict
The Epson 5050UB is great for watching movies. It's bright, so it performs well in moderately lit rooms, but it's much better in dim or dark rooms due to its excellent contrast. The projector is bright enough to showcase its very wide color gamut, giving its image a vibrant look. The Epson's color accuracy is excellent out-of-the-box, and it looks fabulous after calibration due to the projector's 11-point white balance and full color calibration features.
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Bright and colorful.
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Excellent contrast for a pleasant viewing experience in dark rooms.
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Excellent color accuracy nearly out-of-the-box.
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Very wide color gamut.
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No Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, and doesn't have any smart features.
- 8.4 Movies
- Updated May 21, 2024: Updated text throughout the review according to Test Bench 0.9, mainly in the Verdict, Compared To Other Projectors and Contrast sections.
- Updated May 21, 2024: We've converted this review to Test Bench 0.9. We've overhauled our Contrast tests, as we now measure contrast at various average pixel levels (APL). You can see the full changelog here.
- Updated Feb 13, 2024: Review published.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the Epson Home Cinema 5050UB. It has no variants, but Epson has other projectors in their Home Cinema line, such as the lower-end Epson Home Cinema 1080 and Epson Home Cinema 3800.
You can see the label here.
Compared To Other Projectors
The Epson 5050UB is one of the best projectors you can buy. However, it's quite expensive, so you might be better off with something almost as good but for a much lower price, such as the Epson Home Cinema 3800. The 3800 doesn't look quite as good but is brighter, has speakers, and includes Bluetooth support. You could also opt for the XGIMI HORIZON Ultra, which has more features than the Epson projectors but with worse image quality. Still, if you're looking for the best, the Epson 5050UB is it.
See our recommendations for the best projectors for home theater and the best home projectors. If you're looking for something more general, look up our list of the best projectors instead.
The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is slightly better than the Epson Home Cinema 3800. The 3800 has higher peak brightness than its more expensive sibling. Still, the 5050UB has slightly better contrast and a noticeably wider color gamut, so it's the better-looking of the two projectors when watching movies in a dark room.
The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is better than the BenQ HT4550i for watching movies, but the BenQ has the edge in gaming and smart features. The Epson has better contrast, so it looks better in dark rooms and is more accurate out-of-the-box than the BenQ. The BenQ, however, includes an Android TV 11 smart dongle with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, while the Epson has no smart or wireless features. The BenQ is also better for gamers with its 1080p @ 240Hz with low input lag capabilities.
The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is better than the Optoma UHZ50, though they use different light sources. The lamp-based Epson gets significantly brighter and has a longer max throw distance. While the Optoma has a marginally better contrast ratio, the brighter image and more accurate colors of the Epson give it a better overall viewing experience, albeit in a much bigger, heavier design.
The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is much better than the BenQ HT3550. The Epson is much brighter, with significantly brighter and saturated colors due to its brightness and excellent color gamut. It's also vastly more accurate before calibration and has fantastic accuracy post-calibration. The BenQ is smaller and lighter and has auto keystone correction on the vertical axis, so it's easier to carry around and faster to install.
The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is better than the XGIMI HORIZON Ultra in terms of image quality, but the XGIMI has way more features. The XGIMI is a bit brighter than the Epson, but the Epson, in turn, has better contrast and a wider color gamut and is the much more accurate projector of the two. The XGIMI, however, uses a very long-lasting dual light source, so you won't ever have to change it, and it has Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, integrated speakers, and a smart OS, making it more versatile.
The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB offers slightly better image quality than the BenQ X3000i due to its wider color gamut and better contrast. However, the BenQ is much smaller and has significantly more features. The Epson is a barebones projector without any smart or wireless features, while the BenQ comes with the QS01 streaming dongle, which has Android TV, Bluetooth, and Chromecast built-in. The BenQ also has more features for gamers, as it can project a 4k @ 60Hz or 1080p @ 240Hz image, while the Epson is limited to 4k @ 60Hz. Thus, if you're going for pure image quality, the Epson is better, but the BenQ is more versatile.
The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is much better than the Hisense PX1-PRO. The Epson is much brighter, has better contrast, and has slightly better colors, so it has the edge in image quality. The Epson is also vastly more accurate out of the box, so you don't need to worry about calibration. The Hisense has way more features than the Epson, with an integrated smart OS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth support, but it can't compensate for the image quality gap.
The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is much better than the Samsung The Freestyle 2nd Gen, but they're very different products. The Samsung is a small portable projector with a full suite of smart and wireless connectivity features. The Epson is a massive projector, lacks any smart features, and doesn't have any automatic image correction features like the Samsung has. Still, if you don't need to move your projector, the Epson offers vastly superior image quality, but you'll need to buy an external streaming dongle if you need smart features or wireless support.
The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is far better than the KODAK LUMA 350, but they serve different purposes. The KODAK is an ultra-lite projector and is meant to be extremely easy to carry around, while the Epson is a much bigger projector that is meant for you to permanently install it. The Epson has vastly better image quality. However, the KODAK is small and has more smart features, like an integrated Android TV OS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, cast capabilities through DLNA, and auto vertical keystone correction.
The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is much better than the BenQ GV30, but they're completely different products. The BenQ GV30 is a small projector with an integrated battery, so it's very easy to carry around, but it offers inadequate image quality for watching movies. The Epson is a very large projector and is not meant to be carried around; it's meant for a fixed installation in a home theater scenario. It does have impressive image quality, dwarfing what the BenQ offers in that department.
Test Results
The Epson 5050UB is a massive projector, so it's not meant for portability. It lacks auto keystone correction, so you'll need to adjust the image geometry manually, and it also doesn't have autofocus. It also has no speakers, so if you move it, you'll need to connect it to an audio system or soundbar.
This LCD projector uses a lamp as its light source, which can last from 3500 to about 5000 hours, according to the manufacturer, after which you'll need to swap the lamp for a new one. It's not a true 4k projector, as it uses pixel shifting to create a higher-resolution image. This offers better quality than a pure 1080p projector, but it isn't as good as a native 4k projector.
This projector's peak brightness is very good. It's bright and relatively colorful, so it looks fine in moderately-lit rooms, but it looks its best when the lights are dimmed or off. Its brightness uniformity is decent; the sides of the projection are slightly dimmer than the center, but it's minor.
This projector has excellent native contrast, providing a very pleasant viewing experience in dark rooms.
The Epson 5050UB projector has excellent pre-calibration accuracy. Its white balance has minor accuracy errors, but it's great overall. The color balance is excellent, and the projector's color temperature is exactly on target.
This projector has full 11-point white balance calibration and color calibration. It looks spectacular after calibration, with excellent color and fantastic white balance accuracy, and its color temperature is still exactly on target.
The Epson 5050UB has a very wide color gamut. It covers almost all of the Rec. 709 color space used with SDR content and does a good job with the wider Rec. 2020 color space.
The projector has a 2.0A DC Out USB port for power delivery, like for a streaming dongle. It also has a 12v trigger out port to connect your screen to it; this allows you to signal the screen to unfold when the projector powers on and inversely retract the screen when it's powered off. Unfortunately, the projector doesn't support Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.