I've had my epson 3010 for a few weeks now, and I believe I've reached the point where I'm familiar enough to put together a good opinion with a few backing facts.
First, this thing is **BRIGHT**. As in, lights all the way up in the room, still plenty bright BRIGHT. I'm coming from another projector that's rated at 2800 lumens (optoma pro350w), and this thing blows it out of the water for brightness!
For image quality - I'm not a trained critic, but it does look exceptionally good to my untrained eye. It beats my old projector in just about every way, but given that the old one is quite a but further down the entry level pricing scale, that definitely should be the case.
What I can talk about is 3d. The old projector is a pro350w, and the common knowledge is that DLP is the way to go for low crosstalk 3d. And I've got to say, I've definitely never had a complaint in that department with the pro350w - But I've also got to say that if the Epson isn't matching it, the difference is low enough that I can't distinguish it. Basically, with either projector I can see very minimal crosstalk in black-on-white test screens, but I've never been able to see any hint of crosstalk in any movie I've viewed. And keep in mind, this is with a *MUCH* brighter picture, so any white imagery being "crosstalked" should be similarly more visible, but in my experience it's simply not an issue.
For glasses, I've now found several options that work with this projector. Obviously the Epson glasses are one option, but they're apparently not readily available to purchase yet. Fortunately, the IR protocol follows the m-3di standard, so any glasses following that standard will work fine. There are apparently several glasses planned to follow that protocol, but the downside is only one is yet in production and even that one is very limited - the 3rd gen panasonic viera glasses. And being new, they're a bit hard to find as well. I did find a vendor with them in stock and was able to get a pair to try. I can confirm they are compatible. I found them slightly more comfortable than the stock epsons due to their light weight. However, with any active glasses, looking through them at an angle will reduce their effectiveness; the Optoma stock glasses seemed less succeptible to this than the panasonics, but it's not enough of a difference in either case to matter to me - I just grab whichever of my glasses are easiest within reach : As a note, I was also able to get the Monster Vision RF glasses (the kit with the detector and emitter packaged) using the Monster Vision's IR sensor. Also note - this projector apparently emits a HUGE amount of infared light. I could not, under any circumstances, make the glasses lose sync. Simply couldn't do it. That's the good news, but there's a down side there...
Which brings us to a few points of bad news.
-The IR output from 3d apparently interferes with remote functionality big-time. I didn't realize that myself, as I use an RF (URC RF20) with ir emitters stuck on the fronts of all my equipment. It wasn't impacted at all. But after hearing some other users mention that issue I tested, and yes, EVERYTHING started having trouble picking up infared remote signals when 3d was on. Obviously an easy solution there is the one I was using anyway; a remote with RF like the RF20 + RF expander or one of the logitechs that has RF (personally don't like logitech, but that's another review :
-The iris is a bit noisy. In my case the projector is in its own chamber, so I really don't hear it most times, but with the cover off it is audible enough that it might be annoying to many people, so I thought it worth mentioning.
-And this one might be a dealbreaker for some: LAG. Serious lag. If you're watching non-interactive video, this won't matter to you one teeny bit. But if you're gaming, it can be anywhere between a mild annoyance and completely unplayable. I measured it at its best 60ms slower than my supposedly <5ms LCD monitor, so total would theoretically be between 60-65 ms of lag. Nothing I could do would improve the number. I contacted Epson's support and was told that's functioning as designed. Epson's responses to multiple customers questioning the lag have generally been that this is "functioning as designed" - so it is unlikely to ever improve.
Let's quantify that a little more, though. 60ms, what does that mean? Here's a few games I've played with it and the impact it had on those games:
-Batman Arkham City: Played through the entire game, got all the riddler trophies and riddles, etc. not 100%, but most of the main stuff). Very seldom did lag impact me. On occasion I'd feel like I hit the counter button but it didn't count it, but generally not an issue at all.
-Gran Turismo 5: Never noticed the lag at all.
-Left 4 Dead 2: I could definitely tell at first, but after about 30 minutes I guess my brain re-learned how much to anticipate shots, and it felt fine again. I've played it probably 5 hours or so since then and haven't had an issue.
-Killing Floor: Very similar story to left 4 dead 2- seemed to be an issue for a bit, then it got better.
-Enemy Territory: This was an issue. Reaction times were significantly handicapped, and while that often won't matter when it's just you vs the PC, other players are quick to take advantage of it.
So in short, if you're pitting your reaction times against other players, it's definitely an issue. Also, games requiring quick reaction times are an issue (I keep hearing people talk about wipeout as an example). But there are other games where the problems are less pronounced, and how much of an issue it is really comes down to what you play and at what level.