This projector is a few years old, but they do still knock around the second hand market, and make an excellent introduction into the world of projectors.

At the time the Z2 was considered one of the best projectors around, and even though it is now 5 years old, still provides a very decent image, and has proved to be reliable.

The Z2's strong points are its low noise level (only during the hottest of weather will the cooling fan need to go above a quite background whisper), and its throw size. What i mean by throw size, is if you are looking for the biggest projection possible, with only a small room this is one of the very best. In a room of 3m deep, you can get a projection of 7ft wide.

The projector can be run in either normal or eco mode. The normal mode is slightly brighter than the eco mode, but causes the fan to run a bit louder, and reduces the lamp life, so unless you are projecting in a room with high levels of ambient light then I would not recommend using normal mode.

A point to consider when picking one of these up is that whilst the prices have dropped right down, the bulbs still have a significant cost attached, so if the bulb does go, a replacement could well cost you most than the projector did. Therefore if you are looking to pick one of these up, try and get one with a lower number of hours on the bulb life, as whilst it has a suggested 2000 hours I had one bulb go after just 500 hours.

In terms of features it is a little lacking in that it doesn't have an auto source detection, which can be slightly irritating if you have a dvd player and a games system connected to it, but on a plus note it does have both horizontal and vertical len shift and keystone correction, which makes positioning the image as simple as possible.

Another thing to consider is that if you plan on mounting this to the ceiling you may have difficulty sourcing a compatible ceiling mount, but if you are a handy sort of person an hours work will save you a fair bit of money.

The projector is very good at picking up signals from the remote, so even when pointed away from the projector it seems to respond most of the time.

If you have the money to stretch to a Z3 or Z4 model, do this, but if you have never had a projector before, then this will likely offer everything you want.

Summary: For a fraction of the price of a big TV, and using up much less space, you can get a lot more.