Normally I concentrate on projectors for my “reviews”. However, I am always open to checking out other exciting products. Enter the Elite EzFrame fixed frame screen. I was contacted by them a short bit ago and asked if I would take a look at a couple of their screens. “Sure”, I replied. This is the first of the two I will be looking at (the other is their Cinetension Electric). Both of these screens are part of the new higher end line from Elite. They are designed to meet the needs of the more demanding consumer, while still maintaining a lower price point for the budget conscious.

I received the box from UPS. The unit they sent was an EzFrame 45”x80” HC White (retail is $619). The box the screen came in was surprisingly small. I have done my fair-share of screens and never seen such a thin box. It measured about 3.5”x10”x84” or so. Weight was decent; more than one would expect looking at the size of the box. Despite the size, it was very well packed. Once I opened it up, I found 2 cardboard wrapped “square tubes” along each side, and a round, plastic tube down the middle (PVC believe it or not!). The 2 cardboard squares held the frame pieces…1 with the top and bottom, and 1 with the sides. All were wrapped in a padded foam material to protect them. When looking at these, I realized how they made the box so small. The majority of manufacturers ship the screens with the corner brackets installed in each end of the top and bottom. Elite doesn’t do this. Rather there is a final small accessory box that they ship in (along with the bolts needed to lock it together). Because of this, the frame pieces are extremely small and the outer box doesn’t need to be made to fit the corner pieces, thus saving on shipping. I should also mention the round tube that holds the fabric was quite small. They roll it on a small ¾” PVC tube and there are no snaps to add thickness (more on that later).

I took everything out and laid it out on the floor. This frame is a nice 2.5” wide, with a beveled edge towards the screen surface (this helps off angle viewing and “shadowboxing”. In addition, the frame is covered in a velvet type material, just like the higher end companies offer. This was a very nice surprise considering the price point on these. The frame is a relatively heavy duty machined extruded aluminum so plenty strong enough to support the material and its own weight. Assembly was easy. You simply took the corner braces (which slide into the middle of the frame) and put them onto the top and bottom pieces. Then slide in the sides and you are assembled. There are 2 screws per corner to hold the unit together. One thing that is slick is they screw holes are slotted. This means when one is assembling the unit, they can slide the brackets in and out slightly on each of the joining corners, in order to make sure they line up perfectly. One thing I found strange was that the hangers for wall mounting were on the sides. There was 1 on each side, centered vertically. Though this is plenty strong to hold it, most companies have a top and bottom bracket so it was not something I was used to.

You will notice that there are no snaps. Elite uses a rod tensioning system to secure the fabric. If you look closely, you will see a thin rod on each side of the frame in a grove, and then little “clips” along the frame. To match up to this, the fabric comes with a loop sewn along each side instead of snaps. To assemble, the thin rods are removed and slid through the loops on all 4 sides. I started with one of the sides of the frame, and tucked the rod/material loop into the channel, and then simply rotated the clips to secure. Though the clips are only plastic, all the strength of this system is in the channel, and the clips merely keep the rod from coming out of the channel. Moving on. I then pulled the material on the opposite side. Man this was tricky. The problem is that they make it tight as to make sure there are no wrinkles/waves. The hard part was getting a good grip on the fabric as it is thin. I found I had to start at one end of the fabric rod, and lock it in. Then it made it easier to move along to the other side. After I had the opposing sides done, I did the top and bottom. This was a bit easier since the majority of the stretching was done already. You may be asking "what are the pros/cons of the rod system vs. the snap system". Well the snaps are easier for the installation, and generally since the companies that use them sew a thicker border on, they tend to be very strong, especially if the screen is removed and reinstalled frequently. The drawback to snaps is that they are hard to get perfect, so sometimes one will find 2 subsequent screws are, say, 1/16” off, and thus a small gapping of the fabric occurs. Most situations like this require a new screen to be sent out. The advantage to the rod system is that it is less expensive to make, and less difficult to have mistakes. In addition, since the fabric is effectively “attached” infinitely along the entire side, there is little chance for gapping. The bad part of the design is that it relies on the fabric itself for the strength, so over time could potentially wear thin and possible tear.

The Elite EzFrame comes with 2 fabric choices…a HC White and a High Contrast Gray. For testing I requested the HC White (1.2 gain) as my room doesn’t typically need a gray screen. The fabric is a very smooth one with little texture. I did notice it was a little on the thin side, which could normally cause light to pass-through, causing light loss. However, they thought of that too. It comes with a black backing on it. This adds both a bit of thickness, as well as greatly reducing any light leakage one might normally get.

COMMENTS ON PERFORMANCE:
NOTE: I did not bother taking screen shots. Why? Well first, screen shots are only used as a basic idea and unless I did many screens with the same projector, they would tell you nothing. In addition, depending on the projector I used, that would more determine the resulting quality of the screenshots I did get. Essentially the camera can’t pickup the slight nuances of different fabrics.

The HC White fabric was surprisingly good. I found that it had a decent reflectivity to it, but didn’t suffer too much from hotspotting (which obviously you would expect from a lower gain screen), nor did it have any sparklies or other anomalies to it. Colors were decent as compared to other higher end screens, and about what you’d expect to get for the price. It didn’t really suffer from a yellowish tinge as some of the other less expensive screens do. All in all I found it to be a good material for the money. The main negative to the limited material selection is that with only these 2 fabrics to choose from, you have to rely more on the projector and room for the proper setup. Essentially having a smaller material selection takes one “tuning” factor (for a room) out of the equation.

CONCLUSIONS:
Elite certainly has a good idea here. Good performance, good build quality, and good features in a screen, for a lower price point. The main advantages I see to this unit are obviously the price, but moreover the heavy-duty velvet frame and decent quality screen material performance. About the only thing I found to not be to my liking was the emblem. It is right smack in the middle at the bottom. I found this a bit distracting as compared to most companies that put it in a lower corner. Not terribly critical, but as I said, I found it distracting. On a positive note they are looking into moving it to a corner, so this may be a moot point. All in all if you are on a budget, the Elite EzFrame should be something to check out. You get a LOT for your money.

Thanks!