Today Epson announced a new PowerLite projector called the S5. the S5 is a 3LCD projector with SVGA resolution and 2000 ANSI lumens of brightness. The estimated street price for the new projector is $649 and it weighs in at 5.8 pounds.

HDTV support is built into the S5 with the ability to project 720p and 1080i resolutions. However, much Like the ViewSonic projector I reviewed this week, the S5 lacks HDMI. Inputs include S-Video, mini D-Sub, composite RCA and variable audio out.

The native resolution for the projector is 800 x 600 and color reproduction is 16.7 million colors. It’s really too bad that companies aren’t putting HDMI on these low cost projectors, it makes no sense with their ability to product HD images unless they don’t want those looking for HDMI to buy low cost models. via Epson