Epson Lifestudio Projector EF-72 review: could this replace your TV?

There’s a new kind of projector moving into your living room. Not the chunky black box you hide on a shelf, but something you actually leave out – like a lamp, or a carefully chosen coffee table book. It’s called a coffee table projector.

Launching at £1150 in the UK and $1000 in the US, the Epson Lifestudio Projector EF-72 is exactly that. It’s a 4K Pro-UHD, 1000-lumen smart projector with Google TV and Sound by Bose built in. It’s designed to sit front and centre, finished in an Oak look with a tilt-and-swivel stand and a touch-sensitive ambient light to add a soft glow to your living room.

This is Epson’s first RGB LED 3LCD portable in the new Lifestudio range, and the pitch is simple: one box that streams, games, plays music and throws up to a 150in image on your wall. No AV rack. No cable spaghetti. Just set it down, point it where you want, and press play.

The big question? Is the coffee table projector actually a good idea – or just a pretty one? I’ve been living with the Lifestudio Projector for four months to find out.

Design & build: it’s a looker

Let’s start with the obvious: the Lifestudio Projector looks great. I’ve had it perched on a side table for months and not once felt the need to hide it away. It blends in properly – more design object than tech box – and that’s kind of the point.

It’s small and light enough to move between rooms or take to a friend’s house, though it does need mains power, so it’s not truly ‘portable’ in the battery-powered sense.

In the hand, when interacting with the projector, it feels solid. There are no creaks or plasticky rattles when you move it. The aluminium stand has a reassuring weight, and the tilt-and-swivel hinge feels really well engineered. You can tilt it upwards by 90 degrees, downwards by 15 degrees, and swivel 90 degrees left or right. I’ve angled it up to the ceiling, swung it towards a blank wall, then nudged it back again, and it holds its position without fuss. That’s really important when you’re adjusting it mid-movie, or have it somewhere it might get nudged out of position accidentally.

The Oak-look top softens the whole thing nicely. It stops the EF-72 from feeling cold or overly “AV”. Paired with the large grey fabric speaker grille, it has more in common with a stylish wireless speaker than a projector. Is it quite at the level of a luxury bit of kit from Bang & Olufsen? Not quite. But it’s closer than most projectors have any right to be.

The ambient light is controlled by tapping the top of the projector. You can cycle through brightness levels, switch between bright white and warm white, or trigger a glowing rainbow effect. It’s fun and genuinely useful as a soft lamp. I’d love to see it go further, though. A Philips Ambilight-style system that reacts to what’s on screen would really dial up the atmosphere during films.

And, if I’m being picky, I’d love more customisation. Swappable wood tops and different fabric colours would be great. It would help it fit into more room styles. If you’re leaning into the lifestyle angle, go all in.

The only real weak spot is the remote. It works fine – you get easy Google TV navigation, plus shortcut buttons for YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Live TV – but it doesn’t feel as premium as the projector itself. It’s plastic, light, and oddly laid out. Epson has swapped the usual positions of the volume rocker and channel (in this case, brightness) controls compared to every other remote I own, and even after months of testing, I still hit the wrong one first time. It’s a small gripe. But at this price, small details like that matter.

Features: everything automatic

Spend five minutes with the EF-72 and you realise Epson hasn’t treated this like a “design-first, specs-later” experiment. It’s a fully fledged 4K Pro-UHD projector that just happens to look like it belongs next to a sofa.

Although it’s worth noting that Epson describes it as 4K, but that resolution is achieved via pixel shifting rather than native 4K.

The headline numbers are strong: 1000 lumens of brightness, HDR10 support and Epson’s RGB LED 3LCD engine. In practice, that means more accurate colour without the rainbow artefacts that can creep into some single-chip DLP rivals. That said, some rivals go both brighter and darker, offering punchier highlights and deeper blacks if absolute performance is your priority.

I tested it across a 90in–110in image on a plain white wall, watching Only Murders in the Building, Fallout, the final season of Stranger Things, Eden and Mickey 17. It consistently delivered rich tones and solid detail. Reds look properly red. Greens don’t drift into neon territory. Darker shows like Fallout hold together well, though this isn’t a black-level monster.

There’s also wall colour correction if you don’t have the budget or space for a dedicated projector screen. It works really well, and it’s fast and automatic, subtly adjusting the image to compensate for off-white or slightly tinted walls without you diving into menus.

Google TV is built in, and that’s great. No HDMI dongles dangling off the back. No extra remotes cluttering the table. You sign in once and your apps, watchlists and recommendations follow you. It has pretty much every streaming and catch-up service you’d expect – with one notable omission: no BBC iPlayer, at least not yet. For UK users, that’s very frustrating.

Then there’s the audio. “Sound by Bose” could easily have been a logo slapped on the box, and while dialogue is clear and it fills a medium-sized room, the 10W system lacks real oomph. Explosions don’t quite hit with the weight they should, and the soundstage feels fairly local rather than immersive. For everyday viewing, it’s fine. For blockbuster nights, you’ll probably want external speakers. Thankfully, Bluetooth support makes that easy.

Add ALLM for gaming, USB-C connectivity and that clever auto-setup suite, and the EF-72 feels very well equipped.

Interface: Google TV is great

Projectors used to demand patience. Menus reminiscent of Ceefax (if they did have menus at all). Sluggish input. Fiddly keystone grids. The EF-72 largely avoids that era.

Setup was painless. I placed it on a side table, aimed it loosely at a wall, and within seconds auto focus and keystone correction had squared everything up. I deliberately nudged it off-axis a few times during testing, just to see if it would panic. It didn’t. It quickly corrected itself each time.

Google TV is doing most of the heavy lifting here, and that’s no bad thing. The interface is clean, content-led and responsive. Scrolling feels smooth, app switching is quick, and search actually pulls results from across services rather than forcing you to hop between them. Once signed in, recommendations start to feel genuinely tailored to my tastes.

Casting from a phone worked reliably in my testing, and voice search is handy when you can’t remember which platform a show lives on. Profiles keep viewing histories separate, which saves arguments.

Performance: Accurate colours

This is where lifestyle projectors often get found out. They look good on a shelf, then disappoint once the lights dim. The EF-72 mostly sidesteps that fate.

In a darkened room, the image is sharp and confident. Detail holds up well at around 100in, and HDR content shows decent highlight control without blowing out brighter scenes. Black levels won’t rival a dedicated OLED TV, they tend to look a little flat, but they’re more than respectable for a projector in this class.

Motion handling is solid, too. Fast action scenes stay coherent, and sports viewing feels smooth. With ALLM engaged, gaming performance is responsive enough for console sessions. I ran a few hours playing Fortnite on Xbox Series S and didn’t notice frustrating lag, which is about as much as most people will ask from a projector like this.

Daytime performance is naturally more challenging. With curtains drawn or blinds half-closed, it’s absolutely usable. In full daylight, you’ll lose punch – that’s just physics.

Audio performance deserves another nod, even with its limits. For everyday TV and streaming, it’s convenient and clear. Just don’t expect cinematic rumble without help.

Epson Lifestudio Projector EF-72 review verdict

The EF-72 isn’t built for the hardcore home cinema purist who measures black levels for sport. It’s built for real homes, real rooms and people who want flexibility.

After several months of shifting it between spaces, using it as a casual TV substitute, hosting impromptu movie nights and even projecting onto the ceiling for late-night viewing, it’s clear this projector fits around you rather than demanding a dedicated setup. That’s its biggest strength.

It looks genuinely stylish. It’s easy to move, even though you still need a plug socket. The smart platform is mature and easy to live with (aside from the missing BBC iPlayer). And the automatic setup and wall colour correction features mean you spend more time watching and less time adjusting.

Yes, some rivals go darker. Yes, the 10W audio could do with more punch and immersion. And yes, the remote could feel more special.

But if what you want is a projector that blends into your décor, replaces a TV in many scenarios and doesn’t require a degree in AV engineering, the EF-72 makes a compelling case.

Epson Lifestudio Projector EF-72 Tech Specs

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