Hello, friends and fans!
Today I’ll be doing a review of the Sinotec SJ86C projector. I’ve owned two of these devices, and they make a bit of a story as you will see.
To sum up:
This is a great little projector – if you only need it to work for about two months. The bulb may be rated at 24000+ hours – more than 5 years of continuous watching – but it’s not the bulb that’s the flaw in these things, it’s the internal LCD panel that burns and turns opaque from the heat of the bulb – and it does so long before the lifespan of the bulb even gets started! Obviously the bulb burns too hot – or the fans (there are 3 of them) aren’t effective! The burned LCD panel can’t be replaced as spare parts are not available in South Africa, and on both occasions, salespeople did not inform us of these flaws. Conclusion: Avoid it like COVID-19, DO NOT BUY!
I hope this article serves as a warning to anyone looking to buy a projector, even if they see these very tempting items going for a very reasonable low price. Honestly, don’t do it – it’s not worth it! Let me explain why.
I bought the first Sinotec SJ86C in January 2019 at Game for around R3400. It looked very nice, had a cool black and white case and came loaded with great features and connectivity. The bulb life (rated at over 24000 hours) also stood out for me, as I hate things die on me and having to buy the same old appliances over and over again every five years or so. I like quality for my budget, and who doesn’t?
And what a nice machine this was – the picture was large and crystal clear! The remote and menu were easy to figure out and get accustomed to. We quickly grew used to enjoying our favorite movies and series on it. Unfortunately, there was trouble in the offing. It’s hard to believe just how much.
Let me just digress here for a moment, to mention that I’m not a complete noob when it comes to projectors. I’ve been using them at work for training purposes since 2003, and I’ve used a variety of different makes over the years. This however, was the first Sinotec unit I’d ever encountered. We liked the look of the device, and the colors of the case (black and white) evoked the Star Wars look we enjoyed at the time for our media room, which was decorated with Star Wars and other sci-fi memorabilia. Even the shelf it stood on, and the case next to it for the hard drives containing our movies and series were painted to match.
The manual for the device came in very poor English with very little actual useful information in there about using the projector. There was for instance, nothing at all about the fact that the unit had an air/dust filter at all, let alone that it might need to be checked from time to time. There was also nothing in the manual (or on the Sinotec website) about duration of usage or cooling off periods, etc.
The first sign of trouble came at 3 months, when we noticed a slightly yellow spot in the left middle of the display – which at first was only visible when a white background was being displayed. In fact, at first we thought we were imagining it, so we put it out of our minds a while longer – after all, it wasn’t easily visible just then. Time passed, and by about month 6, the yellow spot had turned into a larger ugly dark brown patch – and it was spreading fast! Was the lens dirty? No – I cleaned it. Was it dirty inside the machine, we wondered? Well, I couldn’t open it due to the warranty and all, so that was off the table.
It was while I had the device off its stand and on a table, that I noticed there appeared to be a sort of air filtration panel that slides out at the front. I took the panel out – and nearly fainted! The cloth filter was completely clogged up with dust and fibers! It looked like the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag! Firstly, there was no mention of the thing having an air filter at all – and secondly, I’d never noticed on on any of the other projectors I’d used before or since!
Thirdly – and most troubling of all, where the hell had all that dust come from? I had no idea! There was way too much dust and crap in there for it to have come just from being in our lounge! Had we been given a demonstration unit? Or had it been an item returned by another customer that got mixed up with new stock? Who the hell knows?
Anyway, I gave it a thorough cleaning – but alas, to no avail! The brown patch did not go away – and it appeared to be spreading daily – the entire left center half of the display was marred by it!
A repair workshop I checked it into wrote the thing off – the film on the internal LCD panel had permanently discolored due to overheating – and while it still worked, this rendered half the image unwatchable! The solution was to replace the panel, but I waited almost three more months for them to get back to me with the news that they couldn’t source parts for the thing in South Africa! This meant basically, that Game had sold us what is called a “gray import” – something that has zero after sales support or service from the manufacturer.
By now it was just over a year since we’d bought the projector – January 2020 – and it was too late to return it to Game under warranty. Fortunately I’d put this unit on my household contents insurance, and was able to claim for the loss. In the meantime – perhaps out of temporary insanity and desperation of having something more user-friendly to watch our movies and series on, I went back to Game and bought… you guessed it… another one.
Another… exact… same… model…Sinotec SJ86C.
In fairness to me, this complete lapse in judgement occurred because I had an account at Game, didn’t have oodles of cash to spare – and for some weird reason, the Sinotec SJ86C was still the only make and model projector available there. “It must be a good one,” I thought. I double-checked with the salesman. “No, there’ve been no comebacks or problems with this model” he reassured me once more, shrugging as I related my experience with the first projector. “Yeah, right.” I think, looking back.
This second new projector, while still listed as the same model and appearance, seemed to be a bit different internally than the previous one, because it behaved slightly differently to the first. For one thing, the fan didn’t run for five minutes after turning the thing off, it went off almost as soon as the machine turned off. It seemed quicker and smoother. Perhaps Sinotec had made some improvements on the model in the meantime? Sadly, no, as we were to discover – at least not of the important stuff.
We checked the dust filter immediately at unpacking – it was perfectly clean! Thereafter, my wife Kay and I acted like a pair of paranoiacs, checking the damn air filter of the new unit once a day, and then once a week, and then once every two weeks. It stayed clean. No yellowing at all. We settled back for a future in which we enjoyed trouble-free viewing of our movies and series.
Unfortunately, it was not to last. In March – just almost 3 months into the new unit – you guessed it, a yellow spot made its appearance on the screen – in the same damn spot! And no, the air filter remained perfectly clear, so that wasn’t it either! It was a tragic wake-up call!
Oh no, what had we done?!
By that time, South Africa was deep in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and with the lockdown madness, getting to Game at the Bridge would be something close to impossible, and so we resolved to take it in to Game as soon as it was possible. In the meantime, we nursed the projector by watching for hour-long periods, then turning it off at coffee breaks for about half an hour each time.
Unfortunately, this didn’t even slow down the spread of the yellow patch! This second machine had never had a blocked air filter at all – so clearly the air filter thing hadn’t been the source of the first projector’s problem to begin with! In all the time I’d worked with media projectors – where I left them running for practically an entire work day in a teaching classroom environment, I’d never seen anything at all like this!
By then, I didn’t care anymore – I’d had enough!
In mid-July 2020 things had settled down some COVID-wise, and so I stuffed the offending thing back into its box and took it to Game’s customer service counter. They booked it in and sent it away for evaluation, which they said should take 20 days. I waited for Game to get back to me – and in the meantime, we did all our movie-watching on a laptop – until mid-August, 32 days after my previous visit, when I gave up waiting and went back to Game to find out what the hold-up was.
Their technicians must’ve reached the same conclusion about repairing it, because the customer service agent at the counter offered me a replacement unit. We checked our options – and all they had available was… you guessed it – still the Sinotec SJ86C! I’m sure glad I wasn’t the buyer for Game who got them stuck with that shit-ton of defective merchandise!
My wife and I looked at each other meaningfully first.
“Oh hell no!” we chorused together.
To cut a long story short, Game refunded me – with surprisingly little poking or prodding, and for a week or two afterwards, we still watched everything on a laptop screen. It was honestly not as bad as – well, not watching anything at all. But it still sucked flaccid donkey balls. Later, instead of buying yet another Sinotec SJ86C projector, we decided to improvise and went another route. You can read about our solution here. Believe it or not, we’re very happy with our solution and years later, are still using that instead.
My final verdict on the worth of the Sinotec SJ86C is this: It seems like a lovely projector with great features – but if you want something that will last you more than three months before the LCD panel starts packing up, don’t bother! In fact, just don’t bother at all. If that’s the only projector they sell at Game, rather buy elsewhere – BUT AGAIN, DO NOT BUY A SINOTEC SJ86C PROJECTOR!
The bulb may be rated at 24000+ hours – more than 5 years of continuous watching (which was a selling point used in advertising it) – but it’s not the bulb that’s the flaw in these things, it’s the internal LCD panel that burns from the heat of the bulb – and it does so long before the lifespan of the bulb even gets started! Obviously the bulb burns too hot – or the fans (there are 3 of them) aren’t effective!
This device – or to be more accurate – these devices (plural), lasted 3 months of normal use each before the fault became apparent. This is not just a fluke, not some wild coincidence – this is TWO supposedly identical units that demonstrated the same fault over the same time period – which tells me that Sinotec doesn’t test their products properly, or that they know of the fault and keep selling these defective things anyway.
People buy these things – as I did, twice – lured by the lower price and the expectation that, well, “the bulb is rated at around 24000 hours” so it’s worth it – only to have the thing fail a few months in. It happened to me twice in two cases – it’s a solid bet that it will happen to anyone else who buys one of these models too. Let’s just say that considering this experience, I wouldn’t take a chance on another Sinotec projector, even a higher-end model, because who’s to say they wouldn’t be as flawed? Be warned.
Again; DO NOT BUY A SINOTEC SJ86C PROJECTOR!
To close, I think I’d like to add a note about the salespeople I encountered at Game. Many salespeople these days (and not just at Game), it also has to be said, can tell one even less about the products they’re selling than the broken-English manuals that come with their goods.
The ones at Game (or that branch in particular) – in my humble opinion – don’t seem to have a clue about which appliance on their floor is better than the other, and can’t tell you anything more about the product than what’s printed on the box (which you could read for yourself), and they will probably lie to you straight-faced about not receiving any complaints about that particular product before.
To add to the matter of the quality of Game’s sales people, this has also continued to fall. Subsequent to this matter, in December 2022 we visited Game to look for an LCD monitor, and the salesman couldn’t have been more disinterested. The monitor in our price range which was on display on the shelf, was unplugged and not connected to a computer. It’s an display, FFS – how are you supposed to just buy a screen without seeing the quality of the image, or the color? I mean, that’s why they have a whole wall of TV screens running in the media department, so customers can see the image quality!
“What’s the display look like?” I asked, unwilling to buy a screen for R1,700 of which I haven’t seen even the picture quality – just based on his say-so! I mean, seriously!
“Just like that one over there.” He replied disinterestedly, pointing at a different make and model entirely, and no amount of asking, cajoling or prodding could seemingly convince him to just connect it to one of the computers on display beside it to demonstrate the picture quality of the product to a potential customer. Not even the thought of a sales commission was apparently enough.
“Congratulations, mate, you just lazed your way out of a sale!” I said, and we walked away. Not to spite him, or Game, or anyone – but to save myself the potential grief of buying another dud. Instead, we walked fifty meters further down the mall hallway and spent R400 more on top of that price somewhere else for something with better specs – which has given us no problems at all.
In my experience, Game’s salespeople are rock-bottom. When it comes to appliances, I won’t bother with them in future. Their customer service however was a good deal better – at least I was refunded without any argument, so kudos to them for that.
Conclusion:
After the year and a half taken up by this fiasco, I remain unconvinced that the two projectors I bought were the only two Sinotecs purchased at that branch of Game that had problems – or that the salesmen we spoke to did not either lie when asked about comebacks on that model, or kept this information to himself.
This is why, ever since, I do some independent research of my own before buying anything as expensive as an appliance – like reading up on reviews of the product or seller.
Sadly, at the time, there was not a single bad review of the SJ86C I could find online before I bought the first one (well, there IS now!). Feel free to share it! Please do, because Sinotec (and Game) clearly don’t seem to be bothered by the comebacks and returns of their defective product, and I loathe the idea that people will fall into the same trap I fell into – twice!
Like I said, when it comes to the Sinotec SJ86C – avoid it like the plague!
Because of all the trouble, disappointment and dashed hopes, the Sinotec SJ86C rates NO STARS on the Tinamometer.
Game, for at least demonstrating a willingness to give us an exchange and/or refund, but still continued to sell that abominable device anyway, scores a single star.
Cheers!
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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2020.
Exact same model bought from Game, the first one we took back within a week and you guessed it second one also developed a yellow brownish spot and now a burned lcd screen.
Thanks for your note! I’m sorry you didn’t see my article before you bought the first one! 🙂
I have the same problem to with this model
It’s a pity you didn’t see this review before you bought it… 🙁