Epson is still better known by most people for its line of printers and their very expensive ink cartridges. The company offers lots more than printers though including a full line of home theater projectors and projectors for the classroom.

Epson has announced new projectors for the home theater enthusiast including the PowerLite Home Cinema 8100 and the 8500 UB. The 8100 has a dynamic contrast ratio of up to 36,000:1 and a brightness of 1800 lumens. It will sell for $1599 starting in late-October.

Epson has a new addition to its Endeavor lineup of desktop PCs with the all new AY300-V. You can get this new desktop PC in two configurations: With a Celeron 430 CPU and 1GB RAM or a Core 2 Duo E7500 CPU and 2GB RAM.

The specs are the same for both models, a 160GB HDD, along with an optional DVD drive or DVD Super Multi and your choice of Windows XP Pro or Vista Business as the OS. The Celeron model will cost you $443, while the Core 2 Duo option will cost you $601.

Epson has released the 610 and the 1100 as part of its WorkForce line. Both new printers feature Wi-Fi, wired networking and PC Fax capabilities and is also recyclable, while meeting ENERGY STAR standards. The all-in-one WorkForce 610 features a 2.5-inch LCD tilt screen and an automatic document feeder that supports maximum print speeds of up to 38 pages per minute in greyscale and color. Laser-quality is 15 ppm for black content or 9.3 ppm for color.

The WorkForce 1100 will provide up to 30 ppm in greyscale and 17 ppm in color, with laser-quality speeds of 13 ppm in greyscale and 5.5 ppm in color. The 1100 is designed to work with both standard-size documents and index cards, brochures and other paper sizes.

Epson is claiming another first with this world’s smallest LCD panel and they’ve started volume production of these tiny guys. The XGA HTPS-TFT Liquid Crystal Panel was specially designed for 3LCD data projectors and are up to 23% smaller in size than its predecessor, using a 0.55″ display panel.

The tiny panel can display a natural XGA (1,024 x 768) resolution, targeting projectors which can display up to 2600 ANSI lumens. Epson isn’t resting easy with this achievement though. They even have plans to push the envelope to create higher resolutions for the panels.

The Epson Endeavor NP11-V is an energy efficient nettop that only requires 40Watts of power. Sure, it looks like the Wii turned into a PC, but we’re assuming that you like your devices in stark raving white so bright that it burns your iris. How about a dash of color Epson?

This mini computer is powered by an Intel Atom 230 CPU with a standard SIS672 or SIS968 chipset, 1GB RAM and a 160GB HDD. If you love bland design, you can buy the Endeavor NP11-V for about 195 Euro or $272.

One of the big problems with printers today isn’t that they print too slowly or that they can’t print images. The big problem is the cost of the printer and ink. Often you can replace your whole printer for the price you pay for new ink cartridges alone. I once owned a printer that cost about $50 to replace the ink tanks.

Epson has announced a new line of all-in-one printers called the NX series that offers nice features at low prices. All of the printers will copy, scan, and print. The line all use Epson DURABrite inks as well. The line includes the NX115, NX215, NX415, and NX515 models.

There have been a few occasions when I was getting email on my iPhone that I wanted to print the document. You can synchronize the document and then print it from your computer, but directly printing a doc from the iPhone would be much easier and add some value to an Epson printer.

Epson has announced a new application for the iPhone and iPod touch that allows users to print documents, emails, and even images directly to an Epson printer from their phones. The app is called the EuroSmartz Print & Share App.

It’s been a while since Epson launched an HTIB. About two years. So it’s about time for this. Today, they intro’d their next-generation Ensemble HD Home Cinema. It’s updated to include the PowerLite Home Cinema 6100 or Home Cinema 6500 UB.

Both will include a motorized 100-inch screen, surround sound, an AV controller with built-in DVD player, universal remote and nearly all components needed to install. What’s interesting is that there is no Blu-ray player, which is a no brainer. What were they thinking?

When I was in school, we didn’t have projectors in the classes. If we needed to see something projected on a screen we had a filmstrip device or one of those transparency things that showed a clear piece of paper on the screen and put out about a billion BTUs of heat. We also had to walk to school up hill (both ways) in the snow with 75 pounds of books in our backpacks without a cell phone or MP3 player, life was hard.

My son’s second grade class has a projector connected to a computer that is used for showing things to the entire class at once. Epson has announced a new projector aimed at classroom use called the 410W, which is the follow-up to its 400W projector. The 410W is a short throw projector for smaller rooms.

Epson isn’t just about printers, though we tend to associate the name with printers. They make lots of other stuff too. Epson Japan has announced it’s latest Business to Business laptop dubbed the Endeavor NA802.

The 13.3 inch WXGA notebook comes packed with a Core 2 Duo P8400 processor, an nVidia GeForce 9600M GT with 256MB of VRAM, 1GB to 4GB of RAM, and a wide range of 5400 or 7200rpm HDDs or a 128GB (MLC) SSD drive. The new Endeavor NA802 also features a WiFiLink 5300AGN module with Windows Vista or XP Pro OS. No word on pricing or availability.

Epson just announced two LCD photo viewers. The P-6000 and P-7000. They look pretty decent with 80GB and 160GB respectively, with RAW support, a 35% faster image download speed, 640×480 resolution, and 94% reproduction of the Adobe RB color range.

The price is where they lose you, at $599 and $799. I’m not sure who they are targeting with these other then professional photographers and the like who need to peruse massive amounts of images. Seems pretty expensive for the rest of us ordinary folk.

The Epson PictureMate PM270 4R portable photo printer is a nice compact photo printer. It comes complete with a carry handle and folds into a box when not in use. The quality is supposed to be very nice. It’s integrated with Epson Claria PhotoEnhance, as well as an ‘automatic scene correction function’ that optimizes skin tones, and color casts and exposure levels to produce photos as close to perfection as it’s possible to get.

You can also print without being directly connected to a PC. The LCD screen is a tiltable 3.6″. It even has a Bluetooth toggle to print photos from your cell or any other Bluetooth enabled device. The PictureMate uses a single ink cartridge which will be a blessing to many people. All in all it looks like a pretty convenient photo printer.

I’ve never been a big fan of the Peanuts gang myself, but apparently Epson is betting you are if this Laptop covered in Peanuts characters is any indication. Previously they offered us some Hello Kitty Laptops, so I guess they see the potential to branch out to other characters.

Make no mistake, this is not just a laptop with cartoon characters slapped on the case. It also comes loaded with Peanuts screensavers and wallpapers, icons and mouse pointers. The laptop itself features a 15 inch screen, a 1.73mhz Celeron processor, 1GB of ram, an 80GB hard drive, 4 USB ports, a CD burner / DVD drive, and it comes with Vista Home Premium. Obviously not all that awesome these days, but to a Snoopy lover, it just might be worth the outrageous price of $2,799.

Epson is bringing a new high definition projector to its growing line. This new model is known as the PowerLite Home Cinema 720, priced at around $1,300.

Epson says the PowerLite 720 is capable of projecting HD quality images at up to 120 inches. It features 3LCD technology to help it accomplish this as well as a three-chip optical engine. The 720 offers users up to 1,600 ANSI lumens, 10-bit color processing and up to 10,000:1 contrast ratio.

Epson unveiled its newest high end projector targeted towards HD lovers. The Epson PowerLite Pro Cinema 1080 UB will be available in December for an as yet unspecified price.

The Pro Cinema 1080 UB delivers 1080p resolution and contrast ratios measuring up to 50,000:1. It’s one of a handful of projectors carrying the latest 3LCD optical engine that uses 12-bit video processing and a new polarizing light filter to deliver better blacks and contrast ratios. Brightness levels can reach 1,600 ANSI lumens and two HDMI 1.3 inputs provide connectivity for high definition video formats.