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Buying Guide: The 5 Best Home Theater Projectors
You needn't be rich as a movie mogul to afford a home theater projector anymore. In the past few years, these projectors—destined for a family theater room—have plummeted in price while adding goodies like 3D capabilities (for both HD and standard definition content) and horizontal and vertical lens shift. Models with 1080p native resolution start at less than $1,000, and ones offering a wealth of features sell for not much more than that.
True home theater projectors—as opposed to home entertainment projectors, often found in family rooms or living rooms—are designed for use in a room primarily or solely used for screening video. This implies theater-dark conditions, so home theater projectors needn't be as bright as home entertainment models, which often have to struggle with ambient light. Some home theater projectors lack built-in audio, as their owners often prefer to yoke them to high-fidelity sound systems. Many can display HD content in both 2D and 3D. Image quality is often spectacular.
Just as a home theater can range from anything from a darkened room to a true custom-designed theater within a house, home theater projectors run the gamut from basic models costing less than a grand to professionally installed projectors that run well into 5 figures.
With an eye to the typical consumer, we don't test the highest-end models; our upper limit is about $4,000. For that money, you should get excellent 2D video image quality in a 1080p projector and perhaps 3D as well; a wide-ranging manual zoom; vertical and horizontal lens shift for greater flexibility in positioning the projector; and little or no rainbow effect (an issue that often plagues DLP-based projectors).
Budget home theater projectors typically make some compromises in features and/or performance, but should be more than adequate for all but the most discerning consumers. Some home theater projectors can double as home entertainment projectors suitable for use in a family room as well. These models tend to be brighter so as to stand up to a fair amount of ambient light—home entertainment projectors are becoming a viable alternative to HDTVs. They also pack built-in speakers to provide loud and reasonably good audio quality.
With home theater projector prices at an all-time low, and their features and image quality better than ever, it's a great time to indulge your cinematic dreams— provided you have, or can build, a suitable room. (It doesn't have to be fancy, just dark.) Below are our favorite recent models.
FEATURED IN THIS ROUNDUP
Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 3020e
$1,899 direct
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The Epson Home Cinema 3020e offers high-quality 2D and 3D, both as a home theater projector and as a home entertainment projector that can stand up to ambient light.
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Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 5020UBe
$2,899 list
The Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 5020UBe delivers high-quality 2D and 3D with a wide brightness range that makes it suitable for both theater-dark lighting and for a family room with ambient light.
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Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8350
$1,299 direct
Although it lacks the dark blacks of more expensive projectors, the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8350 offers more than acceptable image quality at a budget price.
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Sony VPL-HW30ES
$3,700 street
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The Sony VPL-HW30ES is an impressively capable 1080p projector for both 2D and 3D, but finding the best settings for it can take some time and effort.
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ViewSonic Pro9000
$2,999 list
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The ViewSonic Pro9000 home theater projector offers enough to justify its price, but lacks some features you might expect, including 3D support, frame interpolation, and conveniences like lens shift.
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