For budget-minded home theater fans, the Vankyo Performance V700G Pro is a bright spot—literally. The V700G Pro is a near relative of, but a clear step up from, the Vankyo Performance V700W, which is no longer available, but was our top pick among single-chip LCD projectors when we reviewed it. The V700G Pro shares many of the same strengths, most notably strong brightness and image quality, while adding built-in Google TV streaming and better HDR10 support than some models that cost significantly more. At $429.99 list, it's pricey for a single-LCD-chip model, but it's also the first to earn our Editors' Choice for a low-cost home entertainment projector.

Design and Setup: White Light, One Chip, No Rainbows

The V700G Pro shares the same basic design as most other Vankyo models we've reviewed. It's built around a single LCD paired with a white LED light source, and compared with single-chip DLP projectors, it avoids rainbow artifacts—the red/green/blue flashes that can result from cycling through the three primary colors one at a time. Instead, the LCD's 5,760-by-1,080 matrix, with a red, green, or blue filter on each cell, delivers all three primary colors to the screen at once, at a resolution of 1,920 (5,760 divided by 3) by 1,080 red/green/blue pixels.

Best described as an oversized mini projector, the V700G Pro weighs 5.3 pounds and measures 4 by 11.9 by 9.3 inches (HWD), giving it a size and shape more typical of a traditional tabletop model. I found the physical setup to be straightforward. You connect the power cord and, optionally, connect a video source to the HDMI port or the USB Type-A port. Then, you point the lens at whatever you're using as a screen, and let the projector handle focus and image geometry automatically.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

One minor setup issue is that the lens has zero offset, so when the projector is pointing straight ahead, the image's vertical midline is directly in front of the lens's center. That means you either have to position the projector fairly high off the ground or tilt it up to avoid part of the image falling on the floor. For my formal tests, I chose the first approach to avoid making digital adjustments that would affect brightness or introduce artifacts. However, for real-world viewing, this setup would require sitting to the side of the projector, since it would block part of the picture if you were sitting behind it.

For informal tests in my family room, I chose the second approach. When I set the projector on a coffee table, however, the image was too low on the wall for comfortable viewing, even with the front foot's screw adjustment set for the maximum upward tilt. Sliding a book under the front foot solved the problem, and the auto keystone correction squared off the image nicely. Note that digital adjustments also include automatic fit-to-screen, as well as digital zoom and automatic obstacle avoidance.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

Connectivity and Audio: Both on the Mark

In addition to the HDMI and USB ports on the back panel, connection options include Wi-Fi for streaming via your home network using the built-in Google TV feature. You can also mirror your phone or tablet via Google Cast, which requires you to be connected to the same network as the projector.

In our tests, the onboard Dolby audio and dual 8-watt speakers delivered what most people will consider usable sound quality at high enough volume to fill a medium-sized family room. For better audio quality or higher volume, you can connect an external sound system via Bluetooth or the 3.5mm audio out port.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

One issue the V700G Pro shares with most other single-LCD-chip models is that it's not fully dustproof. As is common for the breed, the projector comes with a cleaning kit (a cleaning cloth and swabs on sticks), which, in combination with distilled water or isopropyl alcohol (not included), will let you clean the LCD as needed. Cleaning is fairly simple if you need to do it. If you're not fully comfortable with the idea, you might want to take a look at Vankyo's instructional video for cleaning before buying the projector, to see what's involved.

Image Quality: Surprisingly Spiffy for the Price

The V700G Pro's menu offers five picture modes. Only one of the modes—Custom—offers any settings options, and I quickly discovered in my preliminary SDR testing that the only setting that needed changing isn't on the list. All the picture modes showed enough loss of shadow detail to be noticeable, and to have any chance of fixing the problem, you'd need a traditional brightness setting to adjust the black level. With no way to improve shadow detail, even in Custom mode, I chose Movie mode for my viewing tests because it offered the best color accuracy.

Despite the shadow detail issue, the projector performed well overall for viewing SDR content in a dark room. It delivered solid contrast, nicely saturated color in brightly lit scenes, and a satisfyingly dark black in dark scenes. Color accuracy was on the mark; I didn't see any obviously off-target hues in our standard test clips or during informal testing. It also helps that, despite the projector dropping enough shadow detail for it to be evident in both dark scenes and the dark areas in brighter scenes, I could still make out what was going on, even in the darkest scenes among our test clips.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

In my informal tests streaming from Apple+, the V700G Pro reported an HDR connection. But it didn't do the same for 4K HDR movies on disc, and the player reported the connection as 1080p SDR in those cases. Even so, the image on the screen for HDR movies on disc offered essentially the same strengths as with SDR, plus vastly improved shadow detail, as you would expect from HDR. Based on these tests, full HDR support seems limited to streaming, but the V700G Pro appears to offer some level of HDR compatibility via the HDMI port, even without full HDR support.

This isn't as surprising as it may seem. It's increasingly common for newer projectors and TVs with HDMI 1.4 ports to offer workarounds to the limitations of the HDMI 1.4 spec, which doesn't support HDR. The result in those cases gives you most of the benefits of HDR for viewing, even when the connection is technically SDR. I wasn't able to get Vankyo to confirm whether this is it right explanation for what I saw in testing, but it likely is. More important, if you notice your hardware is reporting SDR for HDR input with the V700G Pro when using the HDMI input, you need to know it's not an issue to waste time trying to fix.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

Note that the spec sheet claims support for "red and blue 3D." That's actually an alternate pronunciation of "no 3D support" as projector 3D is generally defined. Literally any color display —and even printed pages—can support 3D that uses red and blue (or red and cyan) glasses. That's not what's usually meant by 3D support.

Image brightness in my tests using Vankyo's Movie mode was close to what I expect from a 400 ANSI lumen rating. Using the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendations, that would be bright enough for a roughly 80-to-105-inch-diagonal 16:9 image on a 1.0-gain screen in a dark room. In my tests, using my preferred settings, the V700G Pro lit up my 90-inch screen with the lights off without a problem. It also delivered a suitably bright image on an 80-inch screen in a family room at night with lights on, and was even watchable at that size, though a little washed out, during the day on an overcast day.

(Credit: M. David Stone)

Vankyo also bundles the V700G Pro with a 120-inch screen, but it is barely worth mentioning. It would be a reasonable size for the rated brightness, but with the settings I used for best image quality, it's too large to give you an appropriately bright image even in a dark room. It also lacks a frame, so setting it up would be similar to setting up a bedsheet as a screen.

The input lag is suitable for strictly casual gaming. I measured it, using my Bodnar 4K Lag Tester, at 52.3 milliseconds for 1080p/60Hz input.