Featured Projection Reviews

A business projector is a different animal than a home theater one. What you are looking for is a projector that is versatile, portable, and bright. While InFocus IN3108 doesn't offer the lowest price, you are getting a lot of features for your money. For those looking for a flexible projector that can be controlled and fed a signal via USB over great distances or just a projector they can break down in 13 seconds, the IN3108 has what you need.

While it may be hard for some enthusiasts to get excited about a projection screen, the fact is that they can play a huge part in making (or breaking) your viewing experience. The Da-Lite Tensioned Cosmopolitan Electrol screen was quiet, wrinkle and blemish free, and frankly a breeze to set up. With the number of options at your fingers and Da-Lite's ability to provide custom screens in short order, they are a company that we have no problems recommending.

Samsung showed up at the 2009 CEDIA Expo with it's new SP-A600 DLP home theater projector - a product that aims at taking its higher end SP-A800 home theater projector and bringing some of that functionality to the masses. It's a good move, considering the company's last two home theater projectors left a price gap of $8000 between the two models. With an expected retail price of just $1,795, the new SP-A600 might just take Samsung into the "mass-market" playing field.

After the marathon installation of our projector lift (another story, for another day), we waited with anticipation as to what SI Screens had to offer. Prepped for a full night of demolition and construction, we were pleasantly surprised soon after the TPM80 electric drop down screen arrived. The mounting system that was included made the job extremely easy, and efficient; therefore it was no time at all before we were watching a very exciting PowerPoint presentation on our new electric screen.

Hitachi's CP-X2510 projector is an excellent value and a great performer. With a street price under $700 this is a go-to model for anyone not requiring DVI or HDMI connectivity. It's an incredible bargain given its featurs and quality. It is bright, crisp and has the flexibility to be used in a myriad of situations. The Keystoning capability and color controls means that power users will be able to successfully dial it in for presentation use with little difficulty. The business/classroom and house of worship market has a barrage of LCD projectors to choose from, the key is finding the best solution for your needs. Removing the CP-X2510 projector from the box did not reveal much difference from the typical business-class projector. I was interested to see if some of the latest advances in the residential market had been translated to the corporate side. It turns out the business projector market has its own surprises.

Projectors have gone through several iterations in the time I've been around. From old, clunky CRT systems to DLP and LCD systems, projectors have gotten brighter, smaller and more feature-rich. But with the introduction of the BenQ Joybee GP1, LED lighting is now taking front projectors where they have never been. With LED lighting, even a DLP projector can be smaller, lighter and more versatile than its UHP or similarly lighted counterparts. The projector is literally smaller than a stack of CDs, smaller than a Mac Mini, and smaller than my outstretched hand. Yet this incredibly tiny projector puts out 100 lumens from its single LED lamp, making it bright enough to light up an 80 inch screen in a darkened room.

It's always surprising to me to see new projectors hit the market with better and better performance and less and less compromise - and at prices often identical to, or even lower than, just a year prior. It's like going out and buying a house with an extra 500 square feet and better upgrades than your own for 20% less than you paid a year ago. Come to think of it, just about anyone can do that right now. In either case, projectors like the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 6500UB has more features, bulb life, and overall image quality than its predecessor and seems to be a real market leader in terms of performance and value. If you thought the Home Cinema 1080UB projector was a deal, hold onto your DVDs and read on…

I like to stay current on my projectors, even when they just issue an incremental update. It was with much enthusiasm that I welcomed the Panasonic PT-FW300U in to my home to drive the back yard system for our 2009 Superbowl Party. With 3500 ANSI lumens, native widescreen (WXGA) resolution and vertical and horizontal lens shift, this projector was the perfect match for our needs. It also allowed us to see what Panasonic had been up to this past year and what improvements, if any, it had made to this line of business/consumer projectors.

Brand new for 2009 is the Anthem LCOS Projector model LTX 500 (also on hand was the lower priced 300 model - both just re-branded JVC projectors). The projector is full HD, THX ready and includes 2 HDMI inputs, as well as RGB rca inputs, an S-Video out and an RS-232 serial port for communications. Features a 50,000 to 1 contrast ratio. The MSRP is $7499.