Four Great Home Theater Projectors Compared

WATCH: Introducing the 4-Way Comparison

Here is a brief video introducing this four-way home theater projector comparison. Throughout the subsequent pages, we will have a mix of public and subscriber-only videos comparing various combinations of the four projectors.

Please note that this video lists the price of the Epson Home Cinema 5030UB as $2599. Epson has officially lowered the price to $2499, as of mid-July 2014.

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Why these four projectors? Because they are competitors, and all happened to be here at the same time. While the Optoma is obviously more expensive than the others, it is the only one with a solid state LED light engine, rather than using lamps. We all know that makes any projector significantly more expensive, but there are advantages, the most notable one being that there are no lamps to replace. A user of 20-40 hours a week over 5+ years might need, anywhere from one to four replacement lamps, which could cost up to $1000 (for four lamps).

Two other home projectors are also mentioned in this comparison, one of which is mentioned a lot:  That projector is the Sony HW55ES because it is the “big brother” of the HW40ES, and while more expensive than 3 of these projectors it is still a competitor and fits in.   Epson’s Pro Cinema 4030, which is a small step down from the 5030UB (and 6030UB) also gets a mention for perspective.  There are a few other good projectors in the price range, but at least two of these, maybe three, would rank in my top four or five in the $2000 - $3500 price range.

What’s important when comparing?

Often the difference between a $1000 and a $3000 projector on a typical daytime scene, is insignificant, but on a very dark scene the term “a difference night and day” comes into play. The difference may not be Night and Day different, but when it comes to black levels, it could easily be the difference between dusk and night…

Dark Shadow Detail – Especially on darker scenes you want the darkest details to be visible or you end up with what might look like  larger, flat areas with no definition.  We did not find any dramatic differences in the handling of dark shadow detail among these four projectors, so we’ll hardly mention it, even though there are some differences.  That is, those differences aren’t great enough to be a factor.

Navigating this Comparison