Epson Home Cinema 6500UB - Competitors-4

Epson Home Cinema 6500UB vs. Epson Home Cinema 6100

If you just want a classic 1080p projector with good black level performance, and a great price, go with the 6100. If you are an enthusiast, in persuit of the best possible image, and that usually means black level performance is a big consideration, then scrape up the extra dollars, because if you settle for the 6100, even if it fully pleases you, you are likely to spend a lot of time agonizing whether you should have dug deeper for the top of the line Epson.

Home Cinema 6500UB vs. InFocus IN83

Ahh, two excellent projectors, yet so different.

The InFocus IN83 has stunningly natural and accurate color fidelity, and film-like picture quality. The Epson can't match the overall color accuracy, notably the skin tones, not that the Epson isn't very good. It's just that the IN83 is superb in this regard. As to film-like, the Epson isn't quite there, instead, its picture tends to be more dynamic looking which I refer to as pop and wow.

A purist might jump at the IN83 for the above, but the InFocus IN83 is no match for the Epson 6500UB when it comes to black level performance, despite the InFocus using the Darkchip4, the "top of the line" DLP chip for home theater. As I pointed out in the IN83 review, the projector would have been even better still, if they had a dynamic iris, to improve the black levels.

When it comes to brightness, the IN83 is one of those light canons - it produces more than 1000 lumens in its best mode (with fixed iris partially open), allowing it to work with bigger screens than the 6500UB can handle. The IN83 does movie night on my 128 inch diagonal Firehawk G3 screen, without breaking a sweat, whereas, anything over 110 inch diagonal with the Epson is a stretch.

Both projectors are very bright in brightest mode, and can handle a fair amount of ambient light on large screens for sports and other HDTV/TV viewing.

The InFocus is more expensive, and as a classic DLP projector has no lens shift and a zoom lens with only a 1.2:1 range, for limited placement flexibility. It is definitely a ceiling mount projector, not practical to be shelf mounted.

If only the IN83 had improved black levels, then it would be the solid choice, but without that, the Epson is a competive projector for less money. There are plenty of trade-offs between these two. Both are excellent projectors but with different strengths and weaknesses.

Epson Home Cinema 6500UB vs. Panasonic PT-AE3000

As expected, this is the comparison most people are waiting for. And what an interesting comparison it is. Here's my take on how they stack up:

First, the Epson is about $300 more in the US. We realize that readers in other parts of the world sometimes pay a lot more for the Panasonic, and others pay even less, compared to the Epson. You'll have to take the pricing where you are into consideration

Black levels: The Panasonic is really very good, and the middle of the pack of the ultra high contrast projectors. It comes very close to the older 1080 UB, and almost as close to the slightly improved 6500UB. Overall, the Panasonic and Epson are close enough that the Epson's advantage is not a dramatic advantage, although it is definitely enough to sway many enthusiasts (including me).

Here are a few side by side images for considering black level performance. The Epson is on the left, the Panasonic on the right. While the Panasonic is extremely good at black levels, the Epson is better:

Note, to get the brightness roughly comparable, both projectors are in "best" mode, but the Epson is running at low lamp power, the Panasonic is set to full (high) lamp power.