Panasonic PT-AE1000U Projector Review - Image Quality-4

Click to enlarge. SO close

"Houston, we have a problem"!

Although you almost certainly haven't noticed it on the images above, the Panasonic PT-AE1000U projector sent to me for review, has a significant problem. First, a reminder, the review unit is a pre-production sample, which arrived here about two weeks before the projector starts shipping. I have already contacted Panasonic, and they will be sending a second unit before mid-December, so that I can dismiss what seems to be an obvious, yet significant problem specific to this particular projector. I will update the review after I have received the 2nd projector.

OK, enough suspense. This PT-AE1000U exhibited a fairly extreme color shift from the left side of the screen to the right. Now, it's not something easily detectable during casual watching, but, put up an all white frame, and bingo, its blatently visible. In this case, the color balance strongly favors cool (blues) on the left side of the screen, and is pretty neutral in the center, while shifting strongly to warm (redish tint) on the right side. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, the image to the right shows the white focus screen provided in the Panasonic projector. I will concede that the image is intentionally, slightly underexposed to make the color shift more visible, but, there is no question that it is there, and pretty significant. I should note that slight color shifts are not uncommon on LCD projectors, however, this was very extreme, and Panasonic believes the projector suffered shipping damage.