Looking to make a good impression? Our latest roundup of data projectors for the boardroom includes projectors with wired and wireless networking, memory card slots, and even built-in browsers.It has been exactly 12 months since we last took a look at projectors. We have been keenly watching the pricing and competition in the marketplace since that time. The momentum seems to currently be drawn from the personal or home market, be it for small businesses needing a portable or ultraportable projector for on-the-road presentations, or even entry-level home users, where the consumers are taking the increasingly cheaper data projectors to watch DVDs and HDTV and get that big-picture feeling in their lounge rooms. All this recent activity can only be good for corporate buyers; the more product the vendors move, the cheaper they become across the whole range.
A relatively well-featured mini data projector can now be had for around AU$3000, whereas even a year ago a similar unit would have cost around $7000. However in this review we took a look at larger projectors for use in a corporate boardroom setting.
The major players are still using the traditional LCD panel projection technology, however there are more DLP (digital light processing) units coming onto the market now. There are now two other lesser-known emerging technologies: LCOS and D-ILA.
What’s the difference?
LCOS is short for Liquid Crystal on Silicon. The companies behind LCOS claim that this technique further reduces the “screen door” pixellation effect you often see with LCD projectors (and to a lesser extent with DLP).
LCD projectors use liquid crystals—one for each pixel—to allow or block light travelling through a piece of glass on which the crystals are mounted. DLP projectors use tiny mirrors for each pixel that move to either reflect or not reflect the light. LCOS is a hybrid of both these techniques, which uses liquid crystals mounted on a mirrored surface.
D-ILA is another form of LCOS and stands for Digital Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier and is currently being spruiked by JVC. JVC claims D-ILA produces a higher brightness and contrast ratio.
This really benefits those businesses that use a lot of full motion video and/or multimedia within their presentations. However, for the majority of business users out there the difference could be considered negligible with other features to be considered over the type of projection technology used. If you wanted a hybrid projector that would do well with both data and video presentations then DLP, LCOS, or D-ILA would be the way to go. However, for most boardroom or road warrior data presentations, LCD is still perfectly viable.
Another movement besides the pricing has been in the overall rated ANSI lumen output (Lamp Brightness) and contrast ratios. Most entry-level data projectors start at around the 1000-lumens mark now whereas a short time ago that level was around the 600 to 800 lumens. The majority of the larger projectors now are around 2500 lumens or higher. Compare this to our review 12 months ago, when only two projectors reached 2000 lumens, and the majority were less than 1300 lumens.
Resolution is also a critical consideration. Many portable projectors currently—particularly those under $3000—are SVGA (800 x 600) native resolution. While this may be acceptable for video playback, if you are seriously considering buying a projector for data projection then you need to ensure that you have a XGA (1024 x 768) unit. Many SVGA units are advertised as being XGA “capable” however this is a relatively rough-and-ready software interpolation that ends up making the image looked distorted. So ensure you look at a minimum of true XGA resolution data projectors before investing.
On to the reviews. The vendors who submitted products for this review were BenQ, Canon, Epson, Hitachi, HP, InFocus, JVC, NEC, Panasonic, and Sony.
Dear Sir,
Just to clarify the review of the XL30U. Contrast ratio is actually 500:1 and the product has a RRP of $8490.
Could we please have this amended.
Mitsubishi Electric
Claudio Cardile