The Big Picture
WHAT A difference a year makes. Just 12 months ago, I was thinking about UST projectors in the living room, but saw evidence that TVS would compete in the 100-inch size category. Now it’s a year later, and 100-inch TVS are multiplying like rabbits while prices continue to drop. That’s not to say that UST projectors haven’t seen significant progress from new model releases, but what I find fascinating is how giant screen TV prices quickly became competitive with the cost of a UST projector.
Naturally, this resulted in a dimming of my enthusiasm for the UST category, reinforced by the real world experience of comparing a 98" TCL to various USTS. The fact is with projectors you always need to dim the lights to get a picture with perceived contrast that is somewhat equivalent to a TV.
Still, the real surprise of 2024 came from the projection category. It’s the new breed of compact cube-shaped lifestyle projectors that utilize LED or laser light sources including triple-laser RGB for the ultimate in color rendition.
Examples of this fresh crop of projectors tend to forego the complex lens mechanisms used in dedicated home theater projectors, and they depend on DLP projection technology and achieve 4K with pixel-shift, as opposed to the specialized home theater models that are native 4K and use a variant of liquid crystal on silicon technology. The home theater projector do have higher contrast and greater flexibility in positioning, but at considerably higher cost. In this issue, you will find our projector buying guide that covers all three of these categories, and is based on hands-on experiences with all the included projectors.