Top projectors for any home theater
It’s possible — easy, in fact — to get a movie theater experience at home. With an inexpensive projector, you can watch movies and TV shows on a 100-inchplus screen. Paired with a soundbar or a receiver and speakers, you can get pictures and sound at least as good as your local cinema. Even better: no crowds, no noise, and you can pause the show at any time to use the restroom.
Modern home theater projectors have impressive picture quality, good brightness in ambient light, vivid colors and a quality contrast ratio — and you can pick one up starting at around $200. That means you can get a massive screen for a fraction of the cost of a big TV. And many models are portable, making them perfect for a backyard movie night.
Here, we offer three of CNET’s top picks, suited for different budgets and preferences. Our full list (which can be found at cnet.co/3LGVAuF) has a much broader array of choices for nearly all home theater aficionados.
BEST OVERALL HOME THEATER PROJECTOR: EPSON HOME CINEMA 5050UB
The Epson Home Cinema 5050UB is the best all-around home projector we’ve reviewed. Take an excellent contrast ratio, paired with impressive brightness and accurate color, all with better detail than what’s possible with a 1080p native resolution projector, and you’ve got all the pieces for a fantastic image.
This home entertainment projector is not cheap, but it offers a significant step up in image quality over other projectors on this list. It comes with HDMI 2.0, which allows you to do 4K60p. Extensive lens shift and a motorized zoom are the icing on the cake.
BEST 1080P PROJECTOR: BENQ HT2060
The BenQ HT2060 replaces our longtime favorite, the HT2050A. It has many similarities, including 1080p resolution, lens shift and great color accuracy. New to the HT2060 is a move to LEDs instead of a traditional lamp to create light. This has two main benefits. First, the LEDs should last the life of the projector. No more replacing lamps every few years. The second is impressive color accuracy and depth. The image is rich and lifelike.
The downsides are a reduction in brightness overall, though the HT2060 is still a bright projector. The other is cost. The HT2060 is about 25% more expensive. However, because you don’t need to replace the lamps, the cost of ownership over the projector’s lifetime is far lower compared to the HT2050A.
Head to head with its predecessor, the older projector still looks great, but overall the HT2060 is a little bit better. If your budget is around $1,000 and you have a light-controlled room, this is the projector to get.
BEST CHEAP PROJECTOR: AAXA P8
The tiny AAXA P8 performs far bigger than its size suggests. Although, in fairness, the hand-held size doesn’t suggest it could project an image at all. It looks more like a toy. But it’s reasonably bright, has a built-in speaker and only costs $250. Impressive.
It doesn’t have a battery, nor does it have any streaming apps. So you’ll need to take that into consideration. It does have an HDMI input and a USB connection, so you can connect a streaming stick and get all the streaming apps you could possibly want.
There are brighter options and betterlooking options, but for the price the P8 is hard to beat.