How to Choose a Projector: The Ultimate Buyer’s Guide

Today, more and more people are interested in projectors. Because of their lightweight, small size, and features, they often appear in our daily office and family entertainment places.

There are plenty of projectors available to buy on the market. To know which projector is the best to choose, you should pay attention to a lot of important factors.

We are here to help you to find the best projector according to your need and that will offer you a good service for a long time.

We’ll make it simple for you to know projectors, their benefits, and ultimately choose the perfect option with the help of our projector buying guide.

Let’s get started.

Here are 8 points to check when purchasing a projector

1. Types of projectors.

On the market, there is a wide range of projectors to choose from. It includes models for the office and on a budget, as well as high-end home theater projectors

You should focus on a specific type of projector depending on what you intend to use it for.

1. Business Projectors

Business projectors used in meetings and presentations are extremely bright, allowing them to be clearly projected even in relatively bright environments. It also has multiple connections that allow you to input video from a variety of devices, including laptops, desktops, and tablets.

2. Home Theater Projectors

Many home projectors have a lesser brightness than business projectors, which is ideal for watching movies in a dark place.

Because there are many dark scenes in movies, manufacturers are competing for technology that will increase the contrast ratio and express the tightness of black.

3. Portable projector

The new portable projectors are palm-sized, lightweight, compact, and battery-powered, making them ideal for on-the-go presentations and outdoor scenes. In order to reduce battery consumption, many products have relatively low brightness and image quality.

4. Short throw projector

A short throw projector is a type of business and/or educational projector that uses a special lens. Because of this special lens, this type of projector can be placed close to the wall, avoiding the problem of standing in front of the projection beam as a presenter. In addition, you can easily connect these projectors to your laptop.

2. Types of panels.

There are three main types of panels that are the heart of the projector: DLP panel, LCD panel, and LCOS panel. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages, and it is directly related to the picture quality, so choose carefully.

1. DLP panel

DLP projectors are generally the smallest and cheapest of the three projection techniques. They produce a clear image with relatively good black values and perform well in motion resolution; this means that the image remains sharp and detailed in fast-moving scenes, making these projectors ideal for gaming.

2. LCD panel

The liquid crystal display panel method projects a transmission image by applying the three primary colors of light red, green, and blue to the three liquid crystals. Commonly used in the entry-level projectors, after-images may appear in fast-moving images, but the color reproducibility is high, so it is suitable for using living rooms in relatively bright places.

3. LCoS panel

LCoS is a hybrid of the above two, using LCD chips and thousands of mirrors.  Therefore, they are reflective, like DLP, but they block light through the liquid crystal, like LCD. this technology produces all the advantages of the above two technologies and ensures very good contrast, clear image, and very strong black levels.

3. Brightness.

Brightness is one of the key performance parameters of a projector. The unit that expresses the maximum brightness emitted by the projector is lm (lumen). The higher brightness allows for quality images, so you can enjoy clear images even in bright places such as the living room or office.

4. Contrast.

The contrast ratio is the difference between the brightest and the darkest parts of the image. If we read that our projector offers a contrast of 1000:1, the brightest point is 1000 times brighter than the darkest. The higher the contrast ratio, the sharper and better the image becomes.

5. Resolution.

The number of pixels in an image is measured from left to right and top to bottom.
The higher the resolution, the smaller the pixel size, resulting in images that appear seamless.

For example, a resolution of 1280 x 720 means that the images on the screen will be displayed in high definition.

Resolution
Resolution

The projector will adjust the resolution according to the resolution of the connected device. For example, if you have a 4k projector and you connect it to your pc with an HD resolution, the content will play back in HD.

6. Throw ratio.

Throw ratio is the ratio of the “projection distance/screen width“. According to this ratio, we can know how far the projector can project.

For example, a throw ratio of 1:2 means the projector is 2 meters away for a 1-meter wide image – it’s that simple!

throw ratio

7. Noise.

You may not immediately realize it, but almost every projector has one or more built-in fans. These are needed to dissipate the heat from the projection lamp.

For many people, the sound of a projector fan is not disturbing, especially if the projector is hanging from the ceiling, you will not be bothered by it. If you are sensitive to sound, it is useful to choose a projector that is as quiet as possible.

8. Other parameters.

1. Keystone correction

The screen will appear distorted vertically and horizontally unless the projector is mounted properly in front of it. In this scenario, the keystone correction feature can be used to rectify it. You can project from the behind diagonally if you choose a projector that can conduct not just vertical but also horizontal keystone correction.

2. Autofocus

People who have used traditional projectors should know that it is very painful to manually adjust the focal length because many manual adjustments always cause inaccuracy, and the images projected on the walls and screens will feel blurred. The auto-focus function is just like when taking a picture with a mobile phone. You can see the subject very clearly by clicking on it. Personally, I think this function of the projector should be listed as an important function.

3. 3D compatible

If you’ve seen a 3d movie in the cinema, you know that 3d works well with projected images. It’s the same for home projectors. High-light projectors can enhance images because 3d glasses can greatly reduce light.

4. Connections

Support the most commonly used ports, such as USB, HDMI, VGA cable, and WI-FI also.

Summary

You now have all of the information you need to choose a projector. As you can see, picking the best projector is a difficult task, especially with a large number of projectors on the market today. As a result, different criteria must be considered in order to purchase a device that matches your needs.

 

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