Projectors

Core job

Put a picture on a wall from a box you can move, and state plainly what that picture is.

Buying order

1. Measure the depth of the room and tape the image width you want on the wall. Nothing about a projector is decided before those two exist.
2. Work out the throw ratio range your room needs, then take it to the manufacturer documentation for the models you are considering. It cannot be checked against anything on this page.
3. Decide whether the source is built in or plugged in. That is the one thing every listing here does state clearly.
4. Look at the room at the hour you would actually watch, with the lights and curtains you actually have. Projectors are planned in daylight and used at night, and the gap catches people out.
5. Treat everything a listing does not state as unknown rather than as ordinary. On this page that includes brightness, and brightness is what decides whether the picture survives the room.

Skip these

• Any brightness comparison between the projectors here. No listing states a figure, so a comparison would be invented rather than reported.
• A projector for a room you have not measured. Image width follows from lens distance, not from preference.
• A projector for a room with an uncovered window facing the screen wall, unless you already know how the window is getting covered.
• Cables bought at the same time, before you know where the projector will sit and how far it is from the source.
• Reading a model number suffix as a statement about specification. A shared suffix is a naming convention, not a claim about what is inside.

Category cautions