A common question first time projector buyers have is what price constitutes a good projector? After having both a first-time cheap projector and upgrading to a more expensive one, there are some important aspects that stand out. This article is not meant to advise you to buy a more expensive one, but rather to see what you can get for the $150 price mark and how well it performs.
So how good is a $150 projector? A $150 projector does perform well, but be aware that it will have a dimmer and slightly grainer look than higher tier projectors. Also know that the fan noise will be a little louder than higher quality ones. This isn’t to say that it is not a good idea to get a cheap projector. If you’ve never owned one and/or on a budget, then go for it! It’s especially easy to return these kinds of products if you aren’t satisfied. The first projector my family got was for $150 and we hosted tons and tons of movie nights with friends and family and no one thought anything of it! People were actually thinking it was some expensive device that should be treated with extreme caution when walking past it. In this article, I’ll show you the one I used as well as some videos on how well it performs.
A Dimmer Look?
This is the type of picture quality you will get in a nice, dark room. Notice that the brightness is suitable, but it will take your eyes a second to adjust to the brightness of it. Projectors are measured in Lumens, which is the amount of light emitted per second. The higher the lumens, the brighter the image will be. That doesn’t mean brighter is always better. Sometimes all you need to do to get a projector to have a better image is to limit the amount of light pollution in the room. Sometimes just wait until it’s completely dark outside. A measure of 1000 to 1500 lumens is good if you have a way to make the area almost completely dark. Anything higher is more forgiving but usually, that means the price point will increase a little bit more. Another thing you can do to make the image look better is to have a nice smooth material to project the image on. I literally used to have a dedicated white bed sheet that I would hang up on the side of my bookcase. Just by making sure it was stretched out all the way made the image look better. If you’re hosting a social event, chances are you’re going to be the one to notice a dimmer look. Everyone else will have a good time and be amazed that you have a projector movie set up in the first place.
Does the image look grainy?
Not really. If you’re supersensitive to how it looks then you will notice it. I would say this is something that you can get used to and again, most people won’t notice it if you’re just putting a movie night together and it’s not a routine thing. As mentioned above, reducing light pollution and having a smooth screen can do a lot more to enhance image quality. If you are in the process of looking at projectors, look to see if the projector has a feature that can adjust the focus. A good projector will have a dial that can be used to adjust the focus- just like a manual camera setting. Other ones might just have to be placed at the proper distance from the screen to look completely focused. Below you can see some images of 4k video from my PS4.
Since this is a high-quality video, the images generally look pretty good. With other types of content such as streaming movies or watching from a 1080p laptop, you will experience a more mixed version of quality. The only time where I felt like the quality wasn’t satisfying enough was when my friends and I were watching Shutter Island. I think this was also because the movie itself is dimly lit with a lot of dark hallway scenes. Plus we also didn’t have all the lights off in other rooms. Everyone still genuinely had an awesome night watching it and I think it was just me that noticed it the most.
What about fan noise?
Any projector, no matter how expensive or high quality it is, WILL have fan noise. It’s just something that will always be there. Higher quality projectors make some effort to reduce fan noise but even the $600 one I have can still get quite loud if my room isn’t well air-conditioned. I filmed this short clip to give you an idea of how loud the fan noise is for my $150 one. I’ve still had many enjoyable nights with this projector and never walked away thinking that the projector fell short of providing an awesome movie night experience. The fan noise is loudest indoors and that’s where you will hear it the most. There’s already a bunch of sounds in the outdoors and you’ll have an easier timing thinking nothing of it. Also I am not playing the sound from my speakers so note that the movie volume will tune a lot of the sound out.
The fan noise seems a lot louder in the video than how you’ll actually interpret it in real life but it is louder than the higher quality one that I have. This is also largely dependent on what projector brand you’re using. Some projectors will sound louder than others. The best way is to just try one out and see if it’s to your liking.
Verdict
The first projector I got was $150 and my family and friends loved it. Maybe it was because they liked the idea of watching a backdoor movie since no one else really does that? Either way, I never had any of my friends complain about our budget projector and I have some dead honest friends that would have told me. If you are on a budget, aren’t ready to invest in a serious projector, or don’t want to watch movies on a projector as much as a home theater enthusiast, then it’s completely doable to get away with a projector that’s around the $150 price mark.
I haven’t had any experience with projectors cheaper than $150, but my recommendation is to not drop below that. I can see qualities like brightness, grainy image, and fan noise just becoming more interfering factors as price goes down. The projector demo you saw in this article is the Erisan projector. I can’t find this specific one on Amazon but most projectors in this price range will perform very similarly.
If you have any further questions or comments, feel free to reach out at entertainmentden.ns@gmail.com!