Projector Reviews

Why buy an enhanced-def plasma when you can get a high-def projector?

By more than $1,000, this projector is less expensive than the average price of the RPTVs in our February 2004 HDTV Face Off. Granted, you need to buy a screen (there goes that $1,000), but you'd then have the same resolution as half of the TVs in the Face Off and be able to put that image on a screen that could be up to twice as large diagonally. Boy, I love projectors.

Beauty is on the inside.

We've reviewed several Panasonic projectors in the past few years. Their price ranges have varied slightly, but two things have remained constant: a decent picture and an ugly box.

Price: $3,499 At A Glance: Crisp and detailed picture • Good black levels • Thorough but com- plex calibration controls

Panasonic entered the home theater projector market in 2001. But the company already had decades of experience in the business projector world, beginning with CRTs in 1975 and later moving into its current mix of LCDs and DLPs. All of the company’s home theater designs have used LCD imaging chips, however, and the PT-AE8000U is the latest link in a long chain dating back to that 2001 model, the PT-AE100.

What's not to like?

This may very well be one of the easiest reviews I've ever done. Within five minutes of watching HDTV through Panasonic's new PT-AE900U LCD projector, I was hooked. I fully expected, as the review process progressed, to have to play the standard "on the one hand; on the other" game we play with most mid- or entry-level projectors: On the one hand, this projector has nice detail; on the other, its color points aren't very accurate. On the one hand, this projector has a surprisingly good black level; on the other, it's so dim, even the LEDs on your A/V gear will wash out the picture. Happily, the other hand never presented itself here.

Although Planar has a significant presence in the video-display business, it's relatively new to the home-theater market. The company first popped up a couple of years ago at a major trade show with some intriguing prototypes. Since then, it has expanded its home-theater resume by acquiring Runco and Vidikron, and all three brands maintain their separate identities under the Planar umbrella.

For such a tiny projector, the new Plus Piano Avanti HE-3200 has an absurdly long name. The HE-3200 is the next step up the Plus line from the Piano HE-3100, which I reviewed in the December 2001 Guide. For an additional $600, you get more features, greater setup flexibility, and maybe even a better picture.

The Piano HE-3100 DLP projector is such a bargain, you can add fries and a Coke.

Let's face it. Cheeseburgers, at least to low-income-bracket electronics reviewers, are one of three perfect foods (pizza and beer being the other two). So, I greatly anticipated tasting southwest-U.S.-based fast-food chain Carl's Jr.'s Six-Dollar Burger . . . for $3.95. Supposedly, we can now have the same-quality burger normally found at Chili's or T.G.I. Friday's or wherever, but for less money. It was with much the same anticipation that I looked upon PLUS Corporation's announcement that they would market a $3,000 DLP projector, dubbed the Piano. Since most home-theater-based DLP projectors, like the ones in our recent Face Off (October 2001), cost around $10,000, $3,000 seemed like a pretty tasty deal.