Hey /u/Zeos! I've spent a good amount of time reading over the information provided in your sub and other forums trying to figure out the best projector for my soon-to-be setup, but I would greatly appreciate your professional input to help me make my final decision.
I'm looking to spend less than $1,000 on a new or refurbished model (given it comes with the standard warranty). My only past experience with projectors is with an old Mitsubishi XL5U that I ran seated on a ~5' shelf in Eco Mode that threw to 86" at 16:9 on a bare beige wall. Once the sun set, this worked out quite well. I'd like to improve this setup in my next apartment.
The living room it will go in is 12' wide, so I estimated 11' 3" as my max throw distance. With that in mind, the smallest "standard" screen I could find that most projectors would fill at this distance was 106". As such, I plan to purchase the 106" Elite Screens CineWhite Fixed Frame for my setup. I'm rather hesitant to mount the projector to the ceiling given apartment management and such, so I figure I could seat it on a sturdy shelf on the wall as close to the ceiling as possible (or however best the projector would work).
My area of greatest concern here is how this will end up looking. I really want this to look sharp when people walk in and see it, but realistically this will mostly be used after sunset. I personally have no frame of reference for what amount of fL's looks like in a given context. I know that Projector Central advises 12-22 fL's for a dark room. It would be nice to have a lamp on, but I'm totally fine if the projector illuminates the room enough that secondary light sources are unneeded to see where you're walking. I've also read that brightness isn't everything since too much brightness leads to poor contrast.
TL;DR: I've created a table with a mix of projectors you and others have recommended along with the fL's of each given my particular setup using Projector Central's Projection Calculator Pro. Based on this information, which do you advise that I buy? Is there one not listed that would be better? Or have I placed too much emphasis on fL's and should I consider another metric?
| Pref | Projector | Cost (New) | Tech | Lense Shift | Lumines | fL @ 11' 3" on 106" 1.0 Screen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acer H6510BD | $545.21 | DLP | No | 3,000 | 37 | |
| ViewSonic PJD7820HD | $579.99 | DLP | No | 3,500 | 76 | |
| x | BenQ W1070 | $699.00 | DLP | Yes | 2,000 | 25 |
| x | BenQ HT1075 | $839.00 | DLP | Yes | 2,200 | 27 |
| Epson Powerlite 2030 | $799.00 | 3LCD | No | 2,000 | 25 | |
| x | Epson Powerlite 8345 | $782.00 | 3LCD | Yes | 1,800 | 23 |
| x | Epson Powerlite 8350 | $1,195.00 | 3LCD | Yes | 2,000 | 25 |
| x | Epson Powerlite 3020 | $1,270.00 | 3LCD | No | 2,300 | 30 |
My apologies if this is too detailed for a reddit comment D: