When looking to upgrade your home theater setup with a new 4K laser projector, don't do what I did and forget to read its spec sheet first, or you could be in for a nasty surprise.
I love projectors and I think people should at least consider ditching their televisions for one. Naturally, the best 4K projectors are usually more expensive than the best 4K TVs, and you want to make sure your home theater is set up in the right room, somewhere with a big white surface and no windows (or blackout curtains). installed), for the best visuals. But in my opinion, the atmosphere produced by a projector setup and the eye-filling images it can create are well worth the care.
So, in my quest to persuade others that projectors are the way to go, I took the Epson EH-LS11000W that I tested for TechRadar over to my parents' house to show them what it was capable of. In my review, I was really impressed with the laser projector's clean 4K picture (which can be magnified up to XNUMX inches) and its great image colours, though contrast in dark scenes isn't as good as I'd like either. (particularly for its cost), aside from its limited ports and lack of a TV operating system, it's a bad combination, since you have to waste a port on a streaming device.
Also, as I learned from my parents after spending a few hours building and setting it up, it lacks built-in speakers. Realizing that brought movie night to an instant halt, as my family didn't want me to borrow their soundbar and mess up their existing TV setup. So I dejectedly put the EH-LS11000W back in its box. TV one, projector zero.
Good projector, bad home theater
This is not so strange for projectors; Even fairly pricey options like the Epson EH-LS11000W (which will set you back $XNUMX / $XNUMX / around AU$XNUMX) focus their sacrifices on generating stellar images and they leave the audio to the best soundbars and best speakers.
But in my pride, I forgot that. Instead, I accepted that the vents on the side of the machine were so its speakers could produce clear sound, without thinking that they might actually be vents for its XNUMX-lumen heat-scavenging laser setup.
Luckily, I hadn't spent any money on this projector since Epson lent it to me for the review, so the error didn't cost me. Had I lost €XNUMX / €XNUMX, my home theater budget would have been wasted in an incomplete setup.
But this moment is a good reminder that even techies can make mistakes and accept things about a great product that aren't accurate. That's why we always advise reading a device's features and reviews before you buy it (and not just looking at the score and moving on).
Speakerless projectors like the Epson EH-LS11000W aren't horrible, but they aren't suitable for every home theater setup. This is the case for many technologies; It's not about how amazing the device is, it's about whether it's right for you and your needs.