4k projector epson plus#

Lasting roughly 4,000 hours, that's a new lamp every 2.5 years or so if you watch 4 hours a night. Each new lamp for the 5050 currently costs $330. I guess I need to incorporate 'total cost of ownership' into my overall conclusion, as boring as that sounds. So it does look better, sure, but the 25% better implied by the price? Sort of. The color and brightness are good, the contrast is decent and the added detail over the 5050 is welcome. Does it look better, subjectively? Yes, but not as much as the additional $1,000 would imply. The LS11000 is more of a diagonal step from the 5050. I was expecting performance improvements across the board compared to the 5050, but that's not what I saw. (No, not that one, this one.) But I was surprised at the LS11000. I've been doing this for far too long and I've been a cynic ever since I learned I'd never own a flying gullwing sports car. I'm not one to be swayed by specs and promises. That lead extends with HDR, where it does a better job reproducing a wider color gamut than both the 5050 and the UHZ50. The difference isn't massive but the LS11000 is the best of the bunch. The LS11000 looks the most natural, and its colors look a little richer. With normal HD and 4K content, color is quite good on all three. Enough so that they seem roughly comparable, even side-by-side. The result is that the LS11000 looks far better, subjectively, than the numbers suggest. However, this mode is more useful on the LS11000, since this adjustment happens pretty much instantly, far faster than the mechanical iris on the 5050. Even the LS11000's dynamic contrast is lower, where the laser power tracks the brightness of incoming video signal and adjusts accordingly. I was so surprised by that result I kept remeasuring it. As measured by me, the 5050 has a far better native contrast ratio at 5,200:1 vs. So between those two projectors the LS11000 is definitely sharper, which makes sense because it has twice the resolution.Ĭomparing the two Epsons, however, is rather interesting. Epson's new pixel shifter shifts pixels 4x instead of 2x. That's one of the biggest changes from the 5050 to the LS11000. Instead, each pixel on the imager works double or quadruple duty, responsible for 2 or 4 pixels on screen. Ostensibly, all three of these projectors are 4K, but none have 3,840x2,160 pixel imaging chips (to get that you'll need to spend even more money). Sharpness is not the most important aspect of a projector's performance in my book, but differences in detail between the three were noticeable right away. I connected all three via a Monoprice 1x4 distribution amplifier, and viewed them on a 102-inch 1.0-gain screen. Perhaps one is more of a winner than the others? We shall see. I liked both of these projectors, so really, they're all winners. The 5050 is a traditional lamp-lit projector, but it's close in price and performance. Both are less expensive than the LS11000 but they have a lot in common. But then, for $4,000 the nits deserve to be picked.įor my side-by-side comparison I pitted the Epson LS11000 against Epson's own 5050 and the Optoma UHZ50. Among projectors we've reviewed, it's second only to the more expensive Sony VPL-VW325ES.

4k projector epson plus#

The LS11000 is still a great projector, and all the new pieces and subtle changes - plus the benefits of using lasers - add up to an overall excellent image. Both delivered superb picture quality in my tests, with excellent color and bright, punchy images, but the performance of the next-gen LS11000 isn't the massive improvement implied by that new technology.ĭon't get me wrong. The LS11000 costs $1,000 more and promises a significant leap forward, with more pixels on screen and the aforementioned lasers. A lamp happens to power Epson's own Home Cinema 5050 too, a projector we loved and which stays in the company's lineup. The Epson Home Cinema LS11000 is a higher-end 4K projector powered by lasers rather than the traditional lamps used by most of its competitors. Performance doesn't quite justify the price

Not as detailed as some 4K DLP projectors