2024 was a big year for Ultra Short Throw (UST) projectors and in this video, I’ve got 12 new and upcoming USTs ranging from the $1500 Optoma GT3500HDR all the way up to the brand new $6000 Samsung Premiere LPU9D. We’re going to measure their brightness, contrast, and color, then we’ll put them head-to-head both in a dark theater room environment and then again with the lights on. Next, we’ll measure their input lag and fan noise, test focus, sharpness, RBE, and 24p motion handling, and last, we’ll look at 3D performance and speaker quality. That’s a lot of stuff so feel free to use the use the headers to find what you’re looking for and use the Jump to Product Links button at the top to get to links for all the projectors.
Brightness, Contrast, and Color Testing
The least expensive projector we’ll be testing is the $1500 Optoma GT3500HDR, then for $2000 we’ve got the new Nexigo Aurora Lite, and also for $2000 is the Hisense PL1. After that for $2200 is the new Formovie Edge, then at $2300 is the AWOL LTV-2500, after that is the Epson LS650 for $2500, then the Nexigo Aurora Pro for $2700, the XGIMI AURA 2 is also $2700. The brand new Hisense PX3-Pro is $3500, the BENQ V5010i is $4000, the AWOL LTV-3500 Pro is $5200, and the just released Samsung Premiere LPU9D is the most expensive projector we’re testing at $6000.
To start, I measured the brightness and contrast of each projector using my white and black test pattern with a moving 50% gray box to prevent any full on and full off laser power tricks, and I measured every projector in a single session without moving the screen or test probe to ensure the most consistent results.
And the brightest projectors were the Epson LS650 which put out an insane 5199 lumens on Dynamic Mode with a 100% test window, the Optoma GT3500HDR output 3822 lumens on Bright Mode, and the Hisense PX3-Pro measured 3729 lumens with its high output brightness enhancing mode on. However, switching to more reasonably color accurate modes made the differences much less severe and the PX3-Pro, Optoma GT3500HDR, Epson LS650 and AWOL LTV-3500 Pro all came in between 3400 and 3500 peak lumens.
I also used my JETI 1501 Hi Res spectrometer with Calman Ultimate to measure which picture mode was the most color accurate out of the box and then measured the peak lumens of those modes and found that the $2500 Epson LS650 had the brightest color accurate mode at 3441 lumens in Cinema mode with a delta error (dE) of 5.65, the AWOL LTV3500-Pro put out 2990 lumens in Movie mode, but wasn’t particularly color accurate with a dE of 11.92, and the Hisense PX3-Pro was much more impressive with 2942 lumens in Cinema Mode with a dE of 4.75.
I also measured both native and dynamic contrast if it was available and found that the Nexigo Aurora Pro had the highest native contrast ratio of 3909:1 followed by the Nexigo Aurora Lite at 3632:1, the Hisense PX3-Pro measured 3616:1 and the Formovie Edge was also very good at 3539:1.
All of the projectors except the Formovie Edge, Hisense PL1, and BENQ V5010i also had some form of dynamic contrast setting and for those the Hisense PX3-Pro came out on top with a dynamic contrast of over 10,319:1, the Optoma GT3500HDR was at 9990:1, and the Epson LS650 measured 9694:1, but I try not to get too excited about measurements like these because they very rarely show up in actual viewing. In the case of both the Epson and the Optoma, I can clearly see the laser dimming and wouldn’t personally choose to leave those settings on.
Speaking of lasers, all of the USTs in this year’s video use laser light sources, but the Optoma GT3500HDR, Epson LS650, Formovie Edge, and Hisense PL1 are single laser projectors, while the Hisense PX3-Pro, Nexigo Aurora Pro and Aurora Lite, AWOL LTV-2500 and 3500, Samsung Premiere, and BENQ V5010i are triple laser projectors and the XGIMI Aura 2 uses what they call their Dual Light 2.0 system which combines an RGB laser with a single laser phosphor wheel to try to get the best of both worlds.
The advantage of a single laser is they have virtually zero laser speckle, but triple laser projectors have a wider color gamut and usually appear more vibrant. I measured the color space coverage of each projector and found that for SDR content using the Rec 709 color space, all of the triple laser projectors had 99% coverage or better, while the single lasers ranged from 99.6 on the Hisense PL1 all the way down to 88.7% on the Epson LS650.
Measuring the HDR DCI-P3 color space the triple lasers were 96% or better with the single lasers falling down into the 70% range. For the widest BT2020 color space the three newest projectors, the BENQ V5010i, Samsung Premiere 9, and Hisense PX3 Pro had the most coverage at above 97%, followed by the previous generation triple lasers from AWOL and Nexigo, then the dual light source from XGIMI and the single laser projectors were predictably at the bottom.
Dark Room Side-by-Side Testing
And theoretically brightness, contrast, and color should all combine to translate into viewing experience, but in the past, I’ve seen more than a few instances where that doesn’t happen. So, to test viewing experience and picture quality, I set up the projectors side by side using two identical 100” Formovie Fresnel screens in my completely light controlled garage with a black ceiling and black curtains surrounding the screens. I also performed a simple two point white balance calibration on each of the projectors to account for the specific screens that I’m using, and then I put the projectors head-to-head starting from least expensive to most.
So that means that in Round 1, the 1080p Optoma GT3500HDR is on the left and the 4K Nexigo Aurora Lite is on the right. Starting with bright SDR content, the Optoma was just generally washed out and had pretty poor color accuracy, and that was also true in dark SDR scenes but with the added complication of a pretty high black floor leading to muddy shadows when dynamic contrast was disabled, and way too noticeable and aggressive dimming with dynamic contrast on, and you could easily see the laser power switch from normal to eco and back.
As for HDR and Dolby Vision, I was actually pretty impressed with tone mapping on the Optoma given that it was just using HDR10 instead of Dolby Vision and I thought the Nexigo Aurora Lite was a little too dim when viewing Wakanda Forever, though the colors and black floor were definitely better throughout the entire scene, and the Optoma looked more like an SDR image than an HDR one.
And last, this year to help visualize the relative contrast of each projector, I’m using shutter priority mode on my camera to allow it to automatically adjust the exposure to the point where the projector with the higher black floor will show up, and you can see that in this case it wasn’t particularly close with the Aurora Lite having highlights that were just as bright, but a much lower black floor, so all those things combined mean the Aurora Lite moves on easily.
In Round 2, the Hisense PL1 is on the left and the Nexigo Aurora Lite is on the right. During bright SDR content, I thought the Nexigo was slightly more color accurate, but I really enjoyed the tone mapping of the PL1. Unfortunately, it seems like that aggressive tone mapping led to some strange artifacts and flashing as the camera switched back and forth between Henry and Dani. During dark scenes, the Aurora Lite’s black floor was noticeably better than the PL1, but the extra brightness and crazy tone mapping of the PL1 made it look much more eye catching.
During Dolby Vision content the PL1’s tone mapping was also more dramatic, but it unfortunately had significant color banding in bright areas that I wasn’t able to fix by changing HDMI settings like I could with my Hisense C1.
And last, in the contrast demonstration you can see that the Nexigo’s black floor was significantly lower, and even the black bars at the top and bottom of the PL1’s screen were brighter than the blacks on the Nexigo, so although I really liked the brightness and tone mapping of the PL1, the color banding, processing artifacts, and black floor prevented it from taking the win.
And that means that Round 3 is the Formovie Edge on the left and the Nexigo Aurora Lite on the right. The thing that immediately stuck out to me was how saturated the image was on the Formovie Edge, and not necessarily in a bad way. The Aurora Lite was more color accurate and Dani’s skin tone in particular looked much more natural to me, but I did really like the tone mapping and brightness of the Formovie Edge, and it didn’t have that strange flashing that the PL1 had. In dark scenes, the highlights on the Formovie were noticeably brighter making the image look higher contrast despite a raised black floor when compared to the Nexigo, and I really found myself wishing for a little more brightness on the Aurora Lite to help with highlights.
And just like the Optoma from Round 1, I was impressed with the Formovie’s tone mapping during Wakanda Forever despite only having HDR10 and not Dolby Vision, and although the color temp was clearly too cool even when set to warm, the image was generally excellent and a pleasure to watch, both in Wakanda Forever, and Our Planet Season 2 Episode 1.
So, although the black floor on the Formovie Edge was quite a bit higher than the Nexigo Aurora Lite, I still preferred it overall, and the Formovie moved on.
In Round 4, the Formovie Edge is on the left and the AWOL LTV2500 is on the right. In bright SDR content, the LTV 2500 was slightly too red which then exaggerated the Formovie’s color inaccuracy which was slightly too green. In bright scenes, I think I preferred the LTV2500, but in dark scenes the AWOL was absolutely betrayed by its high black floor, and even with AWOL’s enhanced black level set to ON, dark scenes on the AWOL just looked completely washed out next to the Formovie Edge.
Dolby Vision content was even more of a struggle and unlike the LTV 3500 that makes up for its black floor with eye searing highlights, the LTV2500 just looked washed out and dull. If you remember how much lower the black on the Nexigo was in the previous round, the difference between the Formovie and the AWOL in this round was even more, so the Formovie easily moved on again.
Round 5 then put the Formovie Edge on the left and the Epson LS650 on the right. The Epson was SO bright. This was in Cinema mode with the color temp set to 8 and the brightness at 50% and it was still difficult to find camera settings that could properly expose the Formovie without overexposing the Epson. During SDR content, the Epson’s tone mapping and color accuracy were not what I would call a cinema experience, but they were very easy to watch, and I was only occasionally jolted out of enjoying the experience by the very muddy gray black levels. But for the most part, the contrast was still decent due to the brightness of the highlights.
I was also impressed by the HDR10 tone mapping on the Epson during Wakanda Forever, and I thought that both the color accuracy and saturation were on point, so I was able to look past the poor black levels and move the Epson onto the next round.
In Round 6, the XGIMI AURA 2 is on the left and the Epson LS650 is on the right. If you’ve ever struggled with eye strain or fatigue after watching a screen for a long time, the AURA 2 might be the right pick for you. It’s hard to describe, but it was definitely comfortable to watch both light and dark scenes in a pitch black environment.
Actually, the LS650 and AURA are both very comfortable to watch, but all the things I liked about the Epson in the previous round like good color accuracy and aggressive tone mapping seemed to be even better on the AURA2, but with the added bonus of Dolby Vision support and slightly lower, albeit still very raised, black levels. So, the Aura 2 moves on to the next round.
That makes Round 7 the XGIMI Aura 2 on the left and last year’s dark room winner, the Nexigo Aurora Pro on the right. More than any other round yet, this matchup wasn’t close. The XGIMI’s Dual Light 2.0 system films really well making it look closer than it was in bright scenes, but the Aurora Pro’s contrast was absolutely ridiculous compared to every other projector so far, and even in bright scenes, I felt like the black levels of the Aurora Pro allowed for more shadow detail without needing to raise the gamma of the entire scene.
While I wouldn’t write off the AURA 2 or the LS650 for easy casual viewing in a room with some ambient light or bias lighting behind the screen, the Nexigo Aurora Pro provides the dramatic contrast and black levels typically associated with the home theater experience. Paired with an ambient light rejecting screen, the Aurora Pro challenges projectors that cost five times as much.
So Round 8 put the Hisense PX3 Pro on the left and the Nexigo Aurora Pro on the right in the matchup that I was most excited for after measuring the 10,000:1 dynamic contrast of the Hisense. But unfortunately, that dynamic contrast didn’t seem to show up in real content. Even though the PX3-Pro had a measured black floor of 0.036 nits compared to 0.044 nits on the Aurora Pro, during Gemini Man, the black floor was slightly, but noticeably higher on the PX3-Pro. It also had a slightly blue tint to it when compared to the Nexigo Aurora Pro.
The other part of a contrast ratio is the peak brightness, and that part did show up with bright scenes favoring the PX3-Pro, especially in Dolby Vision content, but color accuracy and white balance seemed ever so slightly better on the Nexigo.
I went back and forth in this round, and ultimately decided to leave it up to the black floor test. You can see how close this test was also, but the blacks on the Nexigo were slightly darker, giving it the win for this round. But this is the closest any projector has ever come to besting the Nexigo and I still think it could have gone either way.
Round 9 was then the BENQ V5010i on the left and the Nexigo Aurora Pro on the right. In bright SDR content, the BENQ looked excellent with good highlights and overall brightness, and like the XGIMI AURA 2, the BENQ filmed really well. But in person, the color was a little bit too green during bright scenes and during dark SDR scenes the lack of a dynamic black mode made it hard to compete with the Aurora Pro, which practically looked like an OLED next to the BENQ.
During Dolby Vision content the BENQ’s tone mapping was extremely aggressive. I didn’t hate it, but during some scenes it led to some strange digital noise being inserted in the darkest areas but given the 0.252nit black floor the BENQ was definitely playing into its high peak brightness in an attempt to compensate for a poor black floor. As I said, I didn’t hate it, but for a dark room the Nexigo is definitely the better pick.
In Round 10 the AWOL LTV-3500 Pro is on the left and the Nexigo Aurora Pro is on the right. I went through all the motions in this round, but I’ve compared these projector side by side three times now and the outcome is always the same. Much like the BENQ, the AWOL plays to its strengths and the highlights are often so bright that you don’t notice the poor black floor. During bright SDR content, my eye always favors the AWOL, but once shadows are added to the equation the dynamic black mode on the Aurora Pro makes it far superior. The same holds true through all content types. The black floor test between the LTV-3500 and Aurora Pro is one of the most dramatic we’ve seen, but it’s also the first time that there’s a noticeable difference in brightness between the highlights that are actually so bright on the LTV-3500 Pro that they get overexposed by the camera.
Still, the Aurora Pro is definitely the way to go for a dark room, so in the final round the Samsung Premiere LPU9D is on the left and the Nexigo Aurora Pro is on the right. In bright SDR content, I thought the Samsung was a little bit too green, but the tone mapping did an excellent job of not crushing shadows, or blowing out highlights and extra detail was visible in the painted hand railing that hadn’t really shown up from other projectors.
However, in dark scenes, the Samsung was not good. Highlights were muted and shadows were raised leading to pretty low overall dynamic range. That, combined with the much higher black levels on the Samsung, made for some of the worst dark scene performance yet. For purely political reasons, Samsung decided not to include Dolby Vision compatibility in their $6000 projector, so I tested it with HDR10+ instead and the Aurora Pro was orders of magnitude better in HDR10+ due to those elevated black levels on the Samsung, which were extremely apparent in the contrast test.
Without question the top two projectors for dark room viewing were the Nexigo Aurora Pro and the Hisense PX3-Pro. Honestly it could have gone either way as to which one was the best, but my preference was towards the Aurora Pro’s better black levels and slightly reduced brightness. As for the rest of the rankings, the name of the game was tone mapping and I thought the BENQ, AWOL LTV-3500, and XGIMI AURA 2 were better than the rest. But if your room is really dark, I think the Nexigo Aurora Lite needs to be a little higher up on the list, it just didn’t have enough brightness to make the highlights pop for me.
Daylight Side-by-Side Testing
For bright room performance, I didn’t worry about D65 white point, and I wasn’t overly concerned with color accuracy. I just set the projectors to their brightest mode, put on some sports and as the kids would say I “let them eat.”
In Round 1 I expected the Optoma GT3500HDR on the left to do well with its ridiculously high peak brightness, and compared to the Nexigo Aurora Lite on the right it absolutely deserved the win. But I did think the colors on the Optoma looked a little gross in bright mode, but vivid mode lost enough brightness that it wasn’t worth the extra color accuracy.
In Round 2, the Optoma GT3500HDR was on the left and the Hisense PL1 was on the right. To me, the extra clarity from the Hisense and super saturated colors made it an easy pick.
In round 3, the Formovie Edge was on the left and the Hisense PL1 was on the right. During golf, the extra brightness of the Formovie Edge was definitely appreciated and during football, I thought they were mostly equal, so the Formovie Edge moved on.
Round 4 had the Formovie edge on the left and the AWOL LTV2500 on the right. Despite the triple laser light source on the LTV-2500, the image seemed strangely washed out when compared to the single laser Formovie edge. Also, clarity was very similar between the two, meaning the Formovie Edge moved on again.
Round 5 then had the Formovie Edge on the left and the Epson LS650 on the right in dynamic mode, maximum brightness, and it was incredible. This is a 100” screen in a well-lit room, and it was brighter than most TVs. Despite all that brightness, it was still decently color accurate and easily won this round.
Round 6 was the Nexigo Aurora Pro on the left and the Epson LS650 on the right. In a room with the lights on, the black floor means nothing and the LS650 still looked insane. I tested the Epson LS800 last year, which is supposed to be the upgrade from the 650, but I firmly believe the 650 is brighter in Dynamic mode.
Round 7 put the XGIMI AURA 2 on the left and the Epson LS650 on the right. Even though the AURA 2 looked good, it was just no match for the LS650, which again was as bright or brighter than most large scale TVs I’ve seen.
Round 8 put the Hisense PX3-Pro on the left up against the Epson LS650 on the right. I thought this might be the round that knocked out the LS650, but even with the Hisense brightness enhancer turned on, the LS650 was very noticeably brighter, and despite the clarity of the PX3-Pro there was no question that the LS650 still won this round.
Round 9 was the BENQ V5010i on the left and the Epson LS650 on the right. The V5010i was definitely more color accurate, but like the AWOL LTV-2500, the colors looked almost dirty next to the very bright and very saturated LS650. Even though the BENQ got closer than most to knocking out the LS650, it was still an easy win for the Epson.
Round 10 was then the AWOL LTV-3500 Pro, last year’s bright room winner on the left vs the LS650 on the right, and it was close, easily the closest yet. The LTV-3500 Pro’s colors were a little better and the white lettering on the scoring graphics was a little whiter, but the LS650’s brightness and motion handling were just too good, and the Epson took out the previous king two years running.
And that made the final round the Samsung Premiere LPU9D on the left and the Epson LS650 on the right, and Samsung has a trick up its sleeve. Buried deep in the “all settings” expert options, there’s a setting called “peak brightness”, and they weren’t kidding. The screen shuts off for a second and then turns back on to an eye searing ultra saturated image, to the point where the scoreboard was completely blown out by my camera’s settings. Combined with the increased sharpness of the DLP projection and crisp MEMC movement meant that the Epson LS650 finally got taken out in the last round after a dominating performance from Round 4 on, making these the final rankings for light room performance. Here are the combined scores for both dark and light room viewing.
Input Lag
But there’s still a lot of stuff to measure and talk about, starting with input lag which is important if you want to play video games on your projector. I measured input lag using the industry standard Leo Bodnar lag tester and found that at 4K60hz, the majority of the projectors were under the 20 millisecond mark, meaning they are excellent for all levels of gaming, while the Epson LS650 and Formovie Edge were in the more casual gaming range, and the Samsung Premiere was just over the 50 ms mark which is generally when things might start to feel a little off.
At 1080p120hz, about half of the projectors improved their input lag performance from their 4K60hz numbers with the Optoma GT3500HDR on top at just 8 ms of input lag.
And at 1080p240hz the Nexigo projectors, BENQ v5010i, and Hisense PX3-Pro all had under 10 ms of input lag, which is awesome to see.
Fan Noise
I also tested their fan noise which can definitely be annoying during quiet movie scenes. The Samsung Premier LPU9D was completely silent coming in at 36.3 dB which is the noise floor of my room, but to be honest, none of the projectors other than the Epson LS650 were noticeable with content playing. Also, as you reduce the brightness of the LS650 using the remote, it automatically adjusts its fan noise and I found that at around 70% brightness, the fan noise was very manageable at 41.3 dB while still being significantly brighter than most of the other projectors in the video.
Focus and Clarity
I also tested the focus uniformity and sharpness of each projector by setting up the projectors with zero keystone, projecting this image on the screen, and taking individual pictures of each corner. In this test, there was no question that the Samsung LPU9D is the sharpest UST on the market with nearly perfect focus in all four corners, very little chromatic aberration, and no screen door effect as a result of using the larger 0.66” DLP Chip.
For the 0.47” chips, the Hisense PX3-Pro was the best with excellent sharpness and no chromatic aberration, and the Hisense PL1 had great focus but with very slight blue fringing in the bottom right corner.
Both AWOL projectors had perfect focus uniformity, but both the 2500 and 3500 had red fringing in the top and bottom right corners.
The Formovie Edge was also very good with almost no color fringing, but a bit of soft focus in the upper left and lower right.
The BENQ had soft focus in the upper right and red fringing in all the corners.
The Epson LS650 did as well as I’ve ever seen an Epson perform with very little panel alignment issues, but the 3LCD pixel shifting does lead to a less clear image when compared to DLP.
The Optoma GT3500HDR was surprisingly sharp for a 1080p display, and other than a small amount of soft focus in the upper right, it looked very decent with no chromatic aberration.
Both Nexigo projectors had soft focus in the upper left corner, and I have heard that there is some unit to unit variation in focus among the Nexigos and my Aurora Lite definitely had better focus uniformity than the Aurora Pro.
And last, the XGIMI AURA 2 was surprisingly soft in all four corners when the center focus was dialed in but had almost zero chromatic aberration from the Dual Light 2.0 system.
24p Motion Handling
I also tested 24p motion handling using the RTINGS test. For those unfamiliar with that concept, most movies and shows are filmed in 24 frames per second, but most displays are 60 Hz, so they do something called 3:2 pulldown to convert 24fps to 30fps. The result is that alternating frames are displayed for different periods of time and if you take a 1 second exposure of the RTINGs moving box, a 3:2 pulldown looks like this.
But if the display is capable of switching to 50 Hz, it will produce a more uniform image like this one.
I found that both the Nexigo Aurora Pro and Lite, AWOL LTV 2500 and 3500, BENQ V5010i, Samsung LPU9D, and Optoma GT3500HDR all had 24p modes that changed the frequency of the DMD to pass the RTINGs test, while the rest of the projectors relied on 3:2 pull down.
But I will say that in 24p mode, while you won’t see motion judder caused by the uneven display times of alternating frames, you’ll likely see motion stutter which is caused by the fact that DLP chips are basically incapable of displaying motion blur like the film maker intended. So, panning motion will look choppy rather than blurry and after a lot of experimentation, I’ve decided that I prefer having my FireTV Max or AppleTV do the conversion rather than using MEMC on the projector or changing to 24p mode. But there’s going to be a lot of person to person variation in that decision.
DLP Rainbow Effect (RBE)
Speaking of person to person variation, one of the biggest things I get asked about with DLP projectors is RBE or the DLP rainbow effect which is caused by the fact that each color is projected consecutively rather than simultaneously. Some people are extremely sensitive to RBE while others can’t see it at all. I’m somewhere in the middle on that spectrum and I’ve designed a sort of torture test that allows me to judge how much RBE each projector will produce, and I’ve divided them into three groups: low, medium and high. I found that the BENQ V5010i and Optoma GT3500HDR had the most noticeable RBE, the PX3 Pro, Formovie Edge, XGIMI AURA 2, and Aurora Pro and Lite all had a very normal amount of RBE, and the AWOL LTV3500 and 2500, Samsung LPU9D, and Hisense PL1 were all lower than average RBE, and of course the Epson LS650 has zero RBE because it uses 3LCD projection and not DLP.
Laser Speckle
I also assessed laser speckle, which is usually only seen in triple laser projectors and tends to increase with brightness. I found that pretty unsurprisingly, the Samsung LPU9D, AWOL LTV3500 Pro, and Hisense PX3-Pro all had the most laser speckle, but not to the point where it was overly distracting or unwatchable. The Nexigo Aurora Pro and Lite, AWOL LTV2500, and BENQ V5010i had a small amount of laser speckle, and the Dual Light 2.0 engine on the XGIMI AURA 2 and the single laser projectors had zero speckle.
And the last two things to cover I understand are very important to some and not important at all to others, starting with 3D performance.
3D Performance
I tested every projector using the same scenes from Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse and judged them based on their 3D effect and, most importantly for me, their eye comfort because I typically get pretty bad eye fatigue after an hour or so of watching 3D.
What I found was that the Hisense PX3-Pro had a below average amount of 3D effect and average eye comfort. The Nexigo Aurora Pro and Lite had an average amount of 3D effect and average eye comfort. The Optoma GT3500HDR had an above average 3D effect but below average eye comfort. The BENQ V5010i, AWOL LTV-2500 and AWOL LTV-3500 Pro had an above average amount of 3D effect, and average eye comfort and the XGIMI AURA 2 had by far the best 3D with above average 3D effect and very above average eye comfort, which is something I’ve actually experienced before with the XGIMI Horizon Ultra which shares the same Dual Light 2.0 engine and has equally great 3D eye comfort. The AURA 2 is probably the only one of these projectors that I’d choose to watch an entire 3D movie on, but again, my eyes seem to be more sensitive to 3D strobing than most people.
Speaker Quality
And last, let’s talk speaker quality, which again I don’t think is important to most people since you’ll probably have a surround sound system with your projector. But for completeness, I think the only projector you wouldn’t ever want to use is the Optoma GT3500HDR, which sounds like a classroom projector from the early 2000s. The Nexigo Aurora Pro and Lite, AWOL LTV-2500 and 3500 Pro, Hisense PL1, and Formovie Edge were all capable of getting very loud, but the sound quality wasn’t particularly great. The Hisense PX3 Pro and Epson LS650 had decent sound but were a bit quiet. The BENQ V5010i sounded excellent with a super wide sound stage but had pretty low peak volume. The Samsung LPU9D was both loud and had good sound. The best speakers were on the XGIMI AURA 2 which was not only extremely loud but had good low-end and decent sound stage separation.
Conclusions
Finally, it’s conclusion time. We’ll start by tallying up all the normalized scores, which makes the winner the BENQ V5010i?
That is unexpected, but if you look at the scores, it did just above average in every category finishing 3rd for dark room viewing thanks to good tone mapping and high peak brightness, it finished 5th in bright room viewing, it had good 3D performance, good input lag, good 24p motion handling, great color space coverage and out of the box accuracy, good speakers, good clarity, and very low fan noise.
But having spent well over 100 hours watching these projectors over the last two weeks, I personally wouldn’t pick the V5010i. Yes, it did finish 3rd for dark room viewing, but it was miles behind both the Nexigo Aurora Pro and Hisense PX3 Pro in terms of contrast and black floor. It finished 5th for bright room performance, but again was miles behind the Epson LS650 and Samsung LPU9D and actually finished behind the Hisense PX3-Pro. And I do think the BENQ is going to give the AWOL LTV-3500 Pro a run for its money as far as the best all-around ultra short throw projector, especially being priced significantly lower, but unlike the more expensive AWOL, I think the BENQ is more of a jack of all trades, master of none.
For me, the real standout, and the projector that I’ll personally be switching to, is the Hisense PX3-Pro which finished 2nd for dark room viewing, and 4th for bright room, but suffered in the overall not passing the RTING 24p test and 3D that’s definitely not working correctly yet, and I’d never suggest buying a product based on updates that may or may not happen, but it seems like both of those things could easily be fixed in a firmware update.
For purely dark room viewing, the Nexigo Aurora Pro is still unbeatable, and top left corner focus seems to still be its only downfall. Even though this unit was better than my last one in that regard, it was still much worse than all the other projectors in the video. I had expected to also like the Aurora Lite since it has all the same features and the same excellent contrast of the Aurora Pro, but I thought the lowered brightness had a significant effect on the ability to make highlights pop, and even at the discounted price, I think I’d recommend saving up the extra $500-700 for the Aurora Pro instead.
For purely bright room viewing, the Samsung LPU9D came out slightly on top of the LS650. If you’re made of money and bright room performance is all you care about then you should go for the Samsung, but at less than half the price of the Samsung, there’s a lot to like about the LS650 which is also $500 cheaper than the LS800 that I tested last year but was actually brighter in dynamic mode according to my measurements. Combine that with good speakers, decent input lag, and zero rainbow effect and the LS650 makes for the perfect man-cave projector for watching big screen sports. The biggest difference between the LS650 and LS800 is their throw distance where the LS800 needs just 4.5” from the wall for a 100” screen vs 11.5” for the LS650, but the less extreme throw does make it easier to lineup the LS650 without keystone. So, if you’re looking for a light cannon to watch sport, pick whichever Epson has a better throw distance for you.
If your budget is between $1500 and $2000, I think we’ll see the Aurora Lite, Formovie Edge, Hisense PL1, and LTV-2500 dip down into that range this holiday season and among those more budget projectors, I think the Formovie Edge is the best option especially once they add 3D in the December update.
As always there are no sponsored reviews on this channel, but I do have links for all the projectors on both Amazon and ProjectorScreen.com below and as always, I appreciate when you used those links since as an affiliate I do earn a small commission on the sale at no cost to you. If you’ve still got questions make sure to leave a comment and I’ll try to respond to all of them, but if you feel like you need more guidance, I’d recommend calling the guys at projectorscreen.com and tell them Rob from The Hook Up sent you.
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