The Best Projectors for 2024 (2024)

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Why We Picked It

The Epson Pro Cinema LS12000 is pricey, but it's actually a near-bargain for the image quality it delivers. Epson is known for pixel-shifting LCD projectors whose images are virtually indistinguishable from a true 4K UHD picture while using only half as many pixels on screen, thanks to lens quality and video processing. The LS12000 keeps the same emphasis on top-quality lenses and processing while boosting the pixel count to a full 3,840 by 2,160 pixels. The result is more detail than we've seen from any pixel-shifting 4K DLP projector.

And because the image is produced by three LCD chips, you won't see any rainbow artifacts—the flashes of red, green, and blue that single-chip projectors can show. The LS12000 also offers top-tier color accuracy, contrast, and shadow detail, plus sophisticated features that include the ability to adjust the lens easily to give you the same image height when switching between movies with different aspect ratios.

Who It's For

The LS12000 will tantalize serious videophiles who plan to put it in a home theater with dark walls, ceiling, and seating to minimize reflections back to the screen. However, the image quality is good enough that even less-demanding viewers will notice, making it a good home theater projector for anyone. It's also bright enough to serve in a family room, particularly if you'll be watching movies with all the lights off at least occasionally. It doesn't support 3D, however, so if 3D movies are your thing, you'll need to look elsewhere.

Why We Picked It

Home entertainment projectors like the BenQ TK860i are meant primarily for use in ambient light, which means they're designed for high brightness even if it means some loss of image quality. True to form, the TK860i puts brightness first, but its image quality holds up nicely. In addition to 4K resolution (thanks to a DLP chip equipped with TI's fast-switch pixel shifting), it offers BenQ's new HDR-PRO technology, which works for SDR, HDR10, and HLG HDR input to deliver better shadow detail, contrast, and sense of three dimensionality thanmost of the competition. The projector also offers smart TV streaming features thanks to a bundled Android TV 11 dongle, and it supports full HD 3D. Gamers will also appreciate input lags that we measured at a little longer than the current state-of-the-art, but short enough for all but the most serious gaming.

Who It's For

The TK860i will appeal to anyone who insists on good, rather than merely acceptable, image quality, particularly if they also want a short input lag for first-person shooter or sports games. If you see rainbow artifacts easily (the red/green/blue flashes that single-chip DLP projectors can show) you'll want to ensure that you buy the projector from a dealer who allows easy returns should they be a problem. But if you don't see these artifacts, or don't mind seeing them, and you're looking for a way to enjoy movies, TV, and potentially gaming with lights on, the TK860i is a top pick.

Why We Picked It

Sheer specs don't tell the whole story of the TH685P. This 1080p projector has almost identical specs to those of its BenQ predecessor, but the TH685P delivers an obviously better image with HDR input. That is a big thumbs-up in a home entertainment projector at this price. It also surprised us with its onboard audio quality. The sound from the internal 5-watt chamber speaker is quite usable and pumps out high enough volume to fill a large family room.

Who It's For

This unit is a top choice for users who aren't prone to seeing rainbow artifacts, and who will benefit both from its low input lag and its good handling and downconverting of 4K HDR content. (Ideally, you'll limit HDR viewing to a darkened room.) Also, if attaching an external sound system or headphones isn't an option where you play or watch, this model's speaker output is a plus.

Why We Picked It

The Vankyo Performance V700W is a little bigger than most budget-priced mini projectors, but it's a direct competitor with high-end models, at $299 list and frequently available for less. Compared with its competition, it delivers a similar set of features, including a 1080p (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) native resolution and a highly watchable picture that's guaranteed to be free of rainbow artifacts. It's also the brightest kid on the block—for its class at least—with a 420 ANSI lumen rating. In our tests using settings for best image quality, it lit up a 90-inch screen without problems with lights off, and delivered a suitably bright image using an 80-inch screen in a family room at night with lights on.

Along with high brightness, the V700W offers more-than-acceptable image quality, including better shadow detail than most projectors in this price range. Even the onboard audio, built around dual 5-watt speakers and Dolby Digital Plus, is impressive for an inexpensive projector. And the input lag—measured at 26 milliseconds for 1080p, 60Hz input—is easily fast enough for casual gaming.

Who It's For

Anyone looking for an inexpensive first projector for casual home entertainment use should have the V700W on their must-see list. Although it's priced at the high end of the range for inexpensive models, it's not much more than competitors that are best limited to significantly smaller image sizes in any given light level. It's also priced low enough to consider as a second projector for occasional use, so you can watch a movie in your backyard, for example, and leave your more expensive projector in its permanent setup, undisturbed.

Why We Picked it

The BenQ X3000i is BenQ's flagship in its Immersive Gaming Series, and our top pick for a 4K gaming projector, which makes it our top pick for gaming, period. In addition to being a light cannon, thanks to its 3,000-ANSI-lumen LED light source, ithouses a pair of 5-watt stereo speakers that can fill a large family room with high-quality sound. Key features include both HDR10 and HLG HDR support, as well as three predefined variations on Game mode, each of which tweaks both image and audio for the type of game it's named for: first-person shooter, role-playing, and sports games. Also key is the state-of-the-art short input lag. We measured it at 16.7 milliseconds (ms) for 4K/60Hz, essentially the same for 1080p/60Hz, and at 8.7ms for 1080p/120Hz—all of which are consistent with the rated 4.2ms at 240Hz.

Who It's For

The X3000i is clearly designed for serious gamers. You can use it for movies and video as well, and it even comes with an Android TV 10.0 streaming stick to make that easy. But according to BenQ, the video is tuned to optimize the look of HDR when using game consoles as opposed to, say, Blu-ray players. And note that its convenience features include a dedicated button on the remote to rotate through the three game modes easily. Getting the X3000i without serious gaming in mind would be like getting your own private plane without planning to fly.

Why We Picked It

If you need to give presentations regularly in medium or large rooms where you can't lower or otherwise control the lighting, the Epson Pro EX7280 3LCD WXGA brings on the brightness. Plus, this 1,280-by-800-pixel unit delivers vibrant, saturated color and a high-quality image guaranteed to be free of rainbow artifacts. That's thanks to its 3LCD design (meaning it's built around three LCD chips that let it project all three primary colors at once). Even if you're in a room with lots of ambient light, it should do the job: It lit up a 90-inch screen with a suitably bright image in our tests in a brightly lit room, even in Eco power mode and using the lower-brightness Cinema picture mode. It's also portable—or easily transportable at least—at less than 6 pounds, and it comes with a carrying case.

Who It's For

Business users and educators who need a bright image above all else and have no need to show images with small fonts or fine detail should consider the EX7280 a strong candidate, particularly if they need to move the unit from place to place. If you never show anything more demanding than presentations filled with graphics and typical business documents, with or without photos and video clips, or even an occasional movie in a classroom at 720p (1,280 by 720 pixels), a bright 1,280-by-800-pixel projector like this one can be exactly the right choice.

Why We Picked it

Rated at 4,000 lumens, the BenQ LH730 can deliver a 1080p (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) image at a suitable size and brightness for a well-lit conference room or classroom. Even better, although you might want to dust it off occasionally, it's basically maintenance free, thanks to a four-LED light source (red, green, and two blues) that's both sealed—meaning dust-proof—and designed to last the life of the projector. It's also designed to run 24/7/365 if you need it to, and it scores well on image quality.

For presentations, the LH730 offers vibrant color in graphics and crisp, highly readable text. For movie and video clips, it easily matches entry-level home theater projectors for color accuracy, contrast, and shadow detail, and it even supports HDR10 and HLG HDR. We saw too many rainbow artifacts in movies and video from the DLP imaging chip to recommend it for long sessions, but for short clips as part of a presentation, it delivered high quality and few enough rainbows to easily ignore them.

Who It's For

The LH730 is a strong contender for applications like displays in a reception area that need a virtually maintenance-free unit to run all day every day without a break. However, not having to change filters or lamps can be a welcome convenience in any situation, and being designed for uninterrupted long-term use implies less likelihood of problems even with more moderate use. The frequent rainbows make it a bad choice if you need to show movies in a classroom, but for presentations in brightly lit rooms—even when including short movie or video chips—the LH730 is a top-tier pick.

Why We Picked It

The Epson EX3280 pairs a low price with high-enough brightness to throw a suitably large picture for a medium conference room or classroom with ambient light. And because it's built around three LCD chips, it can't be plagued by the rainbow artifacts that some people see with single-chip projectors and find annoying. The three-chip design also guarantees that color images will be fully as bright as you would expect from the 3,600-lumen white brightness rating.

Other important pluses include a crisp image to help make text more readable and show more detail in photorealistic images, vibrant color for graphics, and even good color accuracy and color saturation for photorealistic images. The last isn't true of many business projectors.

Who It's For

The EX3280 is aimed at offices and schools on tight budgets. Its XGA resolution (1,024 by 768 pixels) is a little low by today's standards and will necessarily limit its appeal if you need to show complex line drawings with fine detail, for example. And its 4:3 aspect ratio makes it a poor choice for showing widescreen movies very often. But if you simply need readable text in documents and presentations, vibrant color in graphics, and highly watchable film and video on a strictly occasional basis, the EX3280 can handle the job.

Why We Picked it

Epson lists the Epson Pro EX11000 as a portable projector and includes a carrying case with it. However, it's at least as much a solid, 1080p business or education workhorse for permanent installation or setup on a cart. Its laser-phosphor light source—rated at 4,600 lumens and meant to last the life of the projector—means you won't have to spend time or money replacing expensive lamps, while the three-LCD chip design guarantees it won't show any of the red/green/blue flashes known as rainbow artifacts.

In our tests the EX11000 delivered high enough brightness to stand up to ambient light using an image size suitable for a conference or classroom. It also delivered top-tier image quality for presentations. Movies and video were best described as watchable, but no match for even an entry-level home theater projector. However, even "watchable" is better than many business models can manage. It also offers some notable extras, including a built-in option for two-way and four-way splits, to show images from up to four sources at once. And of course, if you really want to, you can take advantage of the carrying case, and actually use it on the go.

Who It's For

If you're willing to lug the 9.5-pound EX11000 around, its 4,600-lumen rating makes it an obvious choice if you need a seriously bright portable. However, it's also an excellent fit for permanent installation in a conference room or classroom. Crisp details makes text easy to read, and vibrant color for graphics can help make presentations more compelling. And although it doesn't offer the same high level of image quality for videos and movies, it handles both better than most business projectors, should you need to show them.

Why We Picked it

Ultra short throw (UST) projectors can throw large images from close to the screen, avoiding the need to run cables through walls and ceilings. The Epson LS800 takes that advantage a step further—or closer, really—by offering an even shorter throw than most. It can actually fill a 120-inch wall-mounted screen without having to pull the furniture it's resting on away from the wall. Along with that, it offers a laser light source with 4,000-ANSI-lumen brightness, a high-quality image with good color accuracy and contrast, a three-LCD design that guarantees it can't show rainbow artifacts, and an unusually short input lag for a 4K UST projector. By our measurements, the lag is just a few milliseconds longer than we expect from today's best gaming projectors, at 20.4 milliseconds (ms) for 4K/60Hz input, 21.4ms for 1080p/60Hz, and 11.7ms for 1080p/120Hz. It even offers a stereo audio system that amounts to a built-in soundbar, with two 5-watt speakers and a 10-watt subwoofer.

Who It's For

The LS800 doesn't offer options that allow a full calibration, which will disappoint serious videophiles, and it doesn't support 3D, which may be a deal killer if you have an extensive library of 3D discs. If neither feature is essential to you, however, it's a sterling choice as a TV replacement, thanks to its excellent image quality straight out of the box, its notably short input lag for gaming, and its even more notable short throw (even for a UST projector). Beyond that, for those who can't abide rainbow artifacts, the fact that it can't show them will be enough by itself to make it a strong contender.

Why We Picked it

The EpiqVision Mini EF12 offers a native 1080p resolution and pairs a 1,000-lumen laser-phosphor light source with a three-LCD chip design. In our tests, the 1,000 ANSI lumens lit up an 80-inch screen with nicely saturated color in a family room at night even with lights on, and also delivered a watchable image in daytime. The three chips, which project all three primary colors at once, guarantee that it can't produce rainbow artifacts. Two other important pluses are integrated Android TV and a 4.7-pound weight, which makes the EF12 surprisingly light for a laser projector.

Who It's For

For anyone who sees rainbow artifacts easily and considers them annoying, the EF12 is a prime candidate for a 1080p room-to-room portable. Many will also consider it preferable to any current portable 4K model for the same reason. We found the EF12 delivered good image quality in our tests, and when compared with many competitors that offer higher maximum brightness, it had a brighter image for the picture modes that you'll actually want to use.

Why We Picked It

The BenQ GP500 earned the highest scores of any 4K room-to-room portable we've seen to date for both picture quality and audio. For both SDR and HDR input, it delivered good color accuracy, good contrast, and good shadow detail in dark scenes, complete with a sense of three dimensionality. The onboard audio creates a 360-degree sound field—using a DSP and four 5-watt chamber speakers (or drivers, if you prefer), with one in each of the projector's four corners—to offer both high enough volume to fill a large family room, and high enough quality to do without an external sound system. It also offers auto focus, screen fit (to match the image size to a screen), obstacle avoidance (so it won't project on light switches, for example), and other auto features to speed setup after moving it to another room.

Who It's For

Whether you need a 4K projector you can carry from room to room or one for permanent installation in your family room, the GP500 should be on your short list. Among other strengths, it offers high quality for both image and audio; suitable brightness, at a rated 1,500 ANSI lumens; and support for full HD 3D and both HDR10 and HLG HDR. All this makes the GP500 a top choice for anyone who wants a 4K projector and an eminently usable sound system in a single compact unit.

Why We Picked It

It may look like a car battery with a handle on top, but the Nebula Mars 3 is equally at home in a rough-and-tumble den full of kids, or out in the yard with gloomy weather threatening. Designed to survive, it features water, drop, and dust resistance. It doesn't hurt that it also delivers 1080p native resolution, and that the quality of the built-in audio system is pretty good for this projector's size. Also, the Mars 3 comes equipped with an internal battery, rated for 2 to 5 hours depending on the picture mode (full-power or Eco). It can also work as a big Bluetooth speaker, or as a power bank to charge other gear.

Who It's For

The more often you plan to watch outside, whether on special occasions like backyard movie nights or regular TV watching by the pool on warm nights, the more appealing the water and drop resistance will be. (Double that if you have big dogs or young children who may be running around where they can jar, splash, or otherwise upset the Mars 3.)

Why We Picked it

The Kodak Luma 75 is literally small enough to lose track of if you accidentally cover it with a piece of paper. Basically the size of a 3-by-3-inch pad of sticky notes, it weighs just 5 ounces. But it's big enough to have an HDMI port, which means it can connect to most video sources, including mobile devices (for screen mirroring). It's also bright enough to give you a 32-inch 16:9 diagonal image for short sessions in a dark room, or an image that's roughly the size of a sheet of paper in typical office lighting. Whether you're showing a business presentation or watching a movie, that's a lot bigger than you would get on your phone, and it comes from a projector that fits easily in a pocket.

Who It's For

Anyone who has a more-than-occasional need to (or has simply wished they could) mirror their phone's screen at a larger image size will find the Luma 75 worth considering. It takes no more effort to carry than a second phone, and it lets you show anything from photos to business presentations to movies without having to pass your phone around or crowd around it. And because you can also show files stored on a USB memory key, you can even use it without a phone.

Why We Picked It

The Xgimi Halo+ starts with a combination of high brightness, robust audio, and image quality that makes it one of our top picks for a mini projector, and then adds Android TV for streaming as an extra. It's one of the brightest in its class, rated at 900 ANSI lumens. Even when set for best picture quality rather than highest brightness, it lit up a 90-inch screen in low levels of ambient light in our tests. Its audio was also among the best, delivering good-enough quality at high-enough volume for a large family room.

Color accuracy and shadow detail were better for SDR than for HDR in our tests, but it handled HDR well enough to deliver a watchable picture, which is more than many 1080p (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) resolution models with HDR can manage, and it can accept and downconvert 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) input, so you can watch 4K HDR video and movies. One other key plus is the onboard rechargeable battery. Using it lowers brightness and usable image size, but the 2.5-hour life is enough to let you watch a full-length movie.

Who It's For

The Xgimi Halo+ is a strong candidate for anyone who wants a smart (streaming-capable) portable projector that's easy to carry and set up as needed, inside or outside. It's an even stronger candidate for those who also want robust audio without needing an external sound system or want the option to run on a rechargeable battery when there isn't an AC outlet available. What the Halo+ stands out for, however, is its combination of all those features plus high brightness for its size and class, which translates to larger usable images in any given light level than its competition can deliver.

Why We Picked It

Shaped to look like a soda can, the Anker Nebula Capsule Laser 3 is a much more impressive projector than you'd expect from its size. Shoehorned inside is a remarkably small laser-phosphor light source, a 1080p DLP chip, and Android TV 11 for streaming via Wi-Fi. Plus, an 8-watt speaker delivers robust audio for the weight class—just over 2 pounds—with high-enough volume to fill a medium or large family room. Best of all, it can accept up to 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) HDR input, and unlike much of the competition, it makes HDR movies look at least as good as their SDR versions. It even has a battery rated at 2.5 hours in the default battery mode or 8 hours in Bluetooth speaker mode—long enough to watch a full-length movie or listen to music at length in the backyard.

Who It's For

The Capsule 3 Laser's brightness, rated at 300 ANSI lumens, is low enough to make it the wrong choice if you're looking for a projector that can give you a big picture that can stand up to ambient light, but it delivers the best combination of color accuracy, contrast, and shadow detail we've yet seen in a mini projector, combined with minimum weight for easy portability. That's enough to make it the right choice, and our top pick, for anyone who plans to use it primarily in dim or dark lighting, or who simply wants a highly portable projector and cares more about image quality than image size.