The Best Projectors for 2023
Need a projector for business presentations, fast-paced gaming, or family movie night? We’ve tested these top-rated portable and full-size projectors to help you find just the right one for home, the office, or the road.
Overview
Epson Pro Cinema LS12000 4K Pro-UHD Laser Projector
Best 4K Projector for Top-Quality Home Theater
$4,999.00
at Beast Buy
Our Experts Have Tested 28 Products in the Projectors Category This Year
Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better
buying decisions
Projectors have come a long way from the days when they were all essentially interchangeable for anything from business presentations to setting up a home theater, and the most useful way to categorize them was by their weight class. Today, you can break them down by any number of meaningful categories, including their imaging technology (LCD, DLP, LCOS, and even laser raster), light source (lamp, LED, laser, or hybrid), and most important, their intended use.
As projectors have become more widely used, they’ve also become more specialized. A model intended for showing business presentations in rooms with bright lighting, for example, needs higher brightness than one designed for watching movies in a dark room, but it doesn’t need the same level of contrast or color accuracy. In this guide, we’ll first cover our favorite picks, chosen from models we’ve tested, for a variety of needs. We’ll also explain why we picked each one for that specific use. Then, we’ll take you through the factors you should consider when shopping for a projector to help ensure you find the best match for whatever you plan to use it for.
Epson Pro Cinema LS12000 4K Pro-UHD Laser Projector
Best 4K Projector for Top-Quality Home Theater
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, thanks to lens quality and video processing, are virtually indistinguishable from a true 4K UHD picture while using only half as many pixels on screen. 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. The result is more detail than we’ve seen from any pixel-shifting 4K DLP projector. </br></br>
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.
Epson Pro Cinema LS12000 4K Pro-UHD Laser Projector
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, thanks to lens quality and video processing, are virtually indistinguishable from a true 4K UHD picture while using only half as many pixels on screen. 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. The result is more detail than we’ve seen from any pixel-shifting 4K DLP projector. </br></br>
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.
Epson Pro Cinema LS12000 4K Pro-UHD Laser Projector
Best 4K Projector for Top-Quality Home Theater
$4,999.00
at Beast Buy
Our Experts Have Tested 28 Products in the Projectors Category This Year
Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better
buying decisions
Projectors have come a long way from the days when they were all essentially interchangeable for anything from business presentations to setting up a home theater, and the most useful way to categorize them was by their weight class. Today, you can break them down by any number of meaningful categories, including their imaging technology (LCD, DLP, LCOS, and even laser raster), light source (lamp, LED, laser, or hybrid), and most important, their intended use.
As projectors have become more widely used, they’ve also become more specialized. A model intended for showing business presentations in rooms with bright lighting, for example, needs higher brightness than one designed for watching movies in a dark room, but it doesn’t need the same level of contrast or color accuracy. In this guide, we’ll first cover our favorite picks, chosen from models we’ve tested, for a variety of needs. We’ll also explain why we picked each one for that specific use. Then, we’ll take you through the factors you should consider when shopping for a projector to help ensure you find the best match for whatever you plan to use it for.
Epson Pro Cinema LS12000 4K Pro-UHD Laser Projector
Best 4K Projector for Top-Quality Home Theater
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, thanks to lens quality and video processing, are virtually indistinguishable from a true 4K UHD picture while using only half as many pixels on screen. 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. The result is more detail than we’ve seen from any pixel-shifting 4K DLP projector. </br></br>
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.
Epson Pro Cinema LS12000 4K Pro-UHD Laser Projector
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, thanks to lens quality and video processing, are virtually indistinguishable from a true 4K UHD picture while using only half as many pixels on screen. 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. The result is more detail than we’ve seen from any pixel-shifting 4K DLP projector. </br></br>
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.