The best projectors invite a world of wonder that even the best TVs can't match, turning your living room into an immersive cinema. There's a slew of variety in the world of projectors, making them worthwhile for practically any type of user.
Whether you're looking for one of the best projectors around $1,000, or one that hits every feature imaginable at a price well over that range, we've got the perfect variety that will meet most needs. But if you would prefer a more conventional display, you can always check our best TVs under $1,000 to get the right model at your particular budget range.
With a multitude of projector and TV reviews under our belts, we've got ample qualifications to recommend the best projectors on the market. We've checked out everything from Ultra Short Throws, like the Epson EpiqVision Ultra LS800, to far throw models as seen with the Xgimi Horizon Ultra.
Turn your living room or entertainment setup into the Cineplex. You may never need to go to the movie theater again with these models, especially when you throw in one of the best soundbars for impeccable audio immersion.
The best projectors
The JMGO N1 Ultra is a heavyweight among the best projectors. This compact short throw dishes out several surprises, most notable among them being its triple-laser light source. It uses separate red, green, and blue lasers to deliver exceptional brightness alongside a staggering color gamut as well. The projector can blast a stunning 4K picture wherever you want it, as it sits on an easily adjustable pedestal.
For its size, the JMGO N1 Ultra even has surprisingly potent speakers, which will do the job quite well in a small room. For serious audiophiles, there’s an eARC port so you can hook up one of the best soundbars, but this will leaves you with only one HDMI port for other external sources.
At 2143 ANSI lumens, the N1 is a pretty remarkable projector even in daytime. While you will still need to get some shades to blot out the sun, you do at least have exceptional color coverage at 96% of the DCI-P3 and 100% on the sRGB range.
Read our full JGMO N1 Ultra review.
Best for gaming
BenQ has what gamers need when it comes to the best projectors: speed. And with the BenQ HT2060, it doesn’t slouch in other departments, either. In fact, the BenQ HT2060’s biggest shortcoming is that it’s only a 1080p projector, but the tradeoff is that it can run at 120Hz for even faster, smoother gameplay and nigh imperceptible input latency. Its brightness is enough for use in a lightly lit room, but it’s a stunner in a darker environments as well thanks to its exceptional contrast ratio of 3253:1. It even has a wide color gamut, which does a lot in bringing to life your favorite game worlds.
The projector is fairly large, though, so you’ll want to find an adamant place to set it permanently. Thankfully, there’s a lot of flexibility in that department, as it uses a hardware zoom, focus, and vertical lens shift for simple adjustments. You’ll need your own video source for streaming and gaming, but you can get by on the decent built-in speakers if you don’t want to deal with too many cables coming from the projector.
While all of that is good, it’s made better by this projector only costing $1,000, making it a steal against the best 75-inch TVs, which cost far more even at lower sizes.
Read our full BenQ HT2060 review.
Best value
If having the very best in every category isn’t vital to you, and you prefer to get something that’s good enough as long as it means saving some bucks, then the Xgimi Horizon Pro is the one to get thanks to its low price point. Originally at $1,699, but now down to $1,199 to make way for the Horizon Ultra, the Horizon Pro isn't the brightest, the most colorful, or the loudest projector on the block. But it’s not trailing at the rear of the pack among best projectors, either.
The Xgimi Horizon Pro puts on a good show. It’s decently bright at 1296 lumens, though you’ll want to dim the lights and draw the curtains for anything but light cartoons. And it has respectable color performance, hitting just 90% of the DCI-P3 and 100% of the sRGB range.
Its 4K picture provides sharp detail that’s not so easy to find at the price. And when you want to game, it provides surprisingly low input lag of 26ms — but you'll definitely find something better among the best gaming TVs.
With a built-in Android TV platform, the projector is effectively an all-in-one solution for home entertainment, and its portable size means you can bring it just about anywhere you like to enjoy TV and movies on the big screen — and it can't get much bigger than a potential 200-inch.
Read our full Xgimi Horizon Pro review.
Best mid-range
The Dangbei Mars Pro 4K can be a little more expensive than we’d like, but it often has discounts that bring to a much more palatable level. For the money, you get a capable 4K far throw projector that relies on a laser light source. It’s a laser phosphor system, which means it can get plenty bright at 1812 lumens but doesn’t have as much color as alternative options among the best projectors that use tri-color laser systems. Still, it makes for a reasonably attractive image, and its high brightness and contrast let you stretch it plenty large for home cinema use.
While the Dangbei Mars doesn’t have Android TV built-in like some of its competitors, it comes with a speedy streaming stick and works well without other external sources. Crucially, the built-in operating systems runs quickly and smoothly, making it easy to power up, select the source you want, and get watching. Where many projectors run a slow operating system that can make it tedious to start watching, Dangbei avoids this, providing a little extra convenience.
Read our full Dangbei Mars Pro 4K review.
Best for flexibility
Epson has considerable experience in the projector space, and it shows through quite plainly in the Home Cinema 3800 projector. This model among the best projectors may not be boasting the latest, fanciest features, but it's still a high-utility projector.
At 2375 lumens, the Epson Home Cinema 3800 projector is one of the brightest models we’ve tested, and it actually looks good running that bright (unlike the Optoma GT2100HDR). It's high brightness is paired with a high contrast ratio of 2055:1, which keeps on-screen visuals looking superb. It’s a little lacking in color, due to a slightly low DCI-P3 gamut range of just 76%, but that doesn’t it looks awful in anyway. And with Epson’s 3LCD projection system, the rainbow effect that can prove distracting to some people is largely mitigated.
Epson’s projector doesn’t have a great speaker system or a main OS like alternatives in the space, which means you’ll want to pair it with one the best streaming devices. Fortunately, it has a lot of tools to help you get your setup just right. Where many projectors will digitally manipulate an image to make it fit your particular setup (in turn throwing away pixels and often leaving some unsightly artifacts), Epson’s projector can make optical adjustments to move and resize the projection without the baggage. Thus, you can more easily set the projector where it’s convenient and still align the projected image with your screen or wall.
Read our full Epson Home Cinema 3800 review.
Other projectors tested
- Optoma GT2100HDR: This little short-throw projector gets plenty bright and has a high contrast image, but it’s pretty lacking everywhere else.
- Xgimi Horizon Ultra: Following up on the capable Horizon Pro, the Horizon Ultra was a bit of a disappointment. It’s bright and colorful, but lags behind JMGO in both departments, and its contrast was severely lacking no matter what we tried. As promising as it was, we just couldn’t get it to look as good as it should have at the price.
- Epson EpiqVision Ultra LS800: As one of the brightest projectors on the block at 4000 lumens, the LS800 delivers where it counts — and then some. It might not have Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmos, but it does leverage a built-in speaker system designed by Yamaha and under 20ms of input lag, making it ideal for gaming.
- Formovie Theater: There's a lot to love about the Formovie Theater, as it packs quite the punch with 2,800 lumens. It's built on Android TV 11, allotting you access to practically every app on the map (aside from Netflix, unfortunately). It also uses speakers designed by Bowers and Wilkins, which makes its Dolby Atmos support all the more fitting.
Projector Benchmarks Compared
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | JMGO N1 Ultra | BenQ HT2060 | Xgimi Horizon Ultra | Dangbei Mars Pro 4K | Epson Home Cinema 3800 | Optoma GT2100HDR | XGIMI Horizon Pro |
| Brightness (ANSI lumens): | 2143 | 1645 | 1296 | 1812 | 2375 | 3012 | 1270 |
| Contrast: | 1577:1 | 3253:1 | 250:1 | 1105:1 | 2055:1 | 2370:1 | 757:1 |
| sRGB coverage: | 100% | 99% | 100% | 92% | 91% | 90% | 100% |
| DCI-P3 coverage: | 96% | 87% | 90% | 75% | 76% | 74% | 83% |
| Input lag (default): | 144ms | 25ms | 145ms | 152ms | 24ms | 26ms | 144ms |
| Input lag (gaming mode): | 28ms | 25ms | 26ms | 27ms | 24ms | 25ms | 24ms |
| Lifespan: | 30,000 hours | 30,000 hours | 2,5000 hours | 30,000 hours | 5,000 hours | 30,000 hours | 30,000 hours |
| MSRP: | $2,299 | $999 | $1,699 | $1,799 | $1,699 | $1,799 | $1,899 |
| Street price: | $1,899 | $999 | $1,699 | $1,299 | $1,699 | $1,549 | $1,199 |
What to look for when buying a projector
Brightness: One of the key factors in determining whether you’re going to be able to enjoy your projector is brightness, generally measured in lumens (though there are a few different ways companies measure lumens, and the advertised brightness is not easy to trust). In a very dark room, you can get away with a projector that only offers a few hundred lumens of brightness, but if you want to do some daytime viewing or don’t want to turn all the lights out, you’ll pretty much want to ignore anything that’s not breaking 1,000 lumens. As long as you have decent blinds and can dim the lights, you’ll probably find 1,000-2,000 lumens is enough for home viewing.
Color gamut: This is essentially how rich the colors will appear from the projector. It won’t matter how bright your projector is if all of the colors look faded as a result. For the home theater, you should expect good colors, which ideally means at least 90% coverage of the sRGB color space and all the better if you’re getting over 90% of the DCI-P3 color space.
Contrast: Contrast goes hand in hand with brightness. If you have a high brightness but low contrast, dark colors and shadow details are going to be washed out, ultimately marring the cinematic image you’re looking for.
Resolution (Native): As projectors offer a big image, the resolution can be a big factor. You’re stretching a lot of information out across your screen, so if there’s too little detail, it’s going to be that much more noticeable. In action, it can be a little harder to see the difference between 1080p and 4K, but if you’re looking at a lot of static content, the advantages of 4K will be more apparent. For a decent home theater, aim for 720p at a minimum and ideally 4K. There are plenty of 4K options out there, though 1080p or WUXGA are decent enough if you sit far back. It’s also important to look for “native” resolution on projectors, as many will prominently advertise a “supported” resolution. Long story short, “supported resolution” is just the signal the projector is capable of receiving, and “native resolution” is what it’s capable of displaying (e.g., a projector could receive a 4K signal but turn that into a 720p image if it has a native 720p resolution.
Light source: Not all light sources are created. Lamps are cheap and bright, but they’re hot, take some time to warm up and cool down, and they don’t offer as much longevity as others. LEDs can get fairly bright and provide good color while offering a long lifespan. Lasers have the brightness advantage and can outperform LEDs in color if they combine multiple lasers of different colors, but they’re more expensive.
Ports: How you’re able to use your projector is majorly impacted by its ports. If it doesn’t have some quality audio outputs, like eARC, you may have a hard time connecting it to a good sound system without also buying an AV receiver. Too few HDMI ports or lower bandwidth ports can also impact your ability to use the projector conveniently.
Speakers: Many projectors include their own built-in speakers, but not all do. And many that have speakers don’t offer ones that can compare to the image they provide. It’s worth taking a note of how well the speakers performed and what wattage they offer to get a sense of whether you’ll need to factor the price of a separate sound system into your purchase.
How we test projectors
We test projectors in the real-world conditions a buyer would use a projector in. That said, we do have a degree of control, with heavy, light-blocking drapes and an ambient-light rejecting projector screen to test on. But since not everyone will use such a screen, we also view the projection against a bare wall.
While some of our testing is subjective, observing the projectors’ capabilities as we watch movies and play games, we also take measurements that allow for comparison between projectors. Projector brightness is measured using each projector's brightest mode (and occasionally other modes if the brightest mode results in a worse overall image), using a light meter to measure the luminance of an all-white image at 9 points evenly spaced across the image and multiplying those by the projected area to derive an ANSI lumen measurement. Contrast is roughly estimated by comparing the average lux measurement of an all white image against a lux measurement of an all black image.
Color coverage is measured using a SpyderX Elite colorimeter and DataColor’s calibration software. The colorimeter sits a foot away from a 1.1-gain projection screen, angled to avoid seeing its own shadow, and then measures the color gamut of the projectors light reflected off the screen.
To measure input latency, we run a timecode displayed on a laptop and mirror the display to the projector over HDMI. We then take a high shutter-speed (over 1/1000th of a second) photo of the timecode on both the laptop display and projector to see how many milliseconds the projector is behind the laptop display.
