Projectors Reviews price ranges
Hello, last year I have entered the projector "world" and I have to say that it is by far the best cinema experience that you can get in you living room. My current projector is an optoma HD65 which costs around 500 pound new and the only little issue that I have is about the famous "rainbow effect". Appart from that I am 100% satisfied with the image quality and experience.
I have noticed most of the reviews of the projectos are for projectors above 1.000 pound with many being between 2000-3000 and above (50% of reviews).
I realize that the situation may be different in Spain but here I can assure that most people (I would say around 90%) who buy a projector will not spend more than 700 Eur in a projector (500 pound).
When I look at the reviews in the magazine, I see that the projector reviews under 600 make a 7% of the total (3 in total out of 40 reviews in the web). Does this trully reflect the UK market who buys projectors? Only a 7% of people who buy a projector does spend less than 600 and 93% spend more than 600 pound, and 50% spenc more than 2000 pound? I have actually never seen a comparison of true budget projectors (under 600 pound?) and there are only 3 projectors reviewed under 600 pound in the website. I was just wondering whether there is real aligment of the market segments and the price ranges reviewed or whether this is just a choice of the magazine for other strategic reasons.
Until very recently, the only projectors you could buy sub-£500 were primarily designed as business projectors, not for serious home cinema use. They're brighter (because they're designed to be used in offices), louder (because they're brighter and because office environments are also noisy so you don't notice), have lower resolution (typically HD Ready) and are fairly inflexible re placement (not ideal for home environment).
Yes, there are some hybrid home/business models coming through that defy that spec, but not a lot yet. To get a projector that's going to deliver a decent quality experience, you need to spend that little more...
...UNLESS you're buying - as the OP has - a previously higher-priced model that's been heavily discounted. Projectors can halve in price during their lifecycle, so it's worth shopping around for older models that got great reviews at a higher price.
Without entering too much into a debate about what is the minimum quality for a product to be consider as suitable fo decent home cinema, I believe there is consensus that this products already exist nowdays.
The HD65 that I own was released in 2006 which is more than 5 years ago, so the sentence "until very recent" could be subject to interpretation. I believe that 5 years is already a long time. The reality is that right now there are many home cinema projectors under 500 pound which can give an excelent cinema experience for most users.
Last week I was walking around some popular electronic shops and I was surprised that most projectors were under 700 Eur. Indeed in Fnac and Media Mark only had 2models above 700 Eur, all others were under these prices.
Given the new reality that we all seem to agree, could we expect to see future reviews and more focus on these price ranges? Thanks.
But did the HD65 cost that little at launch?
I understand your point Clare and I agree that things have changed a lot in the past 5 years. Time really flies so when we take a look 5 years back, the word "recently" becomes very subjective. Thanks.
Well I'll let the WHF team speak for themselves, but personally I'm about to write a projector round-up for a national newspaper that will feature a lot of budget models (starting at under £500), then ranging up to @£2000. - the idea being to see what you get for your money at each price point. It's shaping up to be v.interesting test 
That'll be very interesting!
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Good point.
My Home Cinema Pioneer KRP 500A, Yamaha RX-V1900, MA Radius R225HD LCR, R90HD rears, AW12 sub, Panasonic BD60, PS3, Boxee Box, Sky HD, Boxee Box, Logitech Harmony One, Logitech PS3 Adapter, Sonos ZP90
Bedroom Samsung UE32C6510, PS3 slim white, Apple TV, Sonos S5, Sonos ZP90, Audioengine 2, Oppo OPDV971H
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