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Different projectors are designed for different uses, and they can range in price from a couple hundred dollars to well into the five-figure range. Choosing the right model for your needs can be a daunting task, and we’re here to help. Mini Projector Set
Below is an overview of the top picks from our various projector guides. We have recommendations for premium 4K movie projectors, bright living-room projectors, budget home theater projectors, and more.
When shopping for projectors, don’t rely on the specs—especially the claimed brightness, which is often exaggerated.
If you want a big screen, you need a bright projector. Tiny projectors are not bright enough to deliver a big-screen, cinema-like experience.
Projectors, like TVs, are rarely set up to look their best right out of the box. Look for a picture mode called Cinema, Movie, or Natural.
We have projector recommendations for home theaters, living rooms, small spaces, outdoors, and portable use.
If you’re not sure where to begin your projector search, we recommend reading about how to pick the right projector for your viewing needs. In summary, you have three important questions to ask at the start: What do you plan to use the projector for? What type of room will you use it in? How big of a screen do you want?
There’s a huge difference in price and performance between a 4K projector designed for a big-screen home theater and a portable mini projector designed to be an everyday TV replacement. Some projectors excel with movies in a completely dark room, while others are better for sports or gaming in a room with some ambient light.
Generally, the bigger the screen you want, the brighter your projector must be to produce a satisfyingly rich image. Once you have a general idea of the projector’s intended use, it’s easier to zero in on a specific choice.
The LS11000 is a great 4K laser projector that can deliver a big, bright, beautiful image, and it has almost all the features you need—except 3D support.
If you want to set up a high-performance home theater in a basement or spare room and need a 4K projector that can handle high dynamic range video and wide-color-gamut material, choose the Epson Home Cinema LS11000. This LCD laser projector offers a combination of performance and features that you won’t find in any other projector priced lower than $5,000. It’s an excellent 4K movie projector, but it also looks great with games, sports, and HDTV when some room lights are on.
Read more about the Epson LS11000 in our guide to the best 4K projector.
This projector produces a bright, rich-looking image with more accurate color than most competitors can offer. It’s easy to set up and quiet in operation, but it lacks features like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
If you want to create a big-screen movie experience at home on a modest budget, the BenQ HT2060 is the best performer in the $1,000-and-under price range.
Read more about this pick and others in our guide to the best budget projector for a home theater.
This projector combines high brightness with accurate color, great contrast, and good setup tools to fit in a variety of rooms.
The Epson Home Cinema 3800 projector offers a clear step up in picture quality over budget 1080p projectors, and its native contrast ratio—the difference between the darkest and brightest parts of an image—is much higher than that of most projectors around the same price. It can’t compete with the best 4K home theater projector in overall performance, but its high brightness makes it a better choice for use in a living room or family room where you can’t block out all the light.
You can read more about this projector and other bright-room options in our full guide to 4K projectors.
This compact projector offers good image brightness, above-average sound, and easy setup—for less money than similarly equipped competitors. It lacks a built-in battery, but you can run it off a USB-C power bank.
The Pro version’s 1080p resolution produces a slightly cleaner, sharper image than the basic version—but that improvement may not be worth the extra cost for many people.
If you need a small, compact projector you can easily put away, or even carry around with you in a backpack, the Xgimi MoGo 2 Series offers almost everything we could ask for in this type of projector. The series includes two models (standard and pro versions) that share the same core features and design: Both are LED projectors with a compact form, built-in streaming services and speakers, support for Bluetooth audio, and a USB-C charging port.
The 720p MoGo 2 is best for most people because it gives you all of those features—and surprisingly good performance—for around $400. The pricier MoGo 2 Pro ups the resolution to full HD (1080p)—which does produce a slightly cleaner, sharper image—and has a few more advanced setup tools.
You can read more about this projector and others in our full guide to portable mini projectors.
If you’re short on space, the BenQ HT2150ST can produce a larger image from a shorter distance.
In order to create a large image most projectors need to be positioned far from the screen. This distance is called the throw distance, and can be anywhere from 8 to 15 feet, depending on the projector and desired image size. Short-throw projectors are convenient for small rooms or other situations where space is limited. The BenQ HT2150ST can sit much closer to the screen than a standard projector, and is bright enough to use in a room with some ambient light.
You can read more about this projector in our guide to the best budget projector for a home theater.
The GS50 is a bright, battery-powered Android TV projector with lots of connection options. The more durable, weatherproof design makes it good for outdoor use.
If you’re looking for something more rugged to use outside, the BenQ GS50 is battery-powered and both splash and drop resistant, so it’s a good choice for camping or enjoying a backyard movie night when mated with a modest-size screen. It’s not as bright as a traditional, non-battery-powered home theater projector, but the picture is certainly good enough for casual TV watching or the occasional outdoor viewing session.
You can read more about this projector and others in our full guide to portable mini projectors.
Ultra-short-throw (UST) projectors are often marketed as TV replacements because they can deliver a massive image from a very short distance and have a footprint smaller than any TV. But the truth is, these are still projectors, and expensive ones at that. We tested four UST projectors at varying prices and performance levels and concluded that the vast majority of people are better off getting either a large TV or a traditional projector. You’ll either get better performance or spend less—oftentimes both. You can read more about this in our piece Is an Ultra-Short-Throw Projector a Good Substitute for a Big-Screen TV?
This inexpensive screen offers performance comparable to that of others costing much more, plus it’s easy to install.
If you have a projector, you should get a screen. Most modern projectors are bright enough to throw a decent image on just about any close-enough-to-white surface, but you won’t get accurate colors without a proper screen. A screen has less texture than a wall, plus it will add pop to the image, because paint almost always has less gain (that is, it reflects less light) than a screen, meaning the image will appear dimmer than is ideal. The Silver Ticket STR Series performs as well as screens costing thousands of dollars. You can read about screen materials and our testing methods in our full guide to the best projector screen.
If you’re putting together a backyard theater, consider one of our outdoor screen recommendations.
This is the closest thing to the perfect projector mount we’ve used.
If you want to get your projector up and out of the way, you need a mount. The Peerless-AV PRGS-UNV Projector Mount is one of our favorites due to its flexibility and how easy it is to set up correctly. The mounting arms are highly adjustable and removable, so it can handle anything from a tiny DLP projector to the gigantic JVC D-ILA projectors that most mounts cannot fit. The dials let you easily make small adjustments to the projector to get it level with the screen and produce the best-quality image without much work. After years of using this mount and going through dozens of tested projectors, we have yet to find one that the Peerless-AV cannot handle.
You’ll probably need some speakers, AV sources, and other accessories. Check out our recommendations in “The Best Gear for Building Your Home Theater.”
For a home theater projector that you will use mostly in a dark room, we recommend at least 1,000 ANSI lumens for a 100-inch screen. If you plan to use the projector in a room with more ambient light, you’ll want to go brighter: at least 1,500 ANSI lumens (ideally 2,000 or more). The larger the screen size you want, the brighter the projector needs to be to produce a satisfying image. Manufacturers’ claimed brightness specifications are usually exaggerated, so it’s best to rely on actual measured results from trusted reviewers. Some manufacturers use LEDs instead of traditional bulbs as the light source in their projectors, and they list the brightness rating in “LED lumens” instead of ANSI lumens to give a higher number.
This depends on how much you want the projected image to fill your field of view. Some people like to sit closer in the movie theater so it feels more immersive, while others prefer to sit farther back. It’s the same at home. Experts generally recommend a viewing distance that fills between 30 and 36 degrees of your field of view, and you can use this calculator to help find a good seating distance for your screen size.
If you watch a lot of 4K content and want the most detailed image you can get, a 4K projector is the way to go. The step up in resolution from 1080p to 4K can be more obvious on a projector than it is on most TVs, due to the larger screen size. However, native 4K projectors are very expensive and usually reserved for the most ardent home theater fans. Most affordable “4K” projectors use some type of pixel-shifting technology to reproduce a 4K image, which can be very effective and really is good enough for most people. Also, once you get past a certain seating distance, your eyes may not be able to see the difference between 4K and 1080p. You can use this 4K viewing-distance calculator as a guide. Most 4K projectors also support high dynamic range video, but we think this feature is less important on projectors, since none of them are bright enough to do HDR properly.
A portable mini projector won’t perform as well as a good TV or home-theater projector, but Xgimi’s MoGo 2 Series ably blends performance and convenience.
The Epson LS11000 4K laser projector delivers a big, beautiful image, works well in a variety of lighting conditions, and has most of the features you need.
The BenQ HT2060 ’s good contrast, bright output, and impressive color accuracy make it our pick for the best budget home theater projector.
Ultra-short-throw projectors can deliver a big, bright image in your living room, but for most people a big-screen TV is a better choice.
Best Portable Projector For Mac Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).