I have owned several projectors, and to date, this is the best one I have owned. I use this as part of my livingroom entertainment system. This consists of a Intel NUC6I5SY running Windows 8.1 and Windows Media Center, a 2.1 sound system with 2 Sony bookshelf 2 way speakers, and a Sony 8" powered sub, a Ceton 6 tuner ethernet cable tuner, and an Amazon Echo Dot 2nd gen. The Echo Dot is wired to my sound system, The LG projector is bluetooth connected to the Echo Dot for sound, the NUC is HDMI connected to the LG Projector for video and sound. This provides me with the greatest versatility for what I want to do. I only bought the projector as a display, and not for it's "Smart TV" functions, more on that later. I project on a Elite Screen M106UWH 106" screen.
To get to the heart of the matter, I do not have a professional setup, but I am picky. I have owned 2 previous projectors. A Mitsubishi HC1500 and a Epson Home Cinema 3010. The Mitsubishi was a 720P 1500 lumen DLP projector, and the Epson was a 1080P 2200 lumen 3LCD 3D projector. The picture quality on the Mitsubishi never significantly deteriorated, except for bulb ageing. I ended up replacing the Epson because the LCD started failing. It discolored in the upper left corner, extending downward a good portion of the left edge of the screen. I had replaced the bulb twice.
The evening of the day I received the LG, I checked my Epson and media center one last time, to see if I needed to make any changes. I did not. I swapped out the LG for the Epson, hooked up the HDMI from my NUC, and turned it on. Minor stumbling block, you have to "register" the remote with the projector. You do that by pressing the center button/scroll wheel on the remote, while the remote is very close to the projector. This is a magic remote, which means it is a air/gyro mouse type of device. You control the pointer by waving it in the air. To calibrate it, just "push" the pointer against the sides of the screen, until you get a good center and range of motion. You click the center button/scroll wheel to select an option. It takes you through a setup wizard to configure the wired or wireless network the tv tuner, time and time zone, location, provider and so forth. Once done, it should automatically switch to the HDMI port that you have input on. If not, there is a button with a "cable" on the remote, hit that and select your input.
The LG came configured with the "Standard" picture setting and medium power saving, it has quite a few presets, and you can custom calibrate it if you are into that. My living room is setup to be mostly dark, with some ambient light during the day. It was way too bright for me. After some research, and reading a review, I selected the "Expert Dark Room" preset, and maximum power saving. And this is still much brighter, and crisper, than the Epson which was set to maximum output, and Cinema picture preset. And at that, the whites on the LG are much crisper than the Epson, and the uniformity of brightness across the screen much better than the Epson. The Epson took it's time to warm up and turn on, and took time to turn off and cool down. And even after the Epson turned on, it took a bit for the bulb to stabilize in brightness and color temperature. The LG is much quicker, and no cool down. I hit the power button, there is about 1 second of blank but noticeable display, the LG logo flashes for about 1 second, and then after about another 1 second of blank screen the display is on, and at full brightness. The fan noise is noticeable in a totally quiet room, but is easily overpowered by either my AC or the refrigerator. It is much quieter than the Epson or the Mitsubishi. Turning it off, it goes dark immediately, the fan spins up for about 2 seconds, then it is completely off. There is much less heat discharged by this device than the Epson or the Mitsubishi.
The picture quality: I also use this as my computer at home. A computer with a 106" screen. Realistically from my recliner, the view is equivalent to the 27" monitor sitting on my desk at work. With the Epson I started to think my eyesight was going, as I was having a hard time reading text while working as a computer. It turns out the Epson was also getting "fuzzy" for lack of a better word. And with the Epson I could never get consistent focus across the entire screen. With this new LG the text is significantly sharper and more readable, and also consistently so across the entire screen. I find I can read much smaller text, and much more comfortably. Overall, the display is much more consistent across the entire screen, in focus, brightness, and color. The white is whiter, the colors are more vibrant and realistic, the blacks are deeper, though not as deep as I would expect from a DLP projector, which this is. I think this projector is better in every way compared to my previous projectors, except that the Epson had 3D capabilities, and this one does not. Even though I purchased the Epson with 3D as part of what I wanted, and it was pretty good. I just don't care enough about that at this point, it was a novelty.
I would like to point out, that with my bluetooth audio connection through my Echo Dot, there is a small amount of lag. Most times I do not notice it unless I am looking for it. At some point I may re-configure my audio setup. Audio quality seems to be quite good otherwise. It is bluetooth, so I am sure it is not up to audiophile or home theater enthusiast standards. But I am happy with it. My sound is balanced, clear, and provides significant bass for that seat of the pants theater experience. BTW, my sub is located behind my recliner, where it should be. It is not boosted to thumper levels. Just really nice. But this setup lets me "feel" those movie effects. Oh, and my recliner is a love seat, so I can share that experience.
Smart TV features: They are OK, but not great, and since I have a PC hooked up, I don't actually care if they are there. Because they are there, and I have an Amazon Prime account, I checked them out. The LG is hooked up to my somewhat out of date wireless N network with a internet speed of 75 Mbit plus down, and 10 Mbit plus up. The WebOS interface is pretty sluggish in my opinion. If I were using it on a regular basis I would quickly get annoyed. It has LG proprietary WebOS store with some content, games and apps. None of which I consider worthwhile. It has Netflix, Vudu, and Amazon apps (but no Hulu or much of anything else), which apparently updates, as when I initialized the Amazon app it required me to update it before I could use it. I connected it to my Amazon Prime account, and proceeded to search movies and shows, and browse my personal video library. This worked pretty good, and was generally a decent experience. I picked a random prime available movie and played it. Playback video and audio quality was just fine, playback controls were OK, using the air mouse function of the remote to utilize the on screen controls. It worked, but I will be using my PC and Chrome web browser to actually do any of this. If I did not have a PC hooked up as my primary device (and for TV and media use), I would probably get a Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Roku, Android media box, or an Apple TV to do "Smart TV" stuff. I am sorry, but "Smart TV" does not belong in the TV. I would frankly be happier if they left out the Smart TV and the TV tuner function entirely. I want all the engineering effort and cost spent on the display device. I would rather spend extra money on an external media player box of some kind. The TV manufacturers just don't do "Smart TV" all that good in my opinion.
The device itself: It is compact, appears to be well built. It feels hefty and solid. But it is actually not very heavy. It does have an external power supply. Something like a laptop would have. It is of average size, not really small, not really big, in my opinion. The focus and zoom are manual,limited, and interact. Zoom is a lever on top, focus is accomplished by rotating the lens bezel manually. Set the Zoom first, then focus, then fiddle a bit back an forth to get it perfect. I also used the "edge adjust" feature to tweak the picture geometry to align with my screen. The projector has the expected manually adjustable elevation feet at the front. For my installation, I actually had to prop up the back of the projector up with a small stack of card stock, because I needed to aim it slightly down for my circumstance. Whereas many projectors have a single foot in the back so you can level the projector side to side easily with the front feet, this projector has a single wide pad in the back. Leveling with this setup could be a bit tricky. On the other hand, the projector has a camera style tripod mount on the bottom, and you could chose to use a miniature or full size tripod to support the projector, which would give you full control over the projectors position. There is also a small joystick controller on top. It is can be used to turn the projector on and off, change the volume, and channels of the internal tuner. It displays a red illuminated power logo when in standby. You press it once to turn the projector on, and you press and hold until the projector turns off. When the projector is on, the standby light turns off. This is normal. The full manual is available on the product page of the LG website. This joystick also controls access to the full internal menu.
I had considered LG PF1500W LED projector (as well as other LED projectors), but preferred the styling, size, laser light source, and higher lumen rating of this model better. I also did not like the connectivity ports being on the side of the PF1500W, where the ports are on the back of the LG Laser Projector. A big part of my decision was to not buy a projector with a standard lamp as a light source. Your mileage may vary.
Additional thanks to Beach Camera, the actual supplier of the product. I paid for next day shipping, which cost $13, standard shipping is free. For the about the same price everyone else is selling this for, they include a ceiling mount, 2 HDMI cables, an outlet mount surge protector, and a lens cleaner pen/brush. Kudos also for same day shipping and fast response to an inquiry I had. I am at this point very happy with my purchase. I have not been compensated for my review, nor do I expect to be. I may update this review after I have lived with this product for a while.
My rating on this device is based primarily on what I bought it for. Which is as a display device for my living room media center. It is the best that I have owned to date.
Reviews with images
This could be the best digital projector ever made!
This projector is unbelievable! It is so bright and sharp that it's impossible believe that it weights less than five pounds and can be picked up with one hand. And it worked perfectly straight out of the box with absolutely no setup! The only disappointment is that it has an external power block (not that big, but easy to forget). Also, a custom made case would be nice.
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2017
Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2018
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2017
This could be the best digital projector ever made!
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2017
This projector is unbelievable! It is so bright and sharp that it's impossible believe that it weights less than five pounds and can be picked up with one hand. And it worked perfectly straight out of the box with absolutely no setup! The only disappointment is that it has an external power block (not that big, but easy to forget). Also, a custom made case would be nice.
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2017
Images in this review
Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2018
