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Hands down the Projector People know thier stuff and can help you out.

http://www.projectorpeople.com/

My comments don’t get posted?

That one did.. But If I include the 2 links I had.. It doesn’t get posted…. Feel free to delete these posts.

I’ve always been pretty pleased with Sharp & Sanyo projectors we have several in-house projectors at my organization. My suggestion would be something like the Sanyo PLC -XU74 which is selling for about $850 at B&H.

The basic things you need to pay attention to are: - lumens (how bright) - what resolution you need

What ever you decide to buy, listen to it. I’ve used many different projectors and some of these things sound like jets.

I highly recommend the Mitsubishi HD1000U . It is very quiet, fan exhaust blows forward, HD, HDMI , DVI, Component / Composite / S Video, and more.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=Search&A=details&Q=&sku=482339&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

We’re in the same situation and after tons of research are netting out with the Dell 2400mp – $1199 http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&sku=222-1451&redirect=1

I second the Mitsubishi, we have 5 of them and they work great.

We use InFocus LP70 . It’s a little over your budget, but it works well for us. I haven’t use any other projector, so I can’t compare it for you.

I would start by really understanding what you want.

1) Is it just for presentations or do you want to use it for movies/tv/hdtv as well? This will change what inputs you are looking for and possibly need a decent scaler as well.

2) How dark can you get the rooms / how bright do you want the projection? This being said, for the most part, brighter is better.

3) Does it have to be ultra-light for travel? The lighter and smaller it gets the more expensive it and replacement bulbs will be.

4) Have you done the math for replacement bulbs?

Once you know that I would also recommend projectorpeople as they seem to have their act together.

Based on what I would buy for a presentation projector… I would also recommend getting at least XGA , 2k lumen, LCD , with a short throw and lens offset. If you can’t get that in 1K I would walk away since you will be disappointed if you compromise on too many of the features.

This BenQ model from Newegg has gotten pretty good reviews and is only $599!! By far, the cheapest for this type of quality.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889106009

I second Eric in the “XGA, 2k lumen, LCD ” department. And DVI is all the rage these days, so as a high quality input, it should be your first choice.

DLP projectors just came into this price range and worth a look. We just bought an Optoma HD70 for about that much. It’s DLP and looks fantastic.

I bought a Viewsonic for my company and it gets damn damn hot! Can’t be good. Video looks good on it. I also bought a 60” projection screen that I can take with me as well. At first I didn’t think I would need it, but it has come in handy many times.

I recently purchased an epson cinema 550. its more of a home theatre projector but works great with my laptop. A key feature though is support for HDTV /HDMI – which means it will work with Apple TV.

But the main reason I like epson so much is they have the best support I have found. If your projector breaks, they will send out a new one while they fix yours so you dont have to go weeks without one while its at the shop. Others I have owned like infocus have terrible support.

Along the lines of Eric’s notes about what you really need:

Do you need a projector, or would something else suffice?

We needed something mostly for showing web and print designs. Demo of apps. Presentations.

So we bought a large monitor (42” LCD ) instead of replacing our dying projector. It’s on a wheeled stand (to move it to different offices or around the conference room) and we have a Mac Mini hooked up to it as well. The monitor was right within the price range you’re looking.

We just rented a Dell projector for a last-minute presentation and were very pleased with it. It cost us $99 to rent, but the purchase price is only $629 (not counting spare bulbs, etc.):

http://tinyurl.com/3dwbrq

Regards,

-jf.

— John Federico http://www.newrules.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfederico http://johnfederico.brandbrains.net http://www.odmcast.com

We’ve been really happy with NEC for really high-end, install and leave it alone type setups. If you’re looking for something portable, Epson’s got a great product line up. They’ve got some that are smaller than my laptop, and some that are bigger, but still plenty portable.

A good feature to look for is auto-adjust/auto-keystone. Basically, you set the projector down, point it at a wall, turn it on, and it adjusts the focus for you. Beats having to fiddle with menus and dials.

Reliability-wise, picture-quality-wise, never had problems with either brand.

I concur with the first post about projectorpeople.com i bought a projector through them in 2001 and it was a great experience.

Every projector I’ve ran into with the Air Force has been an inFocus. They’re pretty durable but you may find yourself having to reboot and turn it on/off multiple times to get it working…

We recently bought an Epson 76C for $695 shipped from Staples.com

I thought this was a great deal because it has XGA resolution, is quiet, and is a 3-chip LCD (which means there is none of the “rainbow effect” that you get from some single chip projectors which use a color wheel).

It’s been great. The only drawback, which isn’t that big of deal is that it doesn’t have a DVI input, just analog VGA .

I still think it’s the best deal out there.

As far as I know, y’all are a mac shop, so make sure, if you’re not going to get a DVI specific projector, that you at least have a bunch of spare DVI to VGA converters lying around. They disappear fast.

I have always been impressed with Infocus. They make a great projector, great cost for what you get, and they have always just worked. When I was working for an org that was all Apple, I bought one for the boss specifically for those reasons. He could pull it out of the bag, plug in his laptop, turn everything on, and voila—no config or hassle on his part and no worrying on part about whether everything would be ok. Definitely worth looking into.

Stay away from that $599 Benq w100 from newegg. I bought one last week thinking it was an entry level projector that I could use for home AND office but I was wrong. Apparently all of the reviews for it are from gamers and people using it for a home theater. I received mine today and it is decent for home but terrible for the office. Primarily due to the lower native resolution (800×600), text is not legible during presentations (pixelated). Definitely stick with XGA resolution if you plan to use it for presentations. One thing the Benq w100 is good for is the Wii (for that I would give it a positive review)

Get an EPSON !!

The quality of their Products is always Top Notch + they stand behind their Products – something goes wrong – U get a New one no questions asked

Excellent Documentation + they consistently Win Top Honours for their Projectors + Printers – a Company by which all other Computer Product Manufacturers would do well to look at

Cheers! Billy ;))

Peace*

I’ll also vote for the Dell MP2400 . Great picture and it seems quite tough – we had a heavy light fitting fall 3 metres from the ceiling onto it. The only result was a few paint chips – the projector still works perfectly.

At frog we have several Sharp XR-20X’s, and they work great. Bright, punchy, excellent detail (make sure to get the 1024x version). Work well even with lights on. B&H has them for $900ish. http://preview.tinyurl.com/3e29ny

Regarding the Mitsubishi model mentioned in a couple of posts, I would be wary of it because it is designed for home theater, which is a very different kettle of fish than business projectors. For business you want bright, bright, bright, don’t usually care that much about lag time with fast motion, and put a premium on edge detail for text and charts. Home theater projectors are much dimmer because they aim to provide solid blacks (business projectors rarely give good blacks), and emphasize smooth motion and natural edge detail, not highly sharpened.

So I would just make sure you are getting a projector intended for what you need. Business projectors also tend to be much cheaper, as they have less demanding specs (and probably the glass is not as good).

Some projectors obviously are super small these days, but if you don’t need a really portable one, stick with something a bit bigger as it will be brighter and often less noisy (fan doesn’t have to work as hard in a big case). The Sharps are pretty much silent.

Regarding some people’s resolution recommendation: don’t get caught out with “maximum resolution”, the native resolution is wht rally counts as with any display.

Also, don’t forget it is worth spending the extra money on a decent projector screen – you’ll be surprised at the increase in brightness over against for instance a white wall.

I wouldnt buy a projector, I would buy a large lcd-TV instead.

Just select the simpliest, as few features as possible.

I recently bought an InFocus IN72 for movies and games. It’s the low end model (848×480) but they have more hi-res versions too.

I’m pretty happy with it and InFocus seems to be really cool projector maker (design, menus, remote, website – should fit your dogma ;-)).

I also posted some photos in flickr

I agree with Jocke, go for a big TV or monitor, seriously.

just an advice: buy one that works with your pc…

this advice can sound obvious, but as a client who receives agency presentations almost twice a week, I can no longer stand agency people wasting time (and credibility) trying to make the pc/projector connection work… so I will go in a shop with the laptop and will ask the seller to demo his projectors linked to your laptop.

just 0,02$ that IMHO could save you big bucks…

I did a lot of research on projectors when my firm decided to buy one. We bought an Acer PD726W Multimedia Projector. It has every kind of input any one would need including HDMI , it has 3700 ANSI Lumens, and my favorite feature is that it lets you customize the startup screen. Whatever you buy remember its all in the lumens. The more the better.

I’d avoid Sanyo projectors, we’ve had several with discolored images. I’d recommend either a HP or an InFocus projector used both and never had any trouble with them.

Word of advice though, if you’re thinking of ever ceiling mounting them make sure you get ones that the bulb and filters are accessible when its upside down.

I’d recommend either an Epson or Hitachi brand. I’ve had good experiences with both. A client of mine recently bought a Sony lightweight which seems to be a good option if portability is a priority for you.

I just remembered, a few years ago when I was working in the corporate scene, we had a projector reseller come to our offices to demo a few different brands that they had. You can really tell the difference side by side. Things that I noticed were the quality of down or upscaling and the quality of keystone. Some projector brands remove pixels which looks bad, but then some alias the signal which looks much better. I found Epson (more expensive) or Hitachi a good solution that down scaled, up scaled and keystoned really well for quality.

We bought this a month or so ago and have been really impressed with its quality, ease of use and portability. Its a bit of a no name but if you compare it to all of the others in its price range it just about wins in every category. Plus you can just drive down to your local best buy and pick one up on the spot!

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8231549&st=projectors&type=product&id=1167445401780

First off - after having purchased many projectors and seeking the following attributes - portability - Light weight - 2000 or more lumens - LCD for excellent color with movies - XGA or better resolution - TWO input connectors (one useable as an OUTput to another monitor - reasonable small size - and SHORT throw for a LARGE image - I chose—and am Very Happy with the Panasonic PT-LB50NTU. IT cost something over $1100 but might be less now.

What I found I DID NOT WANT - was the common DLP projector because, though bright and mostly less expensive - I found the COLOR —particularly RED , to be meager compared to the LCD Panels.

It weighs only 4.3 pounds and has been a pleasure to use.

IF - there is something in this class that also has DIGITAL input without a converter - and HIGHER than XGA (1024X768) resolution—720P, that might be a plus since marvelous Blu-ray video is upon us. And I happen to have a Blu-ray burner/player. But even that looks wonderful when projected to 9 feet with my Panasonic.

George Margolin

Get the Optoma DV-10 for $699 and a few DVD ’s

The Hitachi PJ32 is a great unit for the price. ($499 at ProjectorPeople.com). Just before the holidays it was around $699… It does a great job with DVDs and video games.

The last guy said go to www.projectorpeople.com we have bought around 20 projectors over the years, some good, some bad. The people that you actually talk to at projectorpeople.com know their stuff. They answered all questions and made great suggestions, recommending the right product everytime (not just the most expensive one) USE THEM !!!!

Make sure your projector has enough adjustments to fit the wall you are pointing it at. Angle and height sometimes aren’t optimum. Reseach backpack prices so you can bring a ton of useless thick books to help prop up the projector. Fat Java and .NET books work really well. . . . .

LP120 from InFocus. Hands-down, no question. Wins. Simple, small, portable, GORGEOUS image.

I take back my Dell recommendation. Yesterday my projector decided to give up the ghost and is completely non-responsive. Dell support’s response was that the warranty has expired and they don’t do repairs. They suggested I replace the unit. I made it very clear that if I did replace the unit it certainly wouldn’t be with another Dell, with lifespan of only 14 months.