Projector or TV for Conference Room: Which is Better?

It is essential to consider that projectors and TVs serve two different purposes, and there are pros and cons to both. For some reason, people tend to think that projectors are costly, but in most cases, a good budget projector will cost you less than a large TV.

Brightness

Considering that a projector uses light from a bulb, it will not be as bright as a TV, so they typically work better in a basement or a dedicated conference room, somewhere where you can easily control the light. If you want to put it into a bright room, there are ways to combat that. You can make the screen a little bit smaller just because the bigger screen is darker. You can also get different types of screen material that will reject the light, or you can get different kinds of paints if you are putting it on a wall, which will help.

Space, size, and cost

TVs are great for just about any space, but they can get expensive when you want something huge and compare them to a projector. A cheap 70″ TV will cost you maybe around one thousand USD, and a good 70″ TV is going to cost you $1,800. Once you get into 80 or 85″ TVs, you are well on to four or five, $6,000 or more. TVs do have a lot of benefits over projectors. The first thing is that they’re really, really bright, so you don’t have to worry about putting them in a bright room because it’s bright enough that it’s going to overpower whatever light you have in the room.

Another thing about TVs is that most are smart now, and they have intelligent features built into them. That is not something you usually are going to find in a projector. To get intelligent features on a projector, you would have to hook up something like a Roku, Chromecast, Fire TV, or something like that. Another thing to consider is 4K and HDR. There are 4K HDR projectors out there, but if you are the average person interested in 4K HDR, you might want to consider a TV over a projector unless you are willing to pay at least $10,000.

Projector benefits

You are probably thinking, “Why would anybody buy a projector over a TV considering all the benefits of a TV?” Well, there are two reasons you might want to consider a projector. Reason number one is the “wow” factor. There is nothing like walking into a room and seeing a massive screen with a nice picture on it. The average movie theater will use a 2K projector, close to a 1080p projector.

Depending on where you are sitting in that movie theater, you could have a better experience at home sitting in front of a 120″ screen 10 feet away. If you are sitting way back in a movie theater, then yes, that’s going to be a sharp picture to you because you’re not right up. You can’t see the pixels, but if you’re sitting on the first few rows, you’re going to notice a drastic difference in picture quality.

Reason number two is that it is more immersive. A vast 1080p screen versus a smaller 4K screen can be a much better experience. How would you feel if you walked into a movie theater, and they had an 80″ screen on the wall instead of a 50′ screen? That’s the significant difference between a projector and a TV.