It is important 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 is actually going to 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 really do want to put it into a bright room, there are ways that you can combat that. You can make the screen a little bit smaller just because the bigger the screen is darker. You can also get different types of screen material that will reject the light, or you can get different types 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 when you want something huge and compare them to a projector, it can get really, really expensive. A really cheap 70″ TV is going to cost you maybe around one thousand USD. A good 70″ TV is going to cost you $1,800. Once you start to 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 really don’t have to worry about putting it 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 of them are smart now. They have smart features built into them. That is not something you are normally going to find in a projector. To get smart features on a projector, you would have to hook up something like a Roku, Chromecast, or 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 and really 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 huge screen with a nice picture on it. The average movie theater will use a 2K projector, close to just a 1080p projector.
Depending on where you are sitting in that movie theater, you could actually 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 really sharp picture to you because you’re not right up. You can’t really see the pixels, but if you’re sitting on the first few rows, you’re definitely going to notice a drastic difference in picture quality.
Reason number two is that it is more immersive. Having a huge 1080p screen versus having a smaller 4K screen can definitely 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 major difference between a projector and a TV.
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