Projector Central 2019 Best of the Year Award

 

 

The products culled below from the 40 or so we reviewed or completed evaluations for in 2019 all have a little something extra. Some feature innovations or cutting-edge technologies that broke new ground; others offer impressive build or image quality that blew us away; still others just delivered the kind of price/performance value quotient that makes them an easy recommendation.

 

About the Aeon CLR® Series:

The Aeon CLR® is an EDGE FREE CLR® fixed frame screen that uses Elite Screens innovative StarBright CLR® (Ceiling Light Rejecting®) material.

One of the benefits of watching and reporting on the projector market day-in and day-out at ProjectorCentral is that we get to look back at the end of each year and gauge the trends and stand-out products which, in hindsight, left an impression. For the first time, we’re delighted to share these observations in our inaugural ProjectorCentral Best of the Year Awards.

The products culled below from the 40 or so we reviewed or completed evaluations for in 2019 all have a little something extra. Some feature innovations or cutting-edge technologies that broke new ground; others offer impressive build or image quality that blew us away; still others just delivered the kind of price/performance value quotient that makes them an easy recommendation.

Taken in aggregate, what you’ll see from the mix is an industry that was in flux in 2019. Laser and other low maintenance, lamp-free projection solutions dropped rapidly in cost and began staking their claim in the markets for replacement education and business projectors. And we saw a more massive incursion of both affordable and premium 4K UHD projectors for the home theater market. Critically, new generation 4K home theater introductions starting in late 2018 gave us noticeably improved HDR as manufacturers began to finally figure out the tone-mapping formulas required to take advantage of this enhanced content. And of course, we saw our first reviews of 4K ultra short throw (UST) “laser TV” projectors intended to replace the family room flat-panel. We expect all of these trends to continue in 2020, and we’ll be here, as always, to tell you what we think of the new gear.—Rob Sabin, editor-in-chief..