Sony - VPL-VW60

I’m not sure what the market looks like today but my last two projectors have been used/refurbished models that were available for much less than retail. It’s worth checking out. I’m in the US, and bought a Sony VPL-VW60 in 2010 for under $1000. It had a msrp of $5k. I then upgraded it to an Epson refurbished 5040UB for $1150 in 2019. If you are willing to go last generation, you could generally get great deals on projectors that will vastly outperform the budget projectors of the current generation.

My first projector was a Sony SXRD 1080P in 2007: $10,000 USD. Bulb replacements cost $900-1000. When it finally gave up the ghost in 2017, I purchased another Sony SXRD 1080P: $1800 USD with \~$100 bulb replacements. The picture is better. Cost for projectors has definitely gotten cheaper for more, but TVs are a true mass market item. As other posters have indicated, the market for projectors is tiny compared to the market for TVs. Companies will create products and compete if they can sell millions, but not as much if they are looking at tens of thousands.

So, I play ps5 on a Sony sxrd 1080p projector on a 100” screen. I’m moving off a projector. I’ll tell you why. At the time 100” anything tv wise was stupid expensive. But now you can get a 4K screen for $1.5K or 2.5K. You will get better gaming out of that. My projector has game mode etc. But a TV with vrr, hdr etc will look and play better and you can play with the lights on! So I was going to upgrade to 4K with a Valerion, benq x3100i etc. but as I priced that vs a huge back lit screen at 100” and less in size for me it will be a better deal. Now if you want over 100” PJ is the way to go. But mind you, now you need to add screen cost to that and depending on the lighting in your room that screen could be pretty expensive. I know we are all PJ people here. But there are other options. I’m waiting it out to Black Friday and see if I can get a 100” mini led screen for a good price. Hopefully 240Hz at 1080p and 120Hz at 4K with all the bells and whistles.

I have bought multiple projectors off shopgoodwill.com to get me started, a 1080p Sony projector is in our gazebo, in the basement I have two 1080p Epson projectors and one Christie that I didn’t pay over $40 each for. You can get decent deals when auction times end at off hours. I even got a perfectly working (remoteless) Denon X2600h for about $230 shipped from there. Check it out!