The Best Projectors for 2024 | Reviews by Wirecutter

By Adrienne Maxwell

Adrienne Maxwell is an editor covering AV gear. Her specialty is video projectors, so she spends a lot of time alone in dark rooms.

We’ve added the BenQ X500i as another pick for the best short-throw projector.

Different projectors are designed for different uses, and they can range in price from a couple hundred dollars to well into the five-figure range. Choosing the right model for your needs can be a daunting task, and we’re here to help.

Below is an overview of the top picks from our various projector guides. We have recommendations for premium 4K movie projectors, bright living-room projectors, budget home theater projectors, and more.

When shopping for projectors, don’t rely on the specs—especially the claimed brightness, which is often exaggerated.

If you want a big screen, you need a bright projector. Tiny projectors are not bright enough to deliver a big-screen, cinema-like experience.

Projectors, like TVs, are rarely set up to look their best right out of the box. Look for a picture mode called Cinema, Movie, or Natural.

We have projector recommendations for home theaters, living rooms, small spaces, outdoors, and portable use.

If you’re not sure where to begin your projector search, we recommend reading about how to pick the right projector for your viewing needs. In summary, you have three important questions to ask at the start: What do you plan to use the projector for? What type of room will you use it in? How big of a screen do you want?

There’s a huge difference in price and performance between a 4K projector designed for a big-screen home theater and a portable mini projector designed to be an everyday TV replacement. Some projectors excel with movies in a completely dark room, while others are better for sports or gaming in a room with some ambient light.

Generally, the bigger the screen you want, the brighter your projector must be to produce a satisfyingly rich image. Once you have a general idea of the projector’s intended use, it’s easier to zero in on a specific choice.

The LS11000 is a great 4K laser projector that can deliver a big, bright, beautiful image, and it has almost all the features you need—except 3D support.

If you want to set up a high-performance home theater in a basement or spare room and need a 4K projector that can handle high dynamic range video and wide-color-gamut material, choose the Epson Home Cinema LS11000. This LCD laser projector offers a combination of performance and features that you won’t find in any other projector priced lower than $5,000. It’s an excellent 4K movie projector, but it also looks great with games, sports, and HDTV when some room lights are on.

Read more about the Epson LS11000 in our guide to the best 4K projector.

This projector produces a bright, rich-looking image with more accurate color than most competitors can offer. It’s easy to set up and quiet in operation, but it lacks features like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

If you want to create a big-screen movie experience at home on a modest budget, the BenQ HT2060 is the best performer in the $1,000-and-under price range.

Read more about this pick and others in our guide to the best budget projector for a home theater.

This 4K projector’s high light output, good-sounding speaker, and Android TV system make it a nice option for a living room.

The BenQ TK860i’s high brightness, rich color, razor-sharp image, and solid HDR performance are well suited for everyday TV and movie watching in a brighter viewing environment. It can’t compete with the best 4K home theater projector in contrast and accuracy, but its high brightness makes it a better choice for use in a living room or family room where you can’t block out all the light. If you'd prefer an LCD projector for a living room, the Epson Home Cinema 3800 is a great option, but it does not have a full 4K resolution.

You can read more about this projector in our full guide to 4K projectors.

This compact, 1080p projector offers good image brightness and contrast, above-average sound, easy setup, and a built-in battery. But mounting it on a tripod may prove tricky.

If you need a small, compact projector that you can easily move around your home, the Nebula Mars 3 Air offers almost everything we could ask for in this type of projector. The Mars 3 Air is an LED projector that has a 1080p resolution and supports HDR video in the HDR10 format (though it isn’t bright enough to show off what HDR can do). It also includes a built-in battery, built-in Google TV and speakers, automatic focus and image shaping, and support for Bluetooth audio.

You can read more about this projector and others in our full guide to portable mini projectors.

This 4K projector casts a larger image from a shorter distance, so it’s good for smaller spaces. As long as the room has light control, this projector’s excellent contrast, color, and detail make it good for all content types.

This 1080p projector can produce a 100-inch image from less than 5 feet away. But the picture quality isn’t quite as good as that of the X500i.

In order to create a large image, most projectors need to be positioned far from the screen. This distance is called the throw distance, and it can be anywhere from 8 to 15 feet, depending on the projector and desired image size. Short-throw projectors are convenient for small rooms or other situations where space is limited. Both the 4K BenQ X500i and the 1080p BenQ HT2150ST can sit much closer to the screen than standard projectors.

You can read more about the BenQ X500i in our 4K projector guide and the BenQ HT2150ST in our guide to the best budget projector for a home theater.

This portable 1080p projector offers the good brightness, long battery life, and convenient features we want in an outdoor projector, but it’s bulkier than we’d prefer.

While nearly any projector can work for the occasional backyard movie night, a more rugged and portable model is advisable if you plan to use it outdoors a lot. The Nebula Mars 3 is the brightest portable projector we’ve tested, and while its 1080p resolution doesn’t measure up to a 4K projector (currently there are no battery-powered 4K options) it still provides good contrast and decent accuracy. Its built-in speakers performed admirably, and outdoor-friendly features like weatherproofing make it an ideal option for the perfect backyard movie night.

You can read more about this projector in our guide to the best outdoor projector.

Ultra-short-throw (UST) projectors are often marketed as TV replacements because they can deliver a massive image from a very short distance and have a footprint smaller than any TV. But the truth is, these are still projectors, and expensive ones at that.

We tested four UST projectors at varying prices and performance levels and concluded that the vast majority of people are better off getting either a large TV or a traditional projector. You’ll either get better performance or spend less—oftentimes both. You can read more about this in our piece Is an Ultra-Short-Throw Projector a Good Substitute for a Big-Screen TV?

This inexpensive screen offers performance comparable to that of others costing much more, plus it’s easy to install.

Most modern projectors are bright enough to throw a decent image on just about any close-enough-to-white surface, but you won’t get accurate colors without a proper screen. A screen has less texture than a wall, plus it will add pop to the image, because paint almost always has less gain (that is, it reflects less light) than a screen, meaning the image will appear dimmer than is ideal.

The Silver Ticket STR Series performs as well as screens costing thousands of dollars. You can read about screen materials and our testing methods in our guide to the best projector screen.

This outdoor screen’s rigid frame, highly reflective screen, and adjustable height make it the best choice for creating a movie-like outdoor-theater experience. But it carries a high price.

If you don’t need an adjustable-height frame or an extra-large screen size, this rigid frame uses the same material as the pricier Yard Master Plus.

While projecting an image against an outdoor wall or garage door is an option, a dedicated projector screen like the Elite Screens Yard Master Plus or the Elite Screens Yard Master 2 provides better video quality. Both screens are made from the same ISF-certified material, which did a great job of preserving image brightness and color accuracy in our testing. Assembly for their respective frames is straightforward, using button snaps to attach the screen to the frame.

The Yard Master 2 comes in sizes from 58 to 135 inches diagonally (in a 16:9 shape), while the Yard Master Plus comes in sizes from 100 to 200 inches. In addition, the Plus features an adjustable-height frame.

If you’re interested in an inflatable screen or something even more economical, check out our guide on outdoor projector screens.

This is the closest thing to the perfect projector mount we’ve used.

If you want to get your projector up and out of the way, you need a mount. The Peerless-AV PRGS-UNV Projector Mount is one of our favorites due to its flexibility and how easy it is to set up correctly. The mounting arms are highly adjustable and removable, so it can handle anything from a tiny DLP projector to the gigantic JVC D-ILA projectors that most mounts cannot fit. The dials let you easily make small adjustments to the projector to get it level with the screen and produce the best-quality image without much work. After years of using this mount and going through dozens of tested projectors, we have yet to find one that the Peerless-AV cannot handle.

You’ll probably need some speakers, AV sources, and other accessories. Check out our recommendations in “The Best Gear for a Home Theater System.”

For a home theater projector that you will use mostly in a dark room, we recommend at least 1,000 ANSI lumens for a 100-inch screen. If you plan to use the projector in a room with more ambient light, you’ll want to go brighter: at least 1,500 ANSI lumens (ideally 2,000 or more). The larger the screen size you want, the brighter the projector needs to be to produce a satisfying image. Manufacturers’ claimed brightness specifications are usually exaggerated, so it’s best to rely on actual measured results from trusted reviewers. Some manufacturers use LEDs instead of traditional bulbs as the light source in their projectors, and they list the brightness rating in “LED lumens” instead of ANSI lumens to give a higher number.

This depends on how much you want the projected image to fill your field of view. Some people like to sit closer in the movie theater so it feels more immersive, while others prefer to sit farther back. It’s the same at home. Experts generally recommend a viewing distance that fills between 30 and 36 degrees of your field of view, and you can use this calculator to help find a good seating distance for your screen size.

If you watch a lot of 4K content and want the most detailed image you can get, a 4K projector is the way to go. The step up in resolution from 1080p to 4K can be more obvious on a projector than it is on most TVs, due to the larger screen size. However, native 4K projectors are very expensive and usually reserved for the most ardent home theater fans. Most affordable “4K” projectors use some type of pixel-shifting technology to reproduce a 4K image, which can be very effective and really is good enough for most people. Also, once you get past a certain seating distance, your eyes may not be able to see the difference between 4K and 1080p. Most 4K projectors also support high dynamic range video, but we think this feature is less important on projectors, since none of them are bright enough to do HDR properly.

Adrienne Maxwell

I oversee all of Wirecutter’s coverage of AV gear, including headphones, TVs, speakers, and more. I also write all of Wirecutter’s projector guides, and I test peripheral AV equipment such as screens, remotes, and HDMI transmitters.

by Gabriella DePinho

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by Adrienne Maxwell

The Epson LS11000 4K laser projector delivers a big, beautiful image, works well in a variety of lighting conditions, and has most of the features you need.

by Adrienne Maxwell

A portable mini projector doesn’t perform as well as a good TV or home-theater projector, but the Nebula Mars 3 Air ably blends performance and convenience.

by Adrienne Maxwell

If you’re looking for a more rugged, portable projector to take outdoors, the easy-to-use Nebula Mars 3 offers good brightness and a long battery life.