Panasonic Projectors

Projection for home, office and large venue

Panasonic makes a wide range of LCD and DLP projectors in a variety of sizes, including portable, fixed installation and large venue. The company boasts of high image quality, innovative features and low maintenance costs, and Panasonic has garnered several strong projector reviews.

The mobile projector line includes only LCD projectors, weighing anywhere from four pounds to just under six pounds, so Panasonic labeling them “micro portables” is a bit of a stretch. These are bright machines, between 2000 and 3200 ANSI lumens and they come in both SVGA and XGA resolution, but contrast ratio is on the lower end - 400:1.

Panasonic offers a good selection of optional features even in the portable models, including wireless connectivity and a light sensor that adjusts to a room’s ambient lighting level. The company also makes the “world’s smallest LCD projector” - it can project video from a TV, VCR, DVD player, laptop or video game system, but they market the machine as a digital slide projector. The PT-P1SDU weights 2.9 pounds, has a brightness rating of 1500 ANSI lumens, SVGA resolution and a contrast ratio of 400:1.

The projection system Panasonic recommends for fixed installation is a DLP conference projector. It’s a little brighter than their portable models (3500 ANSI lumens) and higher contrast (1600:1 contrast). Offering XGA resolution, this mid-sized projector (17.4 pounds) is wired for networking and offers lens shift, sealed optics, 3x digital zoom and interchangeable lenses.

About twice the size, Panasonic’s large venue projectors feature a similar range of options - wired networking, lens shift and interchangeable lenses, as well as a patented liquid cooling system. These larger machines use one or three-chip DLP technology, have a higher contrast ratio (2000:1 or 4000:1) and are very bright (4500 to 7000 ANSI lumens). They offer several different resolutions, including standard XGA and widescreen but also SXGA+ (1400x1050) and WXGA+ (1366x768). Panasonic recommends its large venue projectors for showing pre-movie trailers and commercials in professional cinemas. They’re heavy duty and able to handle long operation cycles.

Panasonic also makes LCD home theater projectors, weighing in on either side of ten pounds and featuring widescreen 720p resolution. They’re reasonably bright projectors - 1100 to 2000 ANSI lumens - and they boast high contrast ratios - 5500:1 and 6000:1, offering video quality and performance rivaling similarly priced DLP projection systems.