The 5 Best Projectors for Home Theater - Fall 2024

If you're looking for the best home theater projector, check out the Epson Home Cinema 3800. The projector has great image quality due to its excellent brightness and great contrast. Movies are vibrant, especially when watched in a dark room, and it's easily bright enough to handle a few lights. With its pixel-shifting technology, it also projects a sharp image, so you won't have any problems with movies looking fuzzy when projecting very large images. Even more impressive is its out-of-the-box accuracy; even color purists will be satisfied with this unit without calibrating it. It's also HDR10 and HLG compatible, but unfortunately, its color gamut isn't quite good enough for a truly engrossing HDR experience, as colors look a bit washed out. This projector projects an 80-inch image at a distance of approximately 93 inches (7.75 feet) and up to 200 inches at a distance of 233 inches (about 19 feet).

While the Home Cinema 3800 offers tremendous image quality, it's a bit dry on features. If you want to easily watch movies from streaming apps, this projector isn't for you, as it doesn't have an integrated smart OS or Wi-Fi, although it does have Bluetooth. It also doesn't have an ARC/eARC port, so for the best sound, you'll need to connect the projector to a receiver through HDMI. Otherwise, this unit has two HDMI ports to connect external devices. Overall, the Home Cinema 3800 provides the best possible image quality for enthusiasts wanting to build a cinema room without spending an arm and a leg.

For those looking for the best of the best with money to burn, consider the Epson Home Cinema 5050UB, the best movie projector we've tested. Like the Epson Home Cinema 3800, this model has no fancy features and is focused on only one thing: watching movies. It has a small edge over our top pick in image quality but is a bit dimmer. The 5050UB does have slightly better contrast, so it looks punchier when watching movies in a dark home theater setup. However, its most noticeable advantage over the 3800 is its color gamut; it's very wide, and the projector is bright enough to project a vibrant, colorful image, even in HDR. The 5050UB's pre-calibration accuracy is equally excellent, and for purists, you can improve it even more with the projector's vast array of calibration features. It projects an 80-inch image at a distance of approximately 94 inches or about eight feet, up to a massive 300 inches at 357 inches, almost 30 feet.

Just like the cheaper 3800, this unit has two HDMI ports to connect external devices and a 12V trigger-out port if you want to automate your projector screen. This unit doesn't have an ARC/eARC port, so you'll still need to connect the projector to a receiver through HDMI for the best sound. It doesn't come with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, nor does it have a smart OS, so you'll have to invest in a streaming dongle if you wish to watch content from streaming apps. Overall, the Home Cinema 5050UB provides the best possible image quality, although it's not worth the extra cost over the top pick for most people.

If your chosen home theater room is on the smaller side, or if you just want to place your projector closer to the screen, consider the NexiGo Aurora Pro, the best short-throw projector for home theaters. It projects an 80" image at a distance of 4 inches and up to 150" at a distance of 17.3 inches. Although it doesn't reach the same brightness levels as the two Epsons on our list, it offers slightly superior contrast to even the Epson Home Cinema 5050UB. The NexiGo also has an incredibly wide color gamut, making it noticeably more colorful than the cheaper Epson Home Cinema 3800 in SDR and HDR content. However, movie enthusiasts should note that the NexiGo's color accuracy is poor out of the box; you should invest in a calibrator to maximize this projector's potential.

The NexiGo has three HDMI ports, including one eARC port. It supports 4k @ 60Hz signals and has three USB data ports for direct playback from a USB drive. It also features a line-out jack and an optical out port. However, the unit comes with a barebones smart OS, although it does support Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Still, if you want to access any streaming apps, you'll need to get a streaming dongle. Overall, the Epson Home Cinema 3800 is a better value, and the Epson Home Cinema 5050UB offers better overall performance for a similar price. But if you're tight on space — or just want to install your projector closer to the wall — and are willing to invest in a quality calibrator, the NexiGo is a very good alternative.

If you're in the market for a home theater projector but would rather not have to empty your piggy bank, the BenQ TH671ST is the best movie projector for those looking for an affordable model. It isn't the brightest projector, but its contrast is decent, so it'll offer a pleasant viewing experience in darker home cinema rooms. Its sharp 1080p image is very accurate right out of the box, and purists can even calibrate it further to near perfection, which is great if you care about preserving the content creator's intent. It even has a wide color gamut, so overall, this product will please color enthusiasts, even if it's not quite bright enough to make those colors pop. It projects a 100-inch image at a distance of six feet up to a 180-inch image at around nine feet.

When it comes to ports, it has two HDMI ports but no ARC port. The projector has 3.5mm audio out and audio in ports, but for more complex setups, you'll need to use a receiver or purchase an HDMI audio extractor to compensate for the lack of ARC/eARC. There's also no USB data port, but the second HDMI port does support MHL, allowing you to plug your phone or tablet directly into the projector to stream content. Its USB-A port does have power delivery for a streaming dongle, which is useful as the projector otherwise lacks a smart OS or wireless capabilities. Overall, while it certainly doesn't outperform any of the more expensive options above, it's a versatile product and it lets you watch the latest hits on the cheap.

If you want a model you can easily carry without plugging it into an outlet, the best portable home cinema projector we've tested is the XGIMI Halo+. It's a very small unit and weighs only 3.7 pounds, so you can easily throw it into a backpack. Plus, it has an integrated battery promising up to 2.5 hours of uninterrupted playback. This is long enough to watch most movies, so if your friend's basement lacks any available power outlets, this unit will do nicely. It has many image correction features, so this projector is truly easy to carry with you, as it corrects its image geometry automatically as you move it. To round up the package, it comes with the Android TV smart interface, Chromecast and AirScreen support, and Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 capabilities. It projects a 60-inch image at a distance of about 63 inches (5.25 feet) and up to a 120-inch image at about 126 inches (10.5 feet).

Like most portable models, it's slightly dim but significantly brighter than most direct competitors, and it has okay contrast, so it'll project a pleasant image when all lights are off. It also has a very wide color gamut and HDR support but isn't bright enough to take advantage of them. Its color accuracy is quite poor, and while you can improve it somewhat through calibration, this isn't a product for color purists. It has one HDMI port, which also doubles as an eARC port, and it also has a 3.5 mm audio jack. Finally, it has one USB port through which you can play video files directly on the projector.