Epson – Home Cinema 3800 4K 3LCD Projector with High Dynamic Range – White

For the price-point of this projector, I am extremely happy with it. We upgraded from a 10+ year old Viewsonic 1080p DLP based projector, and the difference it just astounding. While the jump in resolution from 1080p to 4k is good, the real winner is the difference in color and brightness. This thing is an absolute light canon, plenty of brightness to have bright scenes in HDR pop on my 100″ screen. Lense flairs, light sabers, etc. look fantastic, and the colors are very rich and vibrant. My old projector looked very flat and dull in comparison.
The auto-iris feature is fantastic and is probably my favorite feature. It very quickly adjusts the amount of light coming through the optics to match the scene. This makes dark scenes show good contrast and not look “black crushed” like my old projector did. We watched Pan’s Labyrinth as one of the first movies on the new projector and the dark scenes looked incredible. Animated movies look extremely vibrant and colorful as well, we watch a lot of anime with our kids and have been really happy with how they look even though the majority of them only release in regular 1080p blu-ray and do not have HDR.
Being able to physically shift the lense up/down/left/right instead of using key stoning correction to make the image project correctly onto the screen results in a much sharper image. This projector still has plenty of key stone options, we just chose to mount this projector lower off the ceiling compared to our last one so we could disable them, and were very happy with the results
My last talking point is 3LCD technology versus DLP. DLP projectors in this price range are typically a single wheel. My last projector used this technology, and I constantly saw a rainbow effect on the projected image, especially in dark scenes. Some people are sensitive to this, and some aren’t. I have a friend who owns a new BenQ DLP projector and I also see rainbow effects on his, while he doesn’t. This problem does not exist on 3LCD projectors. This was a major point for me in purchasing this projector, and not being subject to that constant nagging issue was alone worth upgrading for me.
My room has plenty of curtains (including extra ones we put up if we watch movies during the day) but is not a dedicated blackened home theater room. In my semi-light controlled environment I am extremely happy with this unit. It has tons of brightness to spare, while not ideal I could even see inviting people over to watch football during the day with the lights on. This is not something every projector can do, in my opinion this thing is genuinely a light canon.
Last thing to note is we have an electric pulldown screen. I was able to buy a cable and hook up the projector so when you turn it on the screen automatically goes up and down. Not having to deal with the electric screen remote is a godsend and very easy to setup. In the past my wife has been too intimidated to use our home theater by herself but since we got this projector she watches movies on her own, and that puts a smile on my face.

Fabulous unit…Best Buy met the matching sale price on a refurbished one from Epson for a BRAND NEW unit with full warranty. The service rep walked me through signing up for 24 months financing no interest. Couldn’t have been a smoother transaction. Unit showed up as promised 3 days later. Bought the mounting bracket for it separately, was in stock.

Currently have it projected in my side room on the wall. 120 inch screen connected to an Apple TV. Game days are popular at my house.