How this site works

What is actually here

63 home projectors from 17 brands, priced from $250 to $16,999, each with a detail page, plus 13 lists built from the catalog and 48 head-to-head comparisons. The catalog was last refreshed on 2026-09-23.

Where the specifications come from

Manufacturer specification sheets and product pages, cross-checked against ProjectorCentral’s database, which is the only public source that consistently records which measurement standard each brightness figure was taken to. Every projector page lists the specific URLs used for that model, so any number here can be traced back to where it came from.

Nothing on this site is measured by us. There is no test lab, no light meter, no darkened room with a colorimeter in it. Where a figure is a manufacturer claim, it is presented as a manufacturer claim.

Why every brightness figure carries a standard

Because four different measurements are sold to consumers as “lumens” and only two of them are comparable. ISO 21118 and ANSI IT7.228 average nine points across the projected image; LED lumens measure the emitter before the optics; CVIA lumens use a far wider colour-temperature window. Mixing them into one brightness column is the standard trick of this category, so this catalog records the standard with every figure, marks the 0 that are not on the ISO or ANSI scale, and sorts them last rather than pretending they belong in the same order. The full explanation.

What is computed rather than looked up

Screen sizes, throw distances and every count on the site are derived from the catalog, never typed into copy. Screen geometry comes from each maker’s published throw ratio: image width is distance divided by throw ratio, and a 16:9 diagonal is width divided by 0.8716. Those figures are labelled estimates wherever they appear, because a real install loses a little to lens offset and zoom ranges are quoted at the extremes of the lens.

Why there are no star ratings

A rating is only shown when it comes with a citable, non-retailer source. At the moment none of the 63 projectors here has one, so no stars appear anywhere, no rating sort exists, and no aggregate-rating markup is emitted to search engines. An uncited number feeding review markup is a false claim about real customers, and republishing a retailer’s own ratings is not ours to do. Collecting sourced ratings is on the to-do list; inventing them is not.

Owner sentiment, and where it is missing

Owner discussion is kept strictly separate from the specification copy. The pros and cons on a projector page are read off spec sheets and published measurements; anything attributed to owners appears in its own block and only for projectors whose owner discussion has actually been read. Coverage today is 40 of 63 projectors, and the pages without it say so explicitly rather than showing an empty section.

How the lists are ordered

Every guide prints the rule it was ordered by, at the top of the page. A list has to qualify at least three projectors to exist at all. Nothing on this site is a paid placement, no manufacturer has any input into what appears here or in what order, and there are no retailer links of any kind — no buy buttons, no affiliate tags, no “check price” calls to action. Prices are approximate snapshots taken when the catalog was last refreshed and will differ from what any shop is charging today.

Safety notices

Where a manufacturer or a safety regulator has recalled a projector, that notice is printed on the affected model itself — at the top of its page, and as a mark on its card, in every list it appears in and in every comparison it is part of — in the maker’s own terms, with a link to the notice. A recalled model is not quietly deleted from the catalog: people who already own one are the readers most likely to be looking it up. 1 of the 63 projectors here carries one today: BenQ GV31.

Who “we” is

A small independent project, not a publication. There is no editorial staff, no reviewer, and no test facility. Where this site makes a recommendation it states the checkable basis for it — “the brightest ISO-rated projector under $1,500 in this catalog” — rather than asserting an opinion from an implied expert.

Corrections are welcome and are the fastest way to improve the data: chelsea@hagadornwebdev.com.