The TV Vs Projector Value Debate Isn’t Close — Here’s Why

Do you want a big-screen experience but are torn between a projector or television? The decision has never been tougher. TVs over 75 inches keep getting cheaper, with some priced at around the cost of a budget 65-inch model only several years ago. At the same time, projectors are brighter and sharper than ever thanks to new laser light engines and high-resolution 4K image chips.

Both have factors in their favor, but if you want the largest image for the least amount of money, there’s only one choice: a projector. They can easily display images 120 inches or bigger, a size that puts TVs into a wholly different price category. Other key advantages include better color fidelity and a more discreet presence. Yes, TVs are brighter and better in ambient light, but as I discovered, high-nit displays also have drawbacks you may not have considered. 

As The Odyssey IMAX experience has taught us, people love the immersion of a big screen. You can’t have a 59 by 79 foot screen at home, of course, so how big can you go? For consumer TVs, the maximum size is around 98 to 115 inches.

That sounds pretty big, but you’ll need to open your wallet and reserve some space in your home. TCL’s 115-inch QM7K QLED Mini LED 4K TV costs $13,998, though HiSense’s 100-inch Mini LED model runs a much more reasonable $1,750.

If you scale your expectations down to 85 inches, you can find Mini LED models under $1,000 or even less if you’re not as concerned about image quality. 75-inch Mini LED TVs are available for around $800, and you can also find regular 75-inch LED sets under $500.

With projectors, size is only limited by the type of projector, along with focal distance and length. For example, I recently tested the Anker Nebula X1 triple-laser projector which can beam a 4K image up to 300 inches. Another more budget-friendly model, the Valerion VisionMaster Pro 4K laser projector, can also beam a 300-inch image.

Even mid-priced projectors that cost about the same as a good 75-inch TV can beam an image up to 200 inches, or nearly 17 feet diagonally. If you can’t fit such a screen indoors, you can bring your projector outside at night for movie viewing parties and project straight onto a wall or bed sheet. That’s much easier than lugging a huge TV outside and you’ll have a bigger, better viewing experience.

You can’t deny simple physics. Television have their own source of illumination, so they’re very bright and provide consistent light intensity. Meanwhile, projectors are bouncing light off of a screen and since light intensity drops proportionally to distance, the image dims when it gets bigger.

As I recently detailed in a Micro RGB explainer, modern TVs use two basic systems. Many employ very bright LEDs, often arranged in so-called dimming zones, that blast light through either an RGB filter layer or a quantum dot color conversion layer. Those TVs can be incredibly bright, with some models hitting up to 4,000 nits on a 10 percent portion of the screen. The other option is OLED TVs, which have light-emitting pixels that can be turned on and off individually, to deliver nearly infinite contrast. They’re slightly more limited in light output, with the current brightest models offering about 2,475 nits on the same 10 percent window. 

That’s still incredibly bright, however, which raises a concern. As Viewsonic pointed out in an explainer, many LED TVs emit direct blue light that can cause eyestrain and harm your eyesight over time (Viewsonic isn’t a neutral party as they sell projectors, not TVs). The high-nit brightness of modern TVs is also a concern. While great during the day, they’re arguably too bright for continuous viewing in a darkened room. As projector-maker Valerion explained, TVs rated at 4,000 nits and higher are nearing brightness levels reserved for outdoor displays like digital billboards, which is overkill for movies or other long-format entertainment. 

How do projectors compare? Since they bounce light off of a screen or wall, overall brightness is significantly reduced. A bright triple-laser projector like the Valerion VisionMaster Max or Anker Nebula X1 Pro can output 3,500 to 5,000 ANSI lumens. That equates to only about 280 nits of on-screen brightness on a 120-inch screen. 

In daylight, that’s barely adqueate. In a darkened room, though, it’s a decent amount of brightness that will immerse you in the content without irradiating your eyeballs. A typical mid-range projector with 2,000 ANSI lumens of brightness will put about 160 nits to a 120-inch screen. For a timely point of comparison, a typical IMAX 70mm film movie theater with a 30,000 watt dual-xenon bulb setup will deliver about 75 nits from the screen.

With the advent of triple-laser projectors and quantum-dot or OLED TVs, both mediums offer incredible color accuracy. However, one is a bit better than the other. 

Both the 3,500 ANSI lumen Valerion VisionMaster Max and 5,000 lumen XGIMI Titan Noir Max cover an incredible 110 percent of the BT.2020 color gamut used to gauge HDR video. Like many other projectors in this price range ($2,000 to $3,500), they offer HDR via Dolby Vision and HDR10+ modes, with billions of colors. That means you’ll see content exactly as the filmmakers intended with enough brightness to see shadowy detail, even in that famous Game of Thrones “Hardhome” White Walker battle. 

Projectors commonly have 4K resolution now, as well. Many use the 0.47-inch digital micro-mirror device (DMD) from Texas Instruments, which employs pixel shifting to display a 4K UHD image at up to 60Hz. These types of projectors actually offer a touch less than true 4K resolution, but it’s close enough that most viewers won’t see the difference.

And if it’s gaming you’re into, many high-end projectors like the BenQ X3100i (below) can now hit refresh rates up to 240Hz, or 60Hz at 4K with input lag down to 4.2ms. While that’s not as good as some 4K 120Hz TVs, gaming can be much more immersive on a very large screen size of 100 inches or more.

High-end televisions, particularly quantum dot and OLED models also offer gob-smacking color accuracy, but not quite to the level of projectors. The best OLED and QLED models hit around 90 percent coverage of the BT.2020 color gamut, an impressive range but well short of projectors. However, TVs do have a sharpness advantage, with most offering true 4K resolution and some models going up to 8K — double that of any consumer-level projector.

Projectors might seem more cumbersome than TVs, but if set up correctly, they’ll occupy zero space in your home. On top of that, many models are designed to be taken outdoors and even on road trips trips, letting you watch movies while camping. Try that with a 100-inch TV. 

I have a small apartment in Paris (320 square feet), but I have a 100-inch surface to watch entertainment. I pulled that off by installing a ceiling mounted 100-inch roll down projector screen and mounting a triple-laser projector on the ceiling as well. With both deployed, I can have incredible movie nights watching streaming content via the built-in Google TV apps, or use my connected Blu-ray player. When not in use, you’d never know they were there unless you looked up. 

A TV of comparable size would be ridiculous in that small space. I wouldn’t even know where to put it, as it would block the windows if it was in the same location as the projector screen. Even a smaller TV would be an awkward fit in such a space. 

Many modern laser projectors also offer automatic setup. If your projector is centered on the screen and the right distance away, you just activate the automatic screen fit function and the image will be centered and ready to go. 

For most people, the main factor when purchasing a TV versus a projector may be price. Yes, TVs are generally cheaper, but if you’re looking for a high-quality model, the price difference may be less than you’d expect. 

As I mentioned before, you can find 100-inch mini-LED TVs for under $2,000 and 75-inch mini-LED models under $1,000. But these are the very cheapest TVs in these categories unless you go for a straight LED model. The mid-range gamme is in the $2,500 to $3,000 range for 100-inch TVs (like the Hisense U6 Pro or LG 100-inch QNED), and $1,000 to $1,500 for 75-inch models. High-end TVs. like Sony’s Bravia models or TCL’s latest Super Quantum Dot (SQD) Mini LEDs are going to cost your $3,000 and up for 75-inch models and $5,000 or more for 98-inch+ TVs.

With those prices in mind, projectors suddenly seem more reasonable. Budget 4K models under $1,000 like ViewSonic’s PX701-4K offer 300-inch screen sizes with excellent brightness, and you can purchase many bright 1080p projectors for less than $600.  Mid-range laser projectors like the 2,500 ANSI lumen Valerion VisionMaster Pro with Dolby Vision cost $1,700. And bright, highly color-accurate triple laser models like the Anker Nebula X1 and Titan Noir 4K cost between $3,000 and $4,000 and can often be found on sale for much less. Keep in mind that you’ll need a motorized roll-down screen (unless you have a perfectly flat white wall), that costs between $200 to $1,000. 

Given those prices and benefits on offer, projectors are a better solution if you’re looking for the biggest screen possible. They can go much larger than TVs for a similar price, hide away when not in use, and offer higher color accuracy and perfect brightness in darkened rooms. For cinephiles who want the closest experience possible to a darkened theater, they can’t be beat. If you do most of your viewing in daylight, though, stick with a TV.