Projectors sound great on paper. You get a much larger screen, a far more immersive experience, and lately, a much more digestible price tag. You might regret buying a smart TV after spending hundreds, if not thousands, on one, but that cheap projector on Amazon that costs less than $100 seems like a much safer bet.
The truth is, depending on what you’re looking for, these budget projectors can actually be great. That said, good projectors cost a lot more, and for good reason. Budget projectors make some compromises that can render them useless if you’re not keeping your expectations in check.
Input lag can ruin more than gaming
Sluggish HDMI response affects games, movies, menus, and everyday usability
If you’re thinking that buying that cheap projector means you’re getting a massive screen for playing games, you’re in for a bad realization. Budget projectors can often have pretty bad HDMI input lag. Even if you use the best cable you possibly can, everything from button presses to cursor movement will feel sluggish.
The reason behind it is primarily the weak processing power of your projector. Cheaper projectors come with weak processors and low memory, which can’t handle video signal processing quickly. The projector has to scale your image, convert refresh rates, apply tone mapping, handle dynamic contrast, and account for any keystone adjustments you might have made. If the unit has built-in Android, as a lot of budget projectors do, you’re adding even more input lag just from software bloat.
This can vary significantly between different projectors and manufacturers, but you can expect anywhere from 50 to 70 milliseconds of input latency over HDMI. My $70 E-Gate Atom 3X with built-in Android fared even worse with input lag of almost half a second over HDMI, making it completely unusable for gaming. In fact, I had better luck streaming games over Wi-Fi from my PC via the Steam Link app.
You can somewhat mitigate this by enabling any game or fast modes in your project that strip away image processing and using native resolutions and refresh rates. Avoid buying cheap HDMI cables, too. You don’t need to buy the most expensive one, but ensure the one you’re using supports the resolution and refresh rate you’re expecting. Budget projector listings often make inaccurate claims, so don’t trust what you see on the listing.
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This issue isn’t limited to input lag over HDMI either. Low processing power also means streaming services like YouTube or Netflix might buffer or show visual artefacts while playing high-resolution videos. And if you’ve got Android running on the projector, expect the occasional lag spikes when going through menus or apps.
The brightness drop nobody warns you about
Cheap light sources fade fast and turn a decent projector unusable
Another issue to watch out for is brightness decline. A new projector right out of the box might look great on first use, but it’ll quickly lose brightness as you use the projector more. After some time, you’ll find the projector lacking brightness even in a pitch black room with a perfect projection surface.
Budget projectors cut costs by skipping proper cooling. They use cheap fans, skip copper heat pipes, and omit active cooling designs. As the LED bulb in your projector heats up during use and cools down later, the heating and cooling cycle eventually leads to brightness loss.
This might not sound too big of a problem, but you’ll quickly find yourself looking for lamp replacements to maintain brightness. The problem is that cheap projects are often sold as one unit, and replacing the lamp might not always be possible.
There’s no fix to this problem either. You can use your projector on the lowest brightness setting for your surroundings to extend the bulb’s lifespan, but you will likely start seeing brightness issues within the first six months of regular use.
Bad optics can break everything else
Soft focus, warped edges, and why resolution specs don’t tell the full story
Budget projects use plastic or hybrid lenses instead of multi-element glass. While these lenses are cheap to manufacture and a bit more durable, they can result in chromatic aberration (purple and green halos around edges), soft and blurry edges, uneven brightness, and washed-out colors. Portable projects using single-panel LCDs that only last for 1,000 to 2,000 hours before optical degradation will start showing signs of wear in the image earlier.
Thermal drift makes the problem worse. As the projector warms up during use, components expand and shift. The image you perfectly focused on at the start becomes softer after 30 minutes. Many budget models also have fixed throw ratios, meaning they only work at specific distances. Moving them means losing focus. Even if you have a manual focus ring, they usually lack precision gearing, so adjustments are either too small or too large.
There is, once again, not much you can do to remedy this. If you can, mount the projector in a permanent spot where it won’t get moved or pushed around and test manual focus with a chart rather than relying on autofocus, which is missing from many budget models anyway.
Budget projectors only work with clear expectations
If you’re thinking a sub-$100 projector will replace a smart TV that can cost ten times as much, you’re in for a surprise. TVs cost good money for a reason, and expecting something a quarter of the price to match the image quality and overall viewing experience is unrealistic.
I thought a portable projector could replace my TV, but I regret buying one
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Cheaper projectors also have higher failure rates for fans, motherboards, and power supplies. USB ports can fail after months, focus knobs can break, and you might be looking for a replacement sooner than you think.
They’re not entirely useless, and if you want a cheap way of enjoying movies or YouTube videos with friends on a big screen, a cheap projector is an excellent way to test the waters. However, if you’re looking to game on them or expect top-notch image quality, you need to adjust your expectations.
