If you're in the market for a sub-£1000 projector, you should also consider the Panasonic AE100 - this differs from the HS1 by having a native 16x9 panel, whereas the HS1 is a 4x3 panel - when watching widescreen movies the HS1 will always have grey areas above and below the picture. The HS1 does have a "sideshot" feature, which allows you to place the projector "off axis" - i.e., not directly aimed at the centre line of the screen - this does result in some degrading of picture quality
afaik, but could be an important feature depending on your set up. As far as I remember from a demo last year, I though that the HS1 was also quieter than the AE100, but I choose the AE100 because I considered that it had far better picture quality - just a personal choice, mind you, no insult of any kind to HS1 owners! There have been reliability issues with the AE100 - well documented on this forum, but there's still 100 or more peeps with the AE100 here, and I'm very happy with mine.
You could check out Komplwtt.co.uk
here for the AE100 at £995.
The Sanyo PLZ1 has to be considered as in a diferent class to both of these at this stage - it has 16x9 native lcd panels with greater resolution that either of the, and has greater flexibility in shifting the image to suit installation. It's also more expensive than either the HS1 or AE100, but by a relatively small amount - for £1300 (or therebouts) it has to be seriously considered as the best entry level projector on the market.
If £1000 or under is your budget - then you should make sure to see a decent demo of both the HS! and the AE100 - at the end of the day, you're spending the money and I would strongly recommend that you see the PJ in action before you buy. If your budget isn't too constrained, then go see the Z1 - and I reckon I know which one you'll buy then !!!
All the best,
Sean G.
Linear Mode
