Ugrading - To buy or not to buy, that is the question!

[darkmavis]

Recentley, a friend of mine got bitte by the projector bug and went out and got himself a spanking new hd550, then i set it up for him. This led me to being depressed at how poor mine looked in comparison (I have a Sony hs60) so im after upgrading it.

The thing is im a second hand fiend and refuse to buy new, so im looking to sepnd about 750 on a new one. Since getting the hs60 ive lost touch a bit and am not sure what id get for my pennies and if its even worth upgrading or waiting even further.

my screen is 120" wide and the pj is set 17 foot away from the screen and it gets used during the day so i need something thats bright enough to get across the room obviously im looking for superior image quality/black levels ect (im aware these will be poorer in day) and something that will do a good job of cleaning up the sky signal in SD. 24fps for blue rays would be great too. and 1080p would be nice Ill be honest, i'm not sure where to start. any help would be appreciated! ta!

 

[KelvinS1965]

I don't know what you might find for 750, but have a look in the classifieds to see what's about. Then have a search on here to see what is thought about any particular model you come across. If you like the JVC LCOS image, you could search for the older HD1 model. Still has a genuine 15,000:1 contrast (native, no iris trickery), but the colours can be a bit leary (not really any worse than the HD350/550 though TBH), however it may be a little over your 750 budget, but worth a search or maybe a wanted ad.

I quite agree with buying used as I've lost far too much money selling on various Panasonic models before buying my HD350 which is now also worth much less than new. Thankfully I'm very happy with it, so I'll only lose money if I sell it which isn't likely for a long while...I learnt my lesson though and all of my Arcam gear was bought used for a fraction of the new price.