Monday, October 24, 2005

Sanyo PLV-Z4 Review Roundup

First was Peter Putnam from HDTVExpert and now ProjectorCentral shares their thoughts on PLV-Z4. What I really like about these 2 reviews, they pretty much say the same except that Peter Putnam thinks that colors are perfect whereas Evan Powell sees some places that can be improved. Overall opinion is Z4 is much better that its predecessor PLV-Z3.
So far PLV-Z4 has been the buzz among LCD Projectors and will probably be for the next year.
So here you go with the list that I plan to update as reviews as they pop up:
The PLV-Z4 is one of the best HD-resolution LCD projectors I've ever tested and a big step up from its predecessors. Color quality is improved - it's as good as the Panasonic PT-AE700U — contrast levels are up, and grayscale tracking is getting better. The dynamic iris has a lot to do with it, but so do the expanded color controls. Dynamic irising is all the rage now; numerous LCD projectors and some LCD rear-projection TVs have incorporated it to kick out better black levels.
Thus we would say this to underscore the point: Currently the PLV-Z4 has a street price of about $2,200. If you are about to lay down $12,000 for a high end single-chip DLP home theater projector on the theory that the more it costs the better it must be, do not miss the opportunity to audition the Sanyo PLV-Z4. The Achilles' heel of single-chip DLP has always been color, and a side-by-side demo with the Z4 will illustrate in convincing terms why LCD is not dead. Heck, you might just save yourself $10,000.
Cine4Home's review is in German and I have used Google and Babelfish to translate it. The review is real good in term of posting graphs and pictures of some test patterns. A picture is worth thousand words, isn't it? Even if you read the automatically translated text.

Great projector for the bucks! Sanyo has done a great job with the Z4, starting with a zoom lens with more placement range, and lots of lens shift. But what earns the Sanyo Z4 home theater projector its hot product award, is image quality. A very sharp image, excellent contrast for a projector in its class, and a projector with plenty of setup flexibility to deal with various ambient light conditions (within reason).

On the downside, color could be more accurate In addition shadow detail could be a bit better, and "blacker" black levels, are not quite as good as the best in the price range. Perhaps more serious, it's handling of low resolution sources is sub-par, but for overall viewing of DVD's and Hi-Def (HDTV), the Z4 is certainly one of the best projectors in its price range.


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Posted by Mike at 10:23 PM
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