There was a time when projectors and televisions were in a close race for a place in your home theater setup. While televisions offered consumers the ease of use, projectors promised large-screen viewing experience without a large hole in your pocket.
But times have changed rather swiftly. The technology keeps on improving while the price of televisions (even large screens) has become much more competitive. These recent advances have resulted in televisions closing in on the gap with projectors with their popping colors, HDR capabilities, and minimal response time.
Although, it is not like projectors have not improved at the same time. We’re seeing affordable 4K projectors under $2,000 with HDR10 support, improved brightness, and improved optics overall.
With advancements on both sides, it really becomes difficult for a prospective buyer to pick a side. Consumers rarely have a favorite (except, when they do) and tend to pick whatever is more accessible or convenient. We know it isn’t easy. To simplify things though, we’ve looked at the best televisions and projectors under $3,000 or INR 3 lakhs, for those of you in India, and compared the best models across both camps to settle this feud once and for all.
SCREEN SIZE
This one is easy. While you can find high-end televisions as large as 65 inches under $3,000, a projector can beam on a wall that is 100 inches across diagonally, or even 150 inches if you’ve got that kind of space. Granted the projector needs to have adequate brightness and contrast to deliver content on such a huge screen, but with the kind of budget we’re talking about, it is fairly in the realm of possible. That difference is really day and night and if the size is a deal-breaker for you, we can recommend you stop reading this post here and get yourself a 4K projector.
Winner: Projector
INITIAL SETUP
Televisions are easy. Put them in front of a wall, plug the right cables, and that’s it. Just sit back and enjoy whatever you are planning to consume on your big screen.
Projectors, on the other hand, are a different beast. Got a great projector? Awesome. Did you also get a good quality screen to reflect the light? Did you position it at the right angle to the screen to ensure the image doesn’t look distorted? You also need to ensure that there’s no natural light in the room and the entire setup is in as dark a setting as possible for the best experience.
Winner: Televisions by a big margin
RESOLUTION
Both projectors and OLED televisions in this range offer up to 4K resolution. However, there’s a catch.
While OLED TVs can display in true 4K (3840x2160p) at 60Hz, when it comes to projectors, they use a technique called “pixel shifting.” The projector beams each pixel 4 times with each projection being slightly shifted open to the right from the previous one by half of the pixel, creating overlaps. Using algorithms and clever use of technology, the projector is able to beam 4K pixels in the same time as a native 4K projector would, thus creating 4K Image on the screen.
Also called faux-4K, it is slightly different from native 4K. While the drop in quality is minuscule (or negligible as some claim), the price savings are substantial. Native 4K projectors usually start from $5,000 while a faux-4K one can be had for as low as $1,500.
Winner: Largely a draw. Maybe televisions by a small margin
BRIGHTNESS AND CONTRAST
It is difficult to compare the brightness across televisions and projectors directly since they are measured in different units (nits vs. lumens). Still, we can safely say that televisions do a far better job at producing bright images on the screen. Part of the reason is that projectors, even when bright need to reflect the light off of a surface which, naturally, not being 100% reflective creates some brightness loss.
And when viewing on a projector in a room that’s not completely dark, the image seems to be a little washed out.
Moving on to contrast, both projectors and OLED TVs can reproduce HDR10 content, which is as good as the current technology gets. However, contrast also depends on the peak brightness, which is something projectors struggle with, especially in lit environments. Televisions emerge as the clear winners here.
Winner: Televisions
COLORS
This is a really close one. Generally speaking, projectors in this budget have a wide color range and can accurately reproduce colors across Rec.2020 color space and the DCI-P3 color space. TVs come close but still fall short marginally.
However, a key factor to consider here is the brightness and ambient settings. Projectors tend to do better only if you use them in a dark room and use a good quality reflective screen.
Winner: Projectors, but televisions are quite close
Gaming: INPUT LAG and refresh rate
These are metrics that might not impact casual viewers, but for gamers, it can mean the difference between life and death (in-game, of course).
Input lag measures the time it takes for an input made by the user to reflect on the screen. Anything below 40ms is acceptable and below 20ms the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Best projectors in this budget can offer input lag of anywhere between 20-30ms, which is great, honestly. The best TVs, however, can take it further down to 10ms.
As far as the refresh rate goes, projectors under $3k top out at 60Hz at 4K, while OLED TVs can push it up to 120Hz at the same resolution.
Although, most TVs don’t support variable refresh rate, while we aren’t aware of any projector that supports it either.
Winner: Televisions for the refresh rate, tie for the input lag
AUDIO
We don’t expect you would be using the inbuilt speakers on the television or the projector if you’re willing to spend the kind of budget on a home theater setup. But in case you do, televisions win this round easily for their much better audio features.
Projectors have seen improvement in this area in recent years but compare poorly against televisions. Then, there is the whole issue around fan noise which gets more pronounced at higher resolutions due to increased workload.
Winner: Televisions, easily
MAINTENANCE
Televisions have a long lifespan and can last you more than half a decade without any serious trouble. We’ve rarely heard panel issues cropping up on the equipment in their early years.
Projectors tend to use lamps instead which eventually burn out after a few years of moderate use and can cost anywhere between $150-300 to replace.
Winner: Televisions
VERDICT
To be honest, the final decision is easy to make. If you must have a large screen (70″ plus), there’s no option available within the OLED TV range and you can pick a projector instead. If you still need a television instead, your other choice would be restricted to a QLED television from the likes of Samsung which can go as big as 85 inches in this budget. QLED is not as great as OLED, but really comes close.
If the size is not a concern, OLED televisions are ahead on most parameters and it just makes sense to go with television instead of a projector. Modern televisions have made great strides in terms of features and picture quality while being competitively priced.
It’s not just the viewing experience but also the ease of installation and maintenance-free experience that makes OLED TVs the preferred choice. Having said that, projectors can also offer stunning cinematic viewing experience and also offer some additional features such as 3D which TVs cannot. But all said and done, we would prefer to just get a TV instead.
