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Panasonic PT-AE4000 Projector Overview
Mon, 20/12/2010 - 20:31
If you are looking for a reasonably affordable home theater projector - one that looks great, with excellent color, black levels, shadow detail, one with superb placement flexibility, and respectable brightness, then you've found the right review.
The PT-AE4000 projector receives one of our Hot Product Awards, not for any one capability or strength, but for being a truly excellent value, while at the same time, be one of the most feature laden home theater projectors on the market.
The Panasonic PT-AE4000 as noted is loaded with features. It has a motorized 2:1 zoom lens for great placement flexibillty. It offers a Lens Memory feature with effectively acts as an anamorphic lens emulation.
Perhaps the most notable improvement in this year's Panasonic, is a significant boost in the best mode brightness. Previous Panasonic's have been well below average in brightness. This year, the Panasonic gains a lot, and is now pretty average - still a little on the low side, but way up from last year. Panasonic is touting a new lamp design, with a stronger red component (better matches the 6500K standard), to provide that extra brightness in best mode. That lamp doesn't improve the projector's brightest mode's measured brightness, by any noteworthy amount.
Panasonic PT-AE4000 Projector Highlights
- Surprisingly inexpensive: $1999 MAP
- Excellent black level performance for its price (and 2nd best in class)
- Typical sharpness, just average for 1080p projectors, but you can enhance sharpness with dynamic controls (will introduce some image noise as expected)
- Excellent shadow detail
- Out of the box picture is very good in Color 1mode but can be improved with a full calibration of this projector
- Really good post calibration color accuracy, excellent skin tones...
- Excellent placement flexibility
- Slightly below average brightness in both "best" and "brightest modes", but brighter (in "best") than last year's PT-AE3000U
- Full support for HDMI 1.3b with 24 fps, Deep Color, CEC...
- Lens Memory feature offers interesting potential, including the option of going with a 2.35:1 screen (discussed in detail elsewhere)
- Excellent Price Performance
Projector Specs for the Panasonic PT-AE4000
Technology: 3LCD
Native Resolution: 1080p (1920x1080)
Brightness: 1600 lumens
Contrast: 100,000:1
Zoom Lens ratio: 2:1 (motorized)
Lens shift: Vertical and Horizontal (motorized)
Lamp life: 2000 hours (full power), 3000 in low power
Weight: 16.1 lbs. (7.2 Kg)
Warranty: 1 Year Parts and Labor
