With 1080p front projectors selling for as little as three grand, 720p models are taking a backseat to the higher-resolution models. But if a 1080p projector can now be had at a truly affordable price, 720p units, some of which are currently selling for less than $1,000, amount to an even more incredible deal. At that price, the screen that you buy to beam the images onto is likely to cost as much (if not more) than the projector itself!
Sony's 720p LCD front projectors have been strong performers in the past, so it was only natural for us to stand up and take notice when the company announced its Bravia VPL-AW15 720p LCD front projector. Along with a 1,280 x 720-pixel resolution display, this $1,300 projector features a 165-watt UHP lamp and 1.6x zoom lens. Zoom and focus adjustments are manual, and there's also horizontal and vertical lens shift controls to aid during initial setup.
With a projector this inexpensive, chances are you're not going to make too much of a fuss over its style. Nonetheless, the Sony has an attractive silver and gray case, with the front end flaring out slightly for a more aerodynamic look. A basic set of control buttons to switch inputs, scan menus, and turn the projector on and off are located on top panel, while its lens shift controls are ensconced on the left-hand side. The Sony's back-panel connections include HDMI, component-video, and VGA inputs, along with composite- and S-video jacks and an RS-232C control port.
Sony's full-size remote control for the VPL-AW15 features a sparse keypad with a cleanly arranged, backlit buttons. I had no trouble at all using it to operate the projector in a pitch-black room. A set of buttons located on the bottom half enable you to switch directly between the Sony's six picture presets, and there are also dedicated rocker buttons for making on-the-fly brightness and contrast tweaks. Another button labeled ADJ PIC gives you quick and easy access to the picture adjustment submenu. You switch inputs by repeatedly pressing the Input button to toggle through the choices. And pressing the Wide Mode button lets you toggle through the Sony's various display modes: Normal (displays 4:3 pictures with vertical sidebars), Full (for anamorphic widescreen DVDs and HDTV), Zoom, and Wide Zoom (a combined picture stretch and zoom). All display modes can be selected for both standard- and high-definition programs.
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The Short Form |
| Price $1,300 / sonystyle.com / 800-222-7669 |
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Snapshot
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| This 720p projector delivers very good performance, with only minor compromises, at a very modest price. |
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Plus
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| •Crisp 720p picture •Iris feature delivers deep blacks •Very affordable price |
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Minus
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| •Screen-door effect •Poor picture uniformity on black-and-white movies |
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Key Features
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| •1,280 x 720-pixel LCD display •1.6x Zoom lens •Manual Zoom and Focus and Horizontal/Vertical lens shift •Auto and Manual Iris settings •1080p/24 input via HDMI with 48-Hz display •Inputs HDMI, VGA, component-, composite-, and S-video; RS-232C •14.6 x 4.8 x 12.6 IN / 13.3 LBS Full Lab Results |
Sony gives you plenty of options for tweaking black levels on the VPL-AW15 — a good thing, particularly for LCD, which traditionally suffers in that characteristic relative to other projection technologies. During setup, I ended up switching both the Black Level Adjustment and Gamma Correction menu items to Off and set Noise Reduction to either Middle or High depending on what source I was watching (both settings eliminated noise without obscuring picture detail). My use of the Sony's Auto Iris feature was also strongly program-dependent: Movies with a deep range of shadows benefited from having it turned on, while it didn't make much of a difference with regular TV.
PICTURE QUALITY Having reviewed numerous 1080p front projectors over the past year, including a few LCD models, I was surprised at how much of an issue the LCD "screen door" effect was with this Sony. (I guess I got spoiled in the interim.) From my usual seat 11 feet away from the screen, the texture of the LCD display panels — something that I didn't see at all from the same distance on the 1080p LCD models I tested — was not only visible, it was distracting. But shifting my seat back to 13 feet or more away reduced the effect to where I could barely notice it.
Getting down to business, I first watched a recording of last year's World Cup soccer match from ESPN-HD. The 720p-format game looked crisp and punchy on the 100-inch screen, with the blue, yellow, and green hues of the Brazil players' uniforms coming across vividly and fine details such as the texture of the field turf looking crisp and solid even during camera pans. Bright colors looked a bit too vivid to my eyes, but the skin tones of the Brazilian and French teams' players for the most part looked utterly natural.
Switching to another program — Kill Bill Vol. 1 on TNT-HD — I was impressed with how good the 1080i-format program looked when downconverted for 720p display by the projector. In a scene where O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) suddenly leaps onto a table and beheads a gangster in mid-sentence, the picture had punchy contrast, and the rapid-fire action looked solid and clear. And in a subsequent close-up shot of Liu, I could see the fine lines of her eyebrows and creased lips, as well as faint freckles dotting her face. Although I didn't have a Blu-ray player capable of providing a 1080p/24 signal during my test, the VPL-AW15 accepts signals in that format, scaling the image to 720p and then displaying it at 48 Hz, according to Sony, twice the native 24-Hz frame rate. Regular DVDs also looked very good on the Sony, although I noticed a marked improvement in the sharpness and overall clarity of 480i signals when I used an HDMI rather than component-video connection. Watching the new DVD release of Pan's Labyrinth also gave me reason to turn on the projector's Auto Iris setting. With Auto Iris switched off, dark scenes such as the one where Ofelia enters her Mom's bedroom to sleep beside her on their first night at the Captain's home looked relatively murky and flat. Switched on, the same scene had a much stronger sense of dimensionality, with dark blacks achieving inky, film-like depth.
Despite its mostly strong performance, the Sony exhibited poor picture uniformity with dark images. This was primarily an issue when looking at full-field gray test patterns, but it also showed up on scenes in black-and-white movies. Basically, the darker the black-and-white image, the greater the pink and greenish tinting that could be seen at either side of the screen. I didn't see this tinting on any of the color programs that I watched, however.
BOTTOM LINE Sony's newest LCD front projector delivers a crisp high-def image — and at a very affordable price. And its Auto Iris feature really helps boost picture contrast on dark movies. The main tradeoff here compared to a 1080p model is an increase in screen-door effect — you'll need to sit a decent span away from the screen to avoid that particular LCD-related artifact. But if you're looking to get a truly big picture at a price that barely exceeds that of an average high-end projection screen, the Sony Bravia VPL-AW15 720p LCD front projector should be on your short list of models to check out.
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