Meet the New Boss

THREE YEARS AGO, Sony introduced the VPL-VW885ES, a 4K LCOS projector with a laser light engine. I found the 885ES to be capable of throwing high-quality images when I reviewed it, but in the end wasn’t fully enamored with the new projector. Basically, I felt it had obvious shortcomings that were hard to ignore at the premium $25,000 price. And while the company issued a firmware update in 2019 that directly addressed some points I had complained about in my review, the 885ES is now being replaced with the VPL-VW915ES, a model that builds on the successful aspects of the previous design while coming in at a lower $20,000 price point.

SAME LOOK, NEW THRILLS

It didn’t take very long to figure out that the 915ES is nearly identical in every way to the 885ES from a hardware perspective. The new projector’s chassis, dual blue laser light engine, native 4K SXRD panels, remote control, and onscreen menus are essentially identical to that previous model. At first, I had trouble trying to figure out exactly what was different. During a talk with a Sony rep, I learned that the main difference from the 885ES is an update to the projector’s X1 video chip. The 915ES features a revised version called X1 for Projectors that provides a higher level of processing granularity—something I’ll touch on later in this review.

The 915ES uses the same lens as the 885ES, one that’s fully motorized for zoom, focus, and lens shift and includes a range of memory slots for different positions and settings. I’d be remiss to not mention that I find