RATING
THE ULTRA-SHORT-THROW projector category is where all the action is these days when it comes to home entertainment projection. You’ll find name-brand TV makers and companies you’ve never heard of battling it out for a spot in your living room. But here’s the thing: A UST can do both TV and home theater. In some ways, it’s a whole new animal.
The Epson LS800 is an update to the company’s LS500 UST. It has the same brightness specs, but it’s a total reimagining of how the parts are packaged. Whereas the LS500 had a periscope-style lens and sat further from the wall than competing USTs, the LS800 sits remarkably close to the wall. The result is a new model that impresses with both its picture quality and ergonomics.
FEATURES AND SETUP
The 4000 ANSI lumen brightness and 0.16:1 throw ratio are perhaps the two most notable features. But the LS800 is also different from most UST projectors because it uses a three-chip RGB LCD instead of a single-chip DLP as the imager, so it’s free of the “rainbow effect” artifacts that can pop up with DLP projection.
This projector uses a laser-phosphor light source, which limits its color gamut in comparison to
