Big decision to make re projectors

[superatticman]

Hi

For the last 10 years we've bought Sanyo branded projectors. I've been informed by another IT related employee at our school that Sanyo are going to be pulling out of the market as far as projectors go. Is this true?

If so, whilst these days a number of brands are 'much of a muchness', what brands are currently the most popular and value for money when it comes to projectors?

We've been recommended Epson by one of our resellers. Any reason NOT to purchase them?

Thanks for reading.

[K.C.Leblanc]

Have you checked that the throw distances of the Epsons are similar to those of the Sanyos?

[Hedghog]

+1 for checking the throw of the projectors. I fell into that trap, some of my interactive boards are not interactive anymore (well until we get the projector mount moved)

[MYK-IT]

Use Projectors from ProjectorPoint - LCD and DLP Projectors to Buy or Hire for checking throw distances/screen size.

We ended replacing all our Sanyos with the Casio XJ-A140s.

[ToyHeartsFan]

I haven't heard anything about Sanyo pulling out of projectors but being a school that uses Promethean boards we have a lot of them.

The older Sanyos have worked ok but they were never really bright enough, 2 out of 3 of the old XP50's we have in our halls have died despite not being used enough to require a lamp change and we have had problems with 3 out of 4 Sanyos from the last batch we purchased.

I purchased a number of the Casios M150s and so far I'm very happy with them. What ever you pick as a replacement remember the lens is on the opposite side on a Sanyo to almost all other makes so even if the throw distance is ok you might need to move the pole.

[RTFM]

+1 for Casio XJ-A and XJ-M series projectors

[Oaktech]

hitachi ed-a220 FTW!

Short throw is the way!

[JJonas]

Agree with short throw being the way, but we have three Hitachi short throw projectors on site. Two of them have had failures with the gearing on the doors and had to be repaired under warranty.

[Oaktech]

thats a shame... ours get a hammering and have been fine, including an impatient member of staff getting on a chair, shutting the mirror manually and turning it off at the wall...

[newpersn]

Epsons we are using here. Few of ours got 3 Years Warrenty.

[MattHarwood]

Using NECs here. Very few problems, though the lamp life doesn't seem amazing to me (have little to compare to though). Reasonable pricing!

[pooley]

We use Epson here, 3 year no quibble warrenty, fitler full of gunk and lamp blown, no worries they will change it

[Marc-Engineer]

Epson now for education have a 5 year warrenty and on site too, i can not recomend them highly enough never had a problem and i have fitted hundreds, i can honestly say out of all the makes i get to repair i see less broken Epsons than any other make and in my area there are thousands in schools.
Next best come Hitachi and NEC, but please NEVER fit a DLP (of any make) machine in a school they are not up to it.

Marc
Projector Engineer

[glennda]

+1 for the casio models - Cost over its life is the best and the quality of the images is pretty good.

Also with the optics it has I've not had a room that i couldn't fit a Casio to the existing mount (one room i lost 2 inches off the screen width) but apart from that they are brilliant.

[Busybub]

Have to agree with Marc re DLP. Never had a trouble free one, constantly getting flickering pictures due to some sort of contamination. Stick with LCD.
Also have to agree with Epson, Hitachi and NEC. Have many of each. Only one I had a problem with was a DLP Epson!
Have one good experience with Casio, but relatively unproven compared to the others which have been around for years.
Optoma are pants, Smart Unifi are worse (both DLP) - avoid like the plague.