If you are looking for a home theater projector you may come across two different types and wonder which one may be superior to the other, lamp projectors and laser projectors. Lamp projectors used to be more prevalent but are slowly being faded out in favor of their counterpart the laser projector.
If you are looking for a high quality home theater projector, you may want to opt for a laser projector. Laser projectors provide higher quality pictures and require less maintenance compared to lamp projectors.
What is a lamp projector?
A lamp projector relies on a projector bulb as its light source in order to project the picture on your projector’s screen. The image is displayed by having the lamp shine light through a chip that provide the images’ color. Lamp projectors and laser projectors work very similarly and the main difference is the light source.
Lamp projectors have slowly been on the decline because they require expensive bulbs that have to be replaced and do not reach the quality that a laser projectors can. However, the up front cost of a high quality lamp projector will be lower than a high quality laser projector. Before you purchase a lamp projector, you may want to look up the cost of the bulb to make sure the maintenance cost will be worth the saving over going with a laser projector.
Lamp projectors also require cooling fans as the bulbs can tend to get very hot. As your projector ages you may notice that the fans tend to make more noise which can interfere with your audio.
What is a laser projector?
Laser projectors work similarly to a lamp projector, but the light source is a laser rather than a bulb. There are two main types of laser projectors, an ultra short throw and long throw projectors. Each can provide high quality images.
An ultra short throw projector sits on a stand and projects the image up onto your screen with only needing to be a few inches from your wall. A long throw projector is usually mounted higher up on a wall or on the ceiling and has to be further back to display the image onto your screen.
When shopping for a laser projector you will notice that there are two different types of laser that are utilized in home theaters, one chip lasers and three chip lasers. You can find a one chip laser and three chip laser in both an ultra short throw and long throw laser projector.
A one chip laser includes all three colors, blue, red and green on one chip. A three chip laser has each color on an individual chip. A three chip laser separates the colors onto separate chips which give it the ability to projector a larger range of shades and provide a more vibrant picture. This also means that you will get high contrast in colors from a three chip projector than you will from a one chip projector.
Should you purchase a lamp projector or laser projector?
You may be wondering whether you should purchase a lamp projector or laser projector for your home theater. We would suggest purchasing a laser projector because you will get an overall higher quality picture, brighter images that can work well in brighter rooms, and require less maintenance during its lifetime.
The only down side of a laser projector is that they can be more costly up front since it is a newer technology than a lamp projector. Even though lamp projectors tend to be a little cheaper, you do want to take into consideration the bulbs you will have to buy over the course of your lamp projector’s lifetime. With that in mind, some laser projectors can be quite affordable compared their lamp projector counterparts when you take into consideration the lifetime cost of your projector.
Quality of picture
Laser projectors are much brighter than lamp projectors. This is due to the light source, a laser is just much brighter than a lamp. Because the laser can produce more light you get a higher contrast in your whites and darks than you would find on a lamp projector. A laser projector is a much better option than a lamp projector if you have a room with ambient light as the bright lasers can fight off that ambient light that may be in the room you are tiring to watch your projector.
If you have a bright room and want to know which projector would work best, check out our article that provides a guide on how to shop for the right projector and gives you a few recommendations.
Laser projectors also can provide a true 4k image at a much lower price point than a lamp projector. There are very few lamp projectors on the market that can provide a true 4k image. Lamp projectors do tend to have better black levels than laser projectors. Your black levels will somewhat suffer if you require a brighter projector. However, a bright lamp projector can give you better black levels than a bright laser projector.
Overall, the picture quality on a laser projector will be better than a lamp projector.
Maintenance
If you are considering a projector, a laser projector is the easier of the two to own as a laser projector requires little to no maintenance. However, on the other hand, a lamp projector requires you to replace the bulb every so often. A lamp projector bulb will last somewhere between 3000 and 4000 hours. Some lamp projectors also may have a lamp filter that must be replaced or cleaned.
If you go to use your projector you also need to be aware of a lamp projector’s required boot up time. The lamp takes awhile to warm up and turn on all the way in order to provide enough light for the projector to project an image onto your screen. Laser projectors do not require any warm up period and will instantly project a quality picture once turned on.
Longevity
Laser projectors provide between 20,000 to 30,000 hours of watch time. This should last you more than enough time to get your money’s worth. To give you some prospective to utilize your laser projector’s full watch time within 10 years you would need to watch it every day for 8 hours for the next 10 years to get close to the amount of hours a laser projector provides. While technically a lamp projector could last longer itself because you can simply replace the bulb to get more watch time, you’ll probably have the urge to purchase a new projector during your laser projector’s lifetime just for the fun of keeping up with the new future technology.
Another factor to consider is the longevity of your picture quality. The laser projector’s picture quality does not decline like a lamp projector. You will get a more consistent picture quality from a laser projector than a lamp projector.
Lamp projector bulbs have a watch time of about 3000 to 4000 hours until you have to replace the bulb. The longevity of the picture quality during a bulb’s lifetime is limited. Each time you use your lamp projector, the bulb will slowly lose its brightness overtime. When you are reaching the end of your current projector bulb’s lifetime you may notice that the image is losing color and yellowing which can only be solved by replacing the bulb.
One response to “Lamp Projector vs. Laser Projector (Which is Best?)”
[…] You will find that all our projector recommendations in this article are laser projectors. A laser projector uses laser as its light source rather than a bulb like a traditional lamp projector. Laser is a brighter light source than projector bulbs, which make them better for bright rooms. We wrote this article that goes through the differences of each and may give you an idea of which on… […]