The borders between different kinds of projectors are anything but sharp, and the deceptively simple term "home projectors" covers a dizzying mix of possible uses. Home projectors can be small enough to fit in a pocket, or big enough to need two people to move into place. They can offer native resolutions as low as 640 by 360 pixels, or as high as 4K UHD. Their brightness and contrast can fall almost anywhere on the scale, and the onboard audio can range from barely enough to earn a check on a feature chart to impactful enough for a big family room.

These features vary so much because you can use a projector at home in so many different ways. The ideal projector for a traditional home theater, with controlled lighting and dark walls to minimize how much light reflects back to the screen, isn't the ideal for a family-room TV replacement that you plan to watch with lights on. And models that are best for either of those tasks may or may not be good choices for, say, gaming.

The point? You need to match your home projector's features to the applications you want it for. Below is a look at our top picks for specific uses, followed by what you need to know to find the right one for the application or applications you have in mind.

What Are the Different Categories of Projectors, and What Do They Mean?

Most projector manufacturers divide their projector lines into categories. Common names for models meant for home use include home cinema, home theater, pro cinema, home entertainment, gaming, streaming, and smart (which is usually just another name for streaming). For business use, the common (and mostly interchangeable) names are business, education, and data projectors, which I'll refer to collectively as business projectors.

You should take all of these divisions with a grain of salt, however. Home projectors and business models can overlap more than you might expect. For portable models and some entry-level projectors, you'll often see little or no difference between them for how well they handle film and video. Some manufacturers even include certain models on lists for both categories.

(Credit: Epson)

Beyond that, any home projector that can handle film and video well can also handle text and presentations for business use. And because film and video are often needed in business presentations and classrooms, a business projector might handle film and video just as well as a so-called home entertainment model. That's why we discuss performance with film and video in all of our projector reviews.

That said, as a general rule, business projectors much above entry-level pricing for their resolution and brightness level can't compete on the basis of film and video image quality with similarly priced home theater or home entertainment models. The smart move is to not make assumptions based on the projector category, and to check out the individual projector's features, and comments in reviews, instead.

Home Projectors: Which Categories Matter?

Although projector categories change from one manufacturer to another and evolve over time, the application categories are consistent, if somewhat overlapping. Here's a brief look at the most common categories and subcategories of applications, and which features are most important for each.

The term "home theater" is often used loosely to include home entertainment. It's more accurate, however, to reserve it for projector use in a room with completely controlled lighting. That could be a dedicated home theater or a family room equipped with shutters or curtains that can block all window light when needed.

Projectors for home theater don't need particularly high brightness. (More about brightness later.) The most important features to look for in specs and reviews include high contrast, good color accuracy, dark black levels, and good shadow detail. The best home theater projectors today offer 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) resolution and support for HDR (more on HDR later also), but for those on a budget, lots of 1080p projectors can still serve nicely. Resolutions lower than 1080p are best reserved for other applications.

"Home entertainment" in the projector world covers most home use that isn't home theater, including TV-replacement models, gaming projectors, room-to-room portables, and projectors used for backyard movies.

In all of these situations, you will usually be viewing in rooms (or backyards) where ambient light is a factor. That means you need a brighter image, and therefore a brighter projector than with home theater for the picture to stand up to the light at any given image size. On the other hand, contrast is less important. Room light tends to wash out black levels, which lowers contrast for any projector and hides differences between projectors that would be obvious in a dark room.

(Credit: LG)

Note also that many projectors designed for home entertainment boost brightness at the expense of color accuracy. You'll still want to check to make sure color isn't obviously off, or at least not annoyingly off, but spot-on color accuracy isn't as critical for home entertainment uses as it is in a home theater space with controlled lighting.

If your home theater is also your family room with blackout curtains in place (and you'll be using the same projector for both applications), the ideal model will have good color accuracy, high contrast, and other features you need for top image quality in a dark room. But it should also offer high-enough brightness to give you a watchable image in daytime or with lights on at night.

How to Watch TV on Your Projector

The increasingly common "flat-screen TV replacement" projector, typically incorporating smart TV features like streaming, is a key subcategory for home entertainment projectors. Any projector with an HDMI port, which includes virtually all current models, can connect to a set-top box to give you a much larger display for your cable TV or other HDMI TV source. And any of these can be turned into a smart TV by plugging in an HDMI streaming stick.

Beyond that, some manufacturers sell projectors specifically marketed as TVs or smart TVs, and some models take the extra step of including a TV tuner, so you can even watch broadcast TV directly. Among these smart TVs, some simply include a bundled streaming stick you plug into an HDMI port. (The streaming stick may or may not require a separate remote.) Others include fully integrated streaming, most often using some version of Android TV. Be sure before buying that the projector can connect to the internet via your network using the connection you prefer, whether it's Ethernet or Wi-Fi. For maximum convenience, you'll want the projector and streaming features both controlled by the same remote.

(Credit: Xgimi)

The biggest impediment to setting up a projector as a TV has always been the need to mount the projector, most often on a ceiling or on a shelf in the back of the room, and then string wires through walls and ceilings to connect to video sources in the front of the room. Ultra short throw (UST) projectors, which have recently bloomed as a category, solve that problem. They can give you a 100-inch or larger image with the projector sitting only inches from the screen, in much the same position where you might otherwise place a flat-screen TV. They're also a lot cheaper than 100-inch flat-screen TVs, even after adding in the cost of the screen.

How to Buy a Good Projector for Gaming

Gaming is obviously a form of home entertainment, but not all home entertainment projectors are good choices for gaming—and you shouldn't assume one is just because it includes a Game mode in its menu (an option that even many business projectors offer). On the other hand, some are perfectly good choices for gaming. And some models labeled as gaming projectors, most notably from BenQ and Optoma, are just as useful for other home entertainment applications.

The biggest issue for gaming on a projector is input lag, which is the time in milliseconds (ms) that a display adds between receiving a video frame and putting it on the screen. Input lag can be critical in first-person shooter games, where a short lag will help you survive to the next frame, and a long lag is equivalent to having pathetically slow reflexes. A lot of projectors have unacceptably long lag measures for gaming. Others are fully competitive with the lag intervals gamers are used to seeing in gaming monitors and flat-screen TVs.

As a rule of thumb, casual gamers will usually be comfortable with lag up to about 50ms (or a little higher), while serious gamers should look for lag no longer than 16.7ms for 4K/60Hz input, which is the shortest we've seen at 4K as of this writing. At 1080p, a few current models offer lag times as short as 4.16ms at 240Hz, with longer lag times at higher refresh rates.

(Credit: BenQ)

Note that for any given projector, the input lag can vary with the resolution, the refresh rate, or both. The only lag that's relevant for your purposes is for the resolution and refresh rate that you plan to use.

Another key feature for gaming is how well the projector reveals shadow detail. The quicker you can spot what's going on in dark areas, the quicker you'll see an opponent sneaking up on you or spot objects of interest.

At a minimum, the Game mode in a projector will usually turn off video-processing features that lengthen input lag. In many cases, that mode will also brighten up darker areas for you. Some of BenQ's newer gaming models effectively redefine what a gaming projector is by adding separate modes for first-person shooter, role playing, and sports games, and adjusting settings for both video and audio differently for each mode to match the specific needs of each type of game.

What About Room-to-Room Portability and Backyard Movies?

Room-to-room portability and backyard movies are two essentially identical applications for a projector, the only difference being whether you're using the projector inside or outside. Both involve moving the projector as needed and setting it up for temporary use only. Any projector that's light enough to move easily can serve in either role, which means you can use the same projector for, say, a TV replacement in your family room most of the time, take it to the basement for gaming sessions, and maybe even tote it to the backyard for a movie night.

Most projectors suitable for this role weigh between 4 and 10 pounds, although a 10-pound projector is better described as "luggable" rather than "portable." Some include handles to make them easier to carry. Of particular interest are models with a nearly cubical shape, which gives them both a compact form factor and room for much better onboard sound systems than you'll usually find in models using the more common, flatter overall shape. The higher-volume, higher-quality audio means less need to lug an external sound system with you, as well. These projectors will also need an AC power source.

So, What Does 'Fully Portable' Mean in a Projector?

Fully portable applications require a projector that weighs less than 4 pounds—usually a lot less—and that can work without AC power, which almost always means having a built-in rechargeable battery. You can use these projectors as room-to-room portables or for backyard movies. But as a general rule, they won't give you as bright an image as projectors in the 4-to-10-pound range at any given image size, even at full power when plugged into an AC power outlet. And when using batteries, the brightness for most such models drops significantly.

(Credit: Kodak)

Fully portable projectors fall into two broad categories. The larger, brighter models in the group weigh between roughly 2 and 4 pounds, making them small enough to carry easily, but big enough that you won't always want to. The smaller models, known as "pocket" or "pico projectors," weigh as little as a few ounces, can literally fit in a pocket, and are as easy to carry with you as a cell phone. They even make excellent phone accessories, letting you show photos or watch movies from your phone at a much larger image size.

Projector Shopping: Key Specs to Consider

Cutting across all the different applications are a handful of specs and features you need to keep in mind: the projector's resolution, support for standard versus high dynamic range (SDR versus HDR) input, the light source, the imaging technology, and the brightness level. Here's a quick overview of the questions to ask about each.

What Resolution Do I Need in a Home Projector?

Before 4K resolution reached the projector world (4K resolution includes both 4,096 by 2,160 pixels and the more common 3,840 by 2,160 pixels), the resolution spec that mattered most was the native resolution of the imaging chips, meaning the actual number of pixels on the chips themselves. The issue was that although lower-resolution chips can show higher-resolution material, down-converting the image will give it a soft-focus look and can introduce artifacts.

Today's most expensive 4K projectors use native 4K chips. But the more affordable models you're more likely interested in combine 1,920-by-1,080-pixel chips with pixel shifting. They work by breaking 4K images into multiple sets of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels, and then shifting the pixel position slightly for each set to put more pixels on screen for each frame than are in the chips themselves.

(Credit: Epson)

Most such models use four sets of 1,920 by 1,080 to put a full 3,840 by 2,160 matrix on screen. The majority of Epson's pixel-shifting models use two sets, which puts only half as many pixels on screen. But largely thanks to the limits of human visual acuity, the image using Epson's approach is impossible to distinguish from a full 3,840-by-2,160-pixel image, unless you're far closer to the screen than normal seating distances.

Some people argue that no pixel-shifting scheme qualifies as "real" 4K. However, most will tell you that they can't see any difference between images produced by projectors with native 4K chips and the best pixel-shifting models, including Epson's models that put lower resolution on screen.

Thanks largely to pixel shifting, 4K resolution is affordable enough today to be the preferred choice for home theater, TV replacements, and gaming, while 1080p is the budget choice. Lower resolution costs still less, but even a 720p image will be noticeably soft-focus compared with 1080p at the image sizes you'll likely be using for these applications.

For room-to-room portability and backyard movies, consider first whether you're going to be using a large-enough image to be able to see any difference between 1080p and 4K or even between 720p and 1080p. Any of these resolutions can be a good choice for these applications, depending on image size.

For fully portable projectors, 4K isn't an option at this writing. But even when it becomes one, it's unlikely that the projectors will be bright enough to give you a big-enough image in most lighting conditions to see a difference between 1080p and 4K, or possibly even between 1080p and 720p, which remains a good choice for the 2-to-4-pound models. For pocket projectors, brightness is even lower, and the resolutions are lower as well, making even 640-by-360-pixel resolution worth considering.

Do I Need High Dynamic Range (HDR) Support in a Home Projector?

HDR has a bigger impact than the step up to 4K on improving perceived image quality. And note that the two features don't always go together. In principle, projectors with HDR support are generally better choices than equivalent models without it, but be sure to check how well it works. Our reviews always discuss image quality for both SDR and HDR.

Also check which HDR formats are supported. HDR10 is the most common for projectors. Other possibilities are HDR10+, which builds on HDR10 and is in the process of becoming more widespread; HLG, which is also less common than HDR10, but supported by a growing number of video sources; and Dolby Vision, which is rare in projectors, at least partly because of technical issues.

What Kind of Light Source Do I Want in a Home Projector?

Projectors can use traditional lamps, LEDs, or lasers, though the two solid-state choices seem bound to eventually replace lamps entirely. For the moment, those that use lamps are still generally cheaper to buy than essentially identical models that use either of the solid-state options, but LEDs and lasers last for the life of the projector, while you'll likely have to replace a lamp at least once. So when comparing prices, be sure to add in the cost of replacements.

In addition to their longer life compared with lamps, solid-state sources maintain a higher percentage of their initial brightness over a longer percentage of their life, which means it will take far longer before you notice any loss of brightness. On the other hand, lamp-based projectors are more likely to deliver the dark blacks and top-tier contrast that matter for home theater. That said, some laser projectors are now catching up on that score, so don't just assume a lamp will be better. Check out comments in reviews for any projector you're considering.

What Imaging Technology Do I Want in a Home Projector?

Projectors can use one of three types of imaging chips: LCD, DLP, or LCoS. The key issue for preferring one over another is less about the chip technology than whether the design is based on one chip for all three primary colors, or a separate chip for each. Projectors that use a single chip, which includes all affordable DLP models, rotate through the three primaries in sequence, which can create rainbow artifacts in the form of red/green/blue flashes. Projectors that use three chips, which includes almost all LCD and LCoS models, show all three colors at once, which guarantees an image free of rainbow artifacts.

Some single-chip projectors are more prone to producing these artifacts than others, so even if you see them easily, you won't necessarily see them with every one-chip projector. And some people don't find them distracting. Our reviews indicate how often we saw rainbows in our testing, but our standard advice is to buy single-chip projectors from a dealer that allows easy returns without a restocking fee, so you can judge for yourself. Also note that almost all fully portable projectors are built around a single chip regardless of the imaging technology, so if you need full portability and you see these artifacts easily, you may have to resign yourself to seeing an occasional rainbow flicker.

What Brightness Level Should I Look For in a Home Projector?

Specs are largely useless for deciding if a projector is bright enough. Even when accurate, they rarely tell you the brightness for the mode and settings that you'll want to use.

As a practical matter, unless you can test a projector yourself, the easiest way to know whether it will be bright enough for your needs is by reading reviews. Ours discuss the usable image sizes we found in different lighting conditions when using the settings we chose for best image quality. Pay particular attention to descriptions of HDR brightness as distinct from SDR brightness, and whether the two are both acceptably bright at the same image size.

Also note that your screen can affect image brightness, either increasing it (by reflecting more light toward the center area than to the sides) or lowering it (typically by using a gray screen color that also increases effective contrast). In short, when looking at brightness, you need to consider your screen and projector as a single unit, even if you buy them separately.

So, Which Home Projector Should I Buy?

Our current top picks in home projectors vary widely in particulars and are aimed at different home applications, but they have one thing in common: high marks in our reviews. For more possibilities, take a look at our favorite outdoor projectors, and our top choices for 4K models, And be sure to also check out our tips for how to choose the right projector screen.