One of the best 4K projectors can upgrade your home entertainment set-up in an instant.Â
Projectors are a high impact (and, sometimes, relatively low cost) workaround if you don’t want a huge 75-inch 4K TV to dominate your home when it’s not in use, but you do want a big, impressive and cinematic viewing experience when you have a movie to watch.Â
With one of the best projectors, 100-inch images are the norm, while some models can offer projection as large as 300 inches – or as small as 40 inches, if that's all you have space for on your wall.
What’s more, the best projectors in this guide all offer some level of portability. This is a huge benefit of opting for a project over a big TV. It means you can get an immersive movie-watching experience one minute and have the projector tucked away nearly in a closet or on a shelf the next. Although many do look good, so there’s no problem leaving them out on display if you have room.Â
If you're concerned about the hassle of setting up or installing a projector – over, say, one of the best TVs – we understand. But you needn’t worry. Setting up a projector is rarely more hassle than putting the projector up against a wall, and the benefits – truly massive, bright and beautiful images being the main one – make them well worth your time and effort.
- Best 4K Blu-ray players to hook up to your projector
The best 4K projectors in 2021
After more than a decade since its last home cinema projector, Samsung has exploded back on the scene with The Premiere LSP9T projector.
This ultra short-throw beamer makes use of 4K HDR laser projection, with a three-color laser removing the need for a color filter and therefore allowing The Premiere's 2,800 lumens brightness to really shine. Pictures are punchy and colorful, and Samsung's world-first introduction of the HDR10+ format, which adds in scene-by-scene picture calibration in compatible films and TV shows.
This projector also benefits from full implementation of Samsung's smart TV operating system, which – if a bit sluggish at times – is incredible to have on a projector over the basic and poorly organized interfaces we're used to. The built-in 40W speakers are above par, too.
With a max 130-inch picture, a host of high-end and world-first technologies, and a TV operating system that fixes one of our main complaints about the best projectors available today, Samsung's The Premiere is a knockout choice for a new home cinema projector.
It is expensive, retailing at £6,999 / $6,490 / AU$10,999 – but is undeniable a good choice for those who can afford it. For everyone else, there's plenty of other great models in the guide below.
Read our full review: Samsung The Premiere projector
The Vava 4K projector is something of a marvel, with a sharp 4K picture and impactful HDR despite its 8-bit color limitations.Â
As an ultra-short throw laser projector, you’re getting a massive picture (up to 150 inches) while only having to place it a few inches away from a wall or screen. The 2,500 lumens brightness is more than enough to make its images look vibrant, too – while a sleek design and soft fabric covering ensure the projector is aesthetically satisfying even when it's turned off.
The smart platform is somewhat secondary here, with an old iteration of Android TV and a couple of big-name apps (Netflix, Hulu) nowhere to be seen. But with Vava’s mix of bright 4K images, impactful color, and ultra short-throw picture – all packaged in a gorgeously sleek design – it's a brilliant choice for a new home projector.
This Vava UST projector retails at $2,799 in the US, making it decently cheaper than our top pick in this guide, even if there are other, more budget models to consider too.Â
As a crowdfunded model, the odds may have been against this laser projector, but the result is certainly one of the best projectors on the market today.
Read more: Vava 4K projector review
The Epson EH-TW9400 is an excellent home theater projector. You're not getting the laser projection of the some of the models above, but as lamp models go, it's a stunner.
We have this beamer five stars for its impressive color reproduction, HDR support, and 2,600 lumens brightness, making for bright and impactful images. While this isn't a native 4K projector (something you just don't get at this price), even upscaled images are detailed and come across well, with highly natural skin stones and an impressive amount of shadow detail. Blacks could be deeper, and motion could be smoother, but there's really little to complain about here.
The EH-TW9400 boasts advanced capability all around, from its 3D compatibility to motorized lens controls – the latter point allowing for real precision and an easy setup. There's even a lens cover to prevent dust from creeping in!
Having launched in 2019, the Epson EH-TW9400 is widely available in the UK, India and elsewhere, and currently retails for £2,549. In the United States, it goes by the name Epson Pro Cinema 6050UB, and comes in at $3,999.
That cost isn't a drop in the ocean, for sure, but all in all this is great value for what you're getting. Just keep in mind that it doesn't come with built-in speakers, meaning you are reliant on connected audio equipment.
Read the full review: Epson EH-TW9400
The BenQ TK850 is a 4K projector for your living room, with boosted audio, intense 3,000 lumens brightness, and a focus on sports broadcasts to help it stand out from the piles of other projectors out there.
It’s not the first BenQ projector that’s caught our eye: we gave a glowing review to the BenQ HT3550 last year, even if that model is more angled towards die-hard cinephiles than the TK850.
But with its similar pricing, exceptional HDR, and the addition of a motion-smoothing and contrast-heightening Sports mode for those wanting to watch the football on a large projection, the TK850 make a strong argument as the best BenQ projector we've seen – especially as it amends HT3550's biggest flaws by drastically upping the brightness, and adding a lens shift tool to elevate or lower the height of the projection
The BenQ TK850 can output 3,000 lumens of brightness, making for vividly-realized colors and immediately visible detail, even in daytime or with some level of ambient light in the room. For that, it get a thumbs up from us.
There's some video noise in gray shadows or dark scenes, and the lack of streaming apps may disappoint some, but overall the TK850 is a fantastic projector for your home.
Read the full review: BenQ TK850 projector
Some projector were meant to be portable – and few do it better than the Anker Nebula Capsule II Mini Projector.
About the size and shape of a can of Coca Cola, the tiny projector looks more like a battery pack for a piece of AV equipment than an all-out projector, but those looks are deceiving. The Capsule II is very capable for its size, offering a 720p (HD) resolution and strong audio output – and a noticeable improvement on 2018's Anker Nebula Mars II – even if it can't compete with the more premium 4K HDR models listed in this guide.
Given its size, we were pleasantly surprised to find a fully-sized HMDI port, too, rather than the mini-HDMI alternative – as well as a USB port and USB-C charging port, allowing you to power the projector while connecting to a streaming stick like the Roku Express or Amazon Fire TV Stick.
There's also 3,600 apps to make use of, all pre-built into the Android TV smart platform. However, given some tricky certification issues around Netflix, you won't get the biggest TV streaming service on there unless you connect an external device to do it for you.
Read the full review: Anker Nebula Capsule II Mini Projector
The Optoma CinemaX P2 is clearly a cool looking piece of kit, and it’s not often you can say that about a projector. Stylishly finished in matte white, with complementary grey fabric grille and peekaboo lens up top, it looks suitably trendy.
It's built around a single chip DLP 4K device allied to a laser light engine, which translates to pin-sharp pictures (no chance of any panel alignment issues here) and excellent color vibrancy – though it is a bit less vibrant than its predecessor
The tradeoff there is the the P2’s audio performance is top notch. Each driver has its own 10W digital amp module, so that’s a cumulative output of 40W. With the sonic chops of a large Bluetooth speaker, it’s more than loud enough to disguise its operating noise, which is a low 26dB.
This isn’t quite a cinephile grade projector, but for most of us the convenient form factor and fantastic audio performance should be ample compensation.
Read the full review: Optoma CinemaX P2
Really need a projector that can sit right up to the wall? This ultra short-throw CineBeam projector from LG is able to project a massive display from only inches away.
You're paying a lot, with a $6,000 (around £4,860, AU$8,750) price tag befitting the increased convenience and advance technology required to project at such a short distance.
The projector itself is also brilliantly sharp in its construction, with a sleek rectangular profile that can hub your living room carpet or coffee table without obstructing any of the image it's throwing up on the wall – and you can install it from the ceiling as well if preferred.
At 2.2 inches away, the projector will deliver a 90-inch screen size, while at 7.2 inches, you’ll get a 120-inch projection. The sound quality maybe isn't as impressive as the projection, though, with a lack of detail in high frequencies, and not much power on the low end either.
Read our full review: LG HU85LA CineBeam Projector
Smart, voice activated controls for a home cinema projector may sound like the kitchen-sink approach to feature lists at first glance, jumping on the buzz-word (or should that be ‘wake word’?) bandwagon of Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri or Google’s Assistant. But think about the environment and scenario that your average projector viewing session takes place in, and it starts to make a lot of sense – you’re in a dark room where seeing buttons isn’t always easy, possibly with your hands loaded up with popcorn and other treats.Â
Being able to shout “play the movie!” at a voice activated projector, potentially installed in a bracket high above your head, seems like a sound move.Â
Ultimately, while the Alexa features are fun (if a little perfunctory) everything about this the Optoma UHD51A performs exceptionally. At this price you’re going to be hard pressed to find a projector that can deliver this level of picture quality and this feature set more confidently.
The Optoma UHD51A represents a great shift in 4K projecting quality if you find yourself on a tighter budget. What’s on offer here allows even those with smaller living spaces and more modest bank balances a taste of the home cinema high life.
Read the full review: Optoma UHD51A
Why a 4K projector?
If you're not convinced by any of the 4K projectors in this list, it may be worth weighing up the pros and cons of competing technologies.
A standard flatscreen television is generally a simpler affair: you put in your home, on a wall or countertop, and it stays there. It's a set screen size, and will offer the likes of 4K resolution or HDR at a cheaper price point than a projector.
Projectors can be helpful in their portability, or the flexibility of its picture, though it does mean that can be more to calibrate, especially when trying to suss out where to place in your home. It might be best placed right up against a wall, if an ultra short-throw projector, but if your wall is in any way uneven or off-white, it won't offer an ideal image – in that case, you may be better off with a dedicated screen, though that does defeat the point of ditching a television.
Projectors tend to be pricier for comparative resolutions or HDR support, especially dynamic HDR – with Samsung The Premiere being the only existing beamer with HDR10+.
However, the compact form and flexibility that a projector affords does make it a better choice in a lot of cases, and this guide contains some truly fantastic HD and 4K projectors worth your time.