What They Say
What Hi-Fi looked at the Sony VPL-XW5000ES which it categorises as “the cheapest truly native 4K laser projector the home cinema world has ever seen” (£5999 / $5998). The unit use new 0.61″ SXRD chips. This is the first ‘entry point’ Sony native UltraHD projector to use a non-lamp light source.
The review bemoans that the unit only supports 18Gbps in its HDMI ports so 120Hz is not available at higher resolution than 120Hz. It is also disappointed that there is no support for HDR10+ or Dolby Vision and also no motorisation on the zoom and focus. However, the reviewer was very positive
What We Think
The native 4K is a bit controversial as both polysilicon LCD and DLP projectors uses pixel shifting to achieve higher resolutions.
I always liked the ‘film-like’ image quality from SXRD and I have to admit that if I had time to spend watching great movies on a big screen, my wallet hand would be twitching towards this projector. I reviewed the high end version of this projector several years ago, but would not have gone for a lamp-based unit.
A word of warning – I’m not over impressed with the review quality of What Hi-Fi reviews in general, although this one seems OK. (BR)
