Hitachi’s booth was ‘all laser’ although the company is still, of course, selling lamp-based products.
The first product we looked at was the KP-AW4001 which was shown at ISE (Hitachi Shows First UST L/P 3LCD Projector) and will start shipping at the end of June. The company told us that it will later have a 3,300 Ansi lumen version.
The LP-EU5002 is a new 1920 x 1200 3LCD projector intended for education and with 5,000 Ansi lumens of output and there is a second version of 1280 x 800 resolution and called the LP-EW5002. Few details were released, but the chassis has dual HDMI inputs and a claimed contrast of 500,000:1. The projector has a slightly unusual form factor, with the lens set back towards the centre of the case. We asked Hitachi why the design was different, but nobody at the show was able to clarify why. The MSRP will be $5149, but the expected street price is $2943, while the WXGA version will cost $2359 when it ships ‘during the summer’.
The lens is set back in the case in the LP-EU5002, but Hitachi couldn’t explain why. Image:Meko
There were a number of the WU-9100 projectors at the event that were being shown ceiling-mounted, but we reported on those from ISE.
