Sanyo PLV-Z2 - Overview

Overview
Layout
Image Quality
General Performance
Setup
Warranty
Summary, Pros, Cons

I was a little late in getting my hands on a Z2 (officially, it’s the Sanyo PLV-Z2) to review (Feb’04), with the product already shipping for two months.  It was worth the wait.  With a typical street price of $2000, the Z2 represents a price/performance breakthrough.

Sanyo has built a superb reputation with their Z1 and PLV-70 home theater projectors, each generally considered the best within their price classes, of all the (HT) Home Theater LCD  projectors out there.  Over the last year and a half, I have worked frequently with the Z1, and had use of a Sanyo PLV-70 for significant periods of time.  Let’s start by saying the Z2 projector “blows away” the Z1 in every conceivable performance area, except brightness where they are fairly close, and not particularly bright – more on that later.  In some ways the Z2 even outperforms the legendary PLV-70, which costs over twice as much.

In a nutshell, the Z2 is a very well laid out projector, with a solid feature set, and it also sports vertical and horizontal keystone adjustment, for drastically simplified setup, or installation.

Instant Home Theater!
The Z2 makes a great portable home theater projector as well.  Don’t have permanent space for projector and screen?  A Sanyo PLV-Z2, and one of the new 16:9 “instant” screens from Dalite, Draper, etc, and you can setup your theater for movies, sports, etc. in just a very few minutes!  Just open the screen (15 seconds tops) put the projector on a nearby, appropriately positioned table, along with a DVD player or a cable from your cable box/satellite receiver, etc., and you are in business!  Done?  Put it all away in just a couple of minutes!

But the real value in the Z2 LCD projector is picture performance, It just provides a beautiful image, rivaling far more expensive projectors.

Overview
Layout
Image Quality
General Performance
Setup
Warranty
Summary, Pros, Cons