Projector Value
Almost a tie, with the advantage to Epson, one more reason why Epson received our Best In Class award, and Sony had to settle for a Runner-Up Best In Class award. (No hatemail, please, from Sony fans.)
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Art's Two Cents
Well, I think I said it all, in the Overall Picture Quality section above. If I had to surrender my JVC, and choose one of these, from extensive viewing of both, compared to each other, and the JVC, I choose the Epson.
Beyond that, the Epson has subtle advantages in many areas, including sharpness, black levels, zoom lens ratio, amount of lens shift, remote control, and so on. The Sony, has the advantages of power for their zoom, focus and vertical lens shift, which is nice, but won't affect what you are watching. It also has a very slight edge in shadow detail.
The are bigger differences as well, the Epson has enough extra lumens in best mode for an extra 8-10 inches in screen diagonal, and is far brighter in brightest mode, for watching (especially TV/HDTV/Sports) with more ambient lighting. And don't forget the much better, and longer warranty.
Guess what. Even after all of the above, both are excellent projectors and a cut above the similarly priced competition, with only the BenQ W5000 being closely competitive. The BenQ has many things going for it as well, but we'll save that for another comparison, in this case, against the Sony!
