LG AF115 Projector: Pros, Cons, and Typical Capabilities

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Art Feierman

LG AF115 Projector: Pros

An impressive almost 700 lumens in "best" mode, makes handling larger screens practical, and dynamic
Excellent color, post calibration, especially skin tones which really do look a touch better than some very good projectors
Reasonably "good enough" black levels, though not great
Better than average placement flexibility with 1.8:1 zoom and lens shift
Dynamic iris, though not producing the blackest blacks, does offer pretty smooth operation
Iris can be put in manual mode, if projector too bright, but iris can not perform dynamically, so black levels not as good.
Offers creative frame interpolation (some limits)
Takes 24fps film to 48fps (2:2 pull-down)
Excellent remote control
Overall, a solid picture, plus all those lumens make for the AF115's superior price performance

CFI a bit jerky at times with 24fps film content. Not recommended for movie viewing
Black level performance is "average" for a normal projector, and a ways from matching any of the ultra high contrast projectors
Documentation - pretty basic, though generally helpful, but lacks good descriptions of many features. For example, Real Cinema On, 24fps 1080 becomes 48fps. Set it Off and it uses 3:2 pull-down. It's not explained in the manual.
No anamorphic lens support
Menus, otherwise logical, pack too many items per menu, requiring scrolling, and making it harder to find features
Changing out the lamp requires unmounting from a ceiling mount (rather rare these days)
Overscan not operational with 1080 source material, and no edge masking either (that's something that needs to be corrected)
Could be a quieter (23 db claimed in eco-mode, probably about 28 db at full power
Despite 1920x1080 native resolution, does not support data resolutions of 1600x1200 UXGA, or 1920x1200 WUXGA. (not tested with the AF, but true for the CF)

Documentation - overall
Average "brightest mode" brightness - with just under 1000 measured lumens
Just average lamp life - 2000 hours in High lamp power mode, 3000 in low (eco) power
Styling: Black, boxy, some minor nice touches - not bad, not impressive, surprisingly tall
Overall size and weight - a medium large projector typical in size for an LCoS projector
Shadow detail performance
Cost of operation