Panasonic PT-MZ670U Projector Review – Summary

Panasonic PT-MZ670U Projector Review – Picture and Sound Quality: Summary, The Competition, Pros, Cons

The Panasonic PT-MZ670U is a beast of a projector, weighing just over 35 pounds. On the front, there is a center-mounted standard lens, but, as mentioned, there is the option to use one of several others. There are two air intake vents on either side of the lens. On the left side of the projector is the re-useable air filter behind a door. Two hot air exhaust vents are on either side of the inputs and connectors panel, on the back. Below the inputs and connectors panel is a row of three items – the power switch, power receptacle, and the speaker. The next side of the projector has a single air intake vent. The top of the projector has the indicator, the Luminance Sensor that works with that Daylight View Basic, the control panel, and a cover that hides the wireless module input.

The Panasonic PT-MZ670U has plenty of inputs and connectors for business and education applications. It has a USB Type-B port for PC-Free Presenting, a wired LAN connector (RJ-45), and then the DIGITAL LINK HDBaseT input. Below all that is a DC Out port, and a group of RGB 1 IN connectors. Directly to their right is the RGB 2 IN connector (VGA computer input), and surrounding all that are the Monitor Out, Remote 1 In, and Serial In connectors. There is an old-school Video In port next to a pair of HDMIs. There are two pairs of Audio In ports, an Audio Out input, and a Remote 2 connector on top, plus a Kensington Lock for added security.

Of the Panasonic PT-MZ670U’s six color modes, there are three bright and usable modes to choose from. The projector’s best mode is Standard and measured in at 4,377 lumens – quite good for a best mode! The second best mode is Natural/Cinema and came in at 4,233 lumens. Standard Mode has a cooler tone to it than Natural/Cinema, which has a warm tone, so I like Standard for presentations and Natural/Cinema for video. White Board Mode is the brightest mode at 6,529 lumens, and has a bit more yellow green than Natural/Cinema, but is overall excellent for a brightest mode.

Dynamic Mode measured in at 5,597 and, surprisingly, didn’t have as good of color as the brightest mode. It’s still pretty usable, but there are other modes with better color to choose from. Still, you may be able to get some really decent color from that mode if you take advantage of all the color management opportunities Panasonic provides. Blackboard, at 5,812 lumens, has a magenta tone to it – this is typical of Blackboard modes, as they are meant to project on a black surface rather than your standard white screen. DICOM SIM. is a color mode you only want to use when projecting high contrast films, such as X-Rays. Like I said on the Picture Quality page, I was quite impressed by the Panasonic PT-MZ670U’s color!

There are two projectors I consider to be direct competition to the Panasonic PT-MZ670U, both of which were featured in this last year’s Education Projector Report, one of which won an award in said report. Those projectors are the Casio XJ-L8300HN and the NEC NP-PA653UL. These are both laser projectors with very different price points and features. I’ll start with the Casio, as I consider it to be the MZ670U’s most direct competition. Before I do, however, I want to mention that there is a slightly lower priced sibling to this Panasonic, called the PT-MZ670UL, that may also deserve your attention before you make your buying decisions.

The Casio XJ-L8300HN is a 4K UHD commercial-grade projector claiming 5,000 lumens. It is a DLP projector, so it does not produce as many color lumens as white ones. As you know, the Panasonic is a 3LCD, and in my opinion, it has a slight advantage on the Casio in terms of color, and it is brighter by over 1,500 lumens. Since the Casio is 4K UHD, and the Panasonic is WUXGA, the L8300HN is obviously sharper than the MZ670U, but there are only a few instances where something like this matters in the business and education environments – when the sharpest image is necessary, such as in architectural CAD drawings, engineering renderings, and other such applications in the scientific (and possibly medical) fields. Some businesses may desire the crisp look of 4K, but for most, WUXGA will do.

The Casio L8300HN is also $11,999, but does not have a street price. This, plus the many extras found on the MZ670U ($5,899 street price), gives it a lot more value for a larger market of people. The Panasonic has a lot more features, while the Casio’s features are fairly limited to lens shift and advanced networking. The big selling point of the L8300HN is its 4K resolution, which is useful to around 1% of people – 4K UHD for business and education applications just isn’t necessary for what these projectors are being used for. For that reason, and the obvious color benefits of the 3LCD panels in the MZ670U, my vote goes to the Panasonic PT-MZ670U as a contender on your list.

The NEC NP-PA653UL is most similar to the Panasonic PT-MZ670U. It is also a 3LCD, large venue laser projector claiming 6,500 lumens and a 20,000-hour light engine life. The PA653UL has WUXGA resolution (1920 x 1200), but can accept both 4K UHD and true 4K content (such as slides and presentations). It’s a pixel shifter, meaning it takes that 1920 x 1200 image, copies it and shifts it up diagonally to create a higher pixel count. This makes the projector inherently sharper than the MZ670U, but rest assured that the projector is still quite sharp.

The big differences lie in the feature sets of each projector. Neither is better than the other – they’re just different, and the NEC might be better for you, or the Panasonic, or better for someone else. It all comes down to those features. The NP-PA653UL has a healthy amount of vertical and horizontal lens shift and lens memory. The projector can accept 4K content, as mentioned, and it also has HDR (HDR10 standard) and BT.2020 Color Support. There’s a lot of advanced features such as Edge Blending, Projection Mapping and TileMatrix (enables 4Kx2K resolution by utilizing 4 projectors via HDBaseT Loop Out). The PA653UL can project vertically or horizontally, giving users a lot of flexibility. The projector is also 3D capable, provided that you purchase the not-included 3D emitter.

I invite you to read the reviews of the two projectors mentioned. This will give you a good idea as to which projector is most useful for your business and education applications. Or, if you’re pressed for time, you can read the projectors’ descriptions in our 2018-2019 Best Education Projectors Report. Spoiler alert – it was the NEC NP-PA653UL that won an award in the report. But, before you go, check out the pros and cons lists below for the Panasonic PT-MZ670U!

• No backlight on the remote – would have been nice, but isn’t typical (at least the remote is white)
• There is a screw to get access to the filter – would have liked to see a quick-release door, but as the filters last up to 20,000 hours, cleaning the filter is not something that will be done often