Best in Class – $5000-$25,000 Value Home Theater: Sony VPL-VW385ES

What we have here, is the whole package. The only reason this projector didn’t win the Performance award in this class is because its big brother, the VW685ES at almost twice the price, did win that.

The color right out of the box (too many options, btw), is mostly very good to excellent.  What’s new with the VW385ES though, is that it has a dynamic iris, which the older 365ES lacked. With that comes much improved performance on dark scenes.

This Sony delivers a successful combination of great color, with pretty good blacks.  That’s great, but when thinking of the competition, there are others with comparable color calibrated, and JVCs will have an advantage on blacks.

The thing is, none of those competitors are native 4K, with real live true 4096x2400 panels – none of that pixel shifting. None come right out of the box looking so good.

Sony’s feature set lacks nothing. There’s 3D, low input lag times – under 40ms for respectable gaming, fine for all but the most fanatical gamers.  There’s CFI, with multiple settings including one so mild that I find it “acceptable” for movies.

The 2.1:1 zoom lens is fully motorized, and has lens memory (the older version had the lens features but not the memory).

Great picture, everything you need.  You can spend more for better black levels, and more lumens, but this Sony has all the rest covered.

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