Sony VPL-VW40: 1080p Home Theater Projector Review - Image Quality-12

Posted on February 1, 2009 by Art Feierman

Sony VPL-VW40 Viewing - HDTV

For your consideration, here are a number of sports images, from HDTV sources (Cox cable), from a couple of football games. The first of them is cropped so you can see around the screen, in an attempt to get a feel for the ambient light. However, since the amount of ambient light, is fairly low, and the projected image, is bright, the amount of light you see on the walls and speakers, appears much darker than the way it looks to the eye:

Overall, the Sony VPL-VW40 looked very good on HDTV sources. My only complaint, is that the Sony is not particularly bright in its brightest mode, thus it cannot deal with as much ambient light as, say, the Epson Pro Cinema/ Home Cinema 1080 UB, or the BenQ W5000, the other two projectors I have here, at this time.

I certainly like the VW60, so it is no surprise that I also like the VW40, especially when you consider the price. In the VW40, we are looking at a 50% drop in the cost of a high quality LCoS projector in less than a year, and some minor benefits thrown in. The Sony is definitely a movie watcher's projector. While, after tuning, it does very well at everything, it lacks the sheer horsepower in Dynamic mode to be as good an all-around projector for sports and TV, with some ambient light, than, say the Epson. Still, when you kill the lights and hunker down in front of the screen for a good movie, you'll be hard pressed to find any serious flaw with the Sony VPL-VW40's picture quality.

Perfect? No. The slight shift to blue in the dark areas is a minor issue, and the sharpness could be a tad better. I've already pointed out that the Sony is second, overall, only to the Epson for black levels in an under $3000 projector, and its shadow detail is very good. Get it calibrated, and you are sure to enjoy!