Vivitek H1080FD – Review Summary 2

The very bottom line

The Vivitek H1080FD is a low cost projector. It’s performance in terms of color handling, black levels, and other other “image performance” areas is about what you would expect from the lowest priced new 1080p projectors. In that regard, the Vivitek is pretty good. It won’t satisfy a hard core enthuisast such as myself, but does make a really nice, entry level projector for a first time home theater person

Where the Vivitek really shines (bad pun, sorry), however, is brightness. When you need both bright movie and brightest modes, the Vivitek, so far, is the brightest projector around, short of $2500 (BenQ W6000), and actually one of the brightest overall, even to $5000 and higher.

Captain Pike here really looked good on the bridge of the Enterprise (which looked great!).

That means the Vivitek becomes an excellent choice for a bonus room, or family room, expecially for watching a wide range of content, including movies, TV, HDTV, and definitely sports.

I may come down hard on lower cost projectors, but do keep one thing in mind. A projector like this Vivitek, in most ways, will be higher reslution, and in many ways (like brightness) blow the doors off of those same $3000 – $5000 projectors people like me were buying (and raving about) just 4-5 years ago. Consider the Panasonic PT-AE700, which by my taste was the first really good, mass market home theater projector. This Vivitek is likely just as good in color (or close), probably is 2.5 times brighter, overall, has comparable black levels, is drastically sharper, and so on. And all, for a fraction of the price of a 720p projector just a few years ago.