Hi rick, for me it also came down to the 4000 and the 8500, finally choosing the 4000 but based on what I’m hearing from you so far I think you’d be better served by the 8500. But I have a couple of questions.
1. How bright do you plan on having your room and how big of a screen and what screen ratio?
Depending on your planned ambient light and screen size, screen selection may be more important an issue than projector selection. If you plan on a 16x9 screen the 4000’s zoom emulation feature is meaningless.
2. How do you plan to use the projector, movies, HDTV, gaming?
Your use will play to the relative strengths and weaknesses of each machine.
3. Do you want more pop/wow which often makes a better initial impression or do you want to better be able to see what’s happening in the darker parts of the screen which IMO makes for a better overall viewing experience in the long run.
4. Is initial cost or total cost of use more important?
The 4000 wins the first but the 8500 the latter.
Something else to keep in mind about placement. While everyone seems to say always put the projector as closes as you can to the screen IMO that’s a throw back to when projectors weren’t bright enough and needed all the help they could get. Closer does give you brighter but farther give you better contrast. Also very close can cause issues with image focus and detail between the center and edges of the screen. Not likely visible watching normal video, however, it could be an issue if using the projector as a computer monitor.
