I’ve had the 3020 for a couple of days and not much time to spend with it, but wanted to post my thoughts so far. I am comparing this to my 8 year old Panasonic PT-AE900u. The screen is 135” with the projector at 16’ away. Prime seating position is also 16’ away which puts the projector right above my head. I haven’t had spent a huge amount of time calibrating it so most of this will be based on settings out of the box. BTW, I am not a fan of 3D so that isn’t something I’ll be commenting on anytime soon.
Pros:
- Brightness is significantly better. This projector is very bright, even in eco mode. In my light controlled HT room the Cinema setting seems to be the one that works best. One of the main reasons for upgrading my Panasonic projector was to get to 1080p and improved brightness. Mission accomplished!
- Colours really pop, especially on animated films like Monsters Inc. or Toy Story.
- Resolution is excellent, much sharper and detailed. The Panasonic was soft in this area.
- Blacks are good, I still need to play with the calibration settings as this is a very bright projector, but out of the box it’s good and better than my Panasonic. Dropping the brightness a few points helps and doesn’t impact overall picture quality.
- Quiet fan in eco mode.
Cons:
- Loud Dynamic Iris. It almost sounds like a crunching sound. Not noticeable during loud scenes, but kind of annoying during quiet scenes. It does help with blacks but not essential, I am still deciding if it’s worth keeping on.
- The projector is big. Not an issue for me, but could be for some, not one you would want to take on the road with you.
- No manual lens shift. Not an issue for me but could be for some.
This projector is on sale at Best Buy (Canada) for $1249 (with a 30 day evaluation period). That about half of what I paid for my Panasonic 8 years ago. It is a major upgrade in overall picture quality and because the increase in brightness will make the room more usable for sporting events, Instead of having to sit in the dark, we can leave some lights on and still have a great viewing experience. So far it looks like a keeper.
