When the TV Doesn't Cut It, Go Big With a 4K Projector

TVs run big. You can get nearly seven feet of screen mounted to your living room wall, stretching towards the windows and walls, requiring you move your whole head to follow the scoring touchdown pass or the superhero launching herself across the screen. But big TVs have nothing on projectors. Projectors go huge, most covering swaths of wall territory. And we're not talking those shaky, beige-colored projectors your college prof used to explain microeconomics to a 400-person lecture hall. Just like all great TVs in 2020, these projectors are 4K.

Or rather, for all intents and purposes, they are 4K. Let's over-simplify things for a moment: To have 4K resolution, a TV screen must be able to fit 3,840 pixels horizontally and 2,160 vertically; that's about 8 million pixels total. A whole lot of pixels. But TVs have all those inches of screen real estate to pull it off. The chips inside projectors are much smaller, so there is literally less room for cramming the 8 million pixels required to project in 4K resolution. Nearly every single 4K projector company uses a workaround technology called "pixel shifting" to achieve what is damn near exactly 4K resolution to the naked eye. If you can tell the difference between it and genuine 4K picture, your eyesight is that of a hawk, not a human.

Beyond the pixel technology, there are other projector features to consider, including smart tech, Bluetooth connection, and lumens. You'll want to think about how far and at what angle you'd like to set a projector up from the wall, and check projector "throw" distances to make sure it works. You'll also want to think about how big a picture your projector should cast and in what environment you'll be casting that picture—a darkly lit, subterranean movie lair, or your family room. For the size, these projectors are less expensive than grandiose 4K televisions, though you'll want to buy a screen, and most likely a stereo system, to round out the setup. And, this goes without saying, but make sure you've got access to movies, television, and video games in 4K.

It is a lot to think about. But then, about the same amount of brain power goes into buying a 4K television. To get you started, here are four 4K projectors at different price points to consider, whether you want to stream the game under the full moon, immerse yourself in Ghost of Tsushima, or hunker down to watch Apocalypse Now "like it was meant to be seen."