Optoma ZW400 WXGA Professional Laser Projector | Compact Design & Bright 4000 lumens | DuraCore Laser Technology, Up to 30,000 Hours | Network Control | 4K HDR Input | Quiet Operation

We had a very specific need with a large venue screen (18ft width) that needed a very short throw so that speakers could walk in front of the screen without casting a shadow. There was only a hand full of projectors that met our criteria and the Optima ZH406ST (ST for short throw) was the least expensive. The next projector up was brighter and had a shorter throw, but was twice as expensive. Very pleased with the purchase.

Purchased this as a replacement for an older BenQ 640x480 projector that had seen better days. Easiest to break this Optima down in pros / cons. Pro: Easy Setup - I had this on my old mount in literal minutes and was projecting in under 10 minutes Brightness - This projector is great for lit rooms; my spouse prefers the lights on and I needed a solution, this fit the bill in terms of being able to overcome strong lighting Menu options - I didnt need to adjust much of anything, it was pretty much ready to go out of the box other than changing the picture orientation for my needs Remote Control - easy to use and navigate Picture size / range - This projector seems to be designed to be used in a number of environments, I was shooting from 13.5 ft and estimate that I could get at least a 110 picture out of it. My current screen is limited to 83, which this was able to easily scale down to - so big points for such a range of size. Sound - While I didnt use the dedicated speakers, the pass-thru to my stereo was a large improvement over my BenQ. Acoustic accuracy was significantly higher than the former. Cons: The brightness and color uniformity was subjectively awful. Whites were heavily blued in large regions of the image, with the left ~1/3 having a strong blue hue. Running single color screen tests showed brightness hotspots all over the screen. It was one of those deals that once I saw it I wasnt able to unsee it. This was actually a deal breaker and unfortunately I had to return it due to this issue as I expected a bit more out of something that costs nearly a grand and a half. Summary / TLDR: If youre thinking about this for a home theater or office projector it will probably fit the bill quite nicely - it has a sharp image and easy setup. My intention was primarily for gaming and this just did not do it for me, the color / brightness issue was too much to overcome - however it may be picking nits where they need not be. I suspect many wouldnt even notice, but it was just too overwhelming for me and I think the uniformity tolerance may have been exceeded in the unit I received.

I feel bad for those reviews with B stock projectors sent to them. Mine is brand new and functions as expected for a single chip DLP Laser projector. The colors really pop and have to be seen IRL to understand it. Movies like The Grinch and Birds of Prey that have a lot of RGB coloring in to them are great. I am in the category of people that can see the rainbow effect of DLP when moving their eyes across the screen (so -1 for Picture Quality) I have heard that 3 Chip DLP is better however this projector looks really great considering its price. It is fairly quiet as well. When I get it in the mount 12 foot off the floor I doubt I will be able to hear it. Considering that it is not 4K resolution we can comfortably sit 7.5 feet away from a 135 inch screen and it looks sharp, not razor sharp. I dont know who says that is too close, seems like with a TV people sit further away and a projector you sit way closer, it is a totally different experience. I installed a manual pull down screen over my current 65 inch TV so we can either have a pretty good sized TV or a movie screen. I added a Fire Stick to it to be able to stream all content, I run a plex server as well so I can watch live antenna TV over the plex server to the fire stick, Super Bowl is going to be sweet! No regrets on not getting a 4K laser projector as of current they are 3-4 times the price. Laser is way worth the money over a lamp, no warm up or cool down time, and a lot quieter. Update - projector is mounted and screen is installed. The whole family loves it!! 02/10/2021 Update Again - Settled on using an Nvidia Shield Pro, whish I would have done that from the beginning. Ended up pulling ethernet and coax to the Shield for live TV, using a USB TV Tuner and a 1TB SSD Drive. The Shield controls the power on and off on the projector and the Bluetooth volume on my sound bar, the fire stick and cube did not. A buddy of mine went for a 1000 lumen, lamp,4k project, I helped him install it. Nothing against the brand or type but the 4x brightness and quieter fan makes this one the way to go, yeah his was cheaper but I can watch mine during the day with high ambient light. Big improvement in the way I view it, after watching for a month I barely notice the DLP rainbow.