Viewsonic introduces 3D-capable short-throw PJD5352 projector


The projector world is a strange one to me. The market seems to be one part sports enthusiast, one part old-school projectionist, and one part enterprise. Yet we have excellent digital projectors out there for peanuts, to say nothing of the increasingly practical pico projectors. Viewsonic’s latest doesn’t exactly fit into the “peanuts” category at $750, but it’s certainly practical for all the parties mentioned above, and 3D-ready to boot.

The PJD5352 is a bit of a weird creature, though. Under-$1000 models seldom have true HD resolution, and this one is no exception: 1024×768 at 120Hz is just fine for a lot of stuff, but of course it’s not enough to display an HD picture, which most 3D movies and broadcasts are going to have, although it will be able to show them resized. Another puzzling thing is the inputs. With two VGA inputs, S-Video, and composite, it’s pretty clear that HD content was never really even in consideration. To be honest, I’m not really so concerned with losing the HD as with the fact that you’ll have to keep an adapter or something around, since so many devices use HDMI or DVI out now.

The short-throw thing is nice, though. They claim a 50″ picture with 3000:1 contrast ratio only three feet from the screen or wall, which is usually preferable (as long as they control for distortion) to one sitting behind you and projecting over your head. It’s more the kind of projector you’d take out when you need to use it, not one where you’d have a mount that automatically lowers from the ceiling.

It’s available now, in case you’re wondering.