Panasonic is trying to get under your tree this holiday season with its new AE1000 projector. This slick black box puts out your video at full 1080p.
What’s more is that it has a 11,000:1 contrast ratio, which is total hotness. Panasonic is aiming this projector at high-end home-theater lovers, although you should be able to find it for under $5k, which really brings it into the mid-range (for people who use $100s as toilet paper), 1080p-wise.
We like the 2x optical zoom and a spherical lensing system. In theory, it should make images crisper and more contrasty, yes, it’s a word—look it up (edit: Actually please don’t). Of course, we haven’t seen one in person yet, so this could all just be a bunch of Panasonic PR noise.
AE1000 [product page]