Product Listing

First Looks: Panasonic PT-AE1000U Projector (High-Definition)

By Mendelson Tiu - 26 Apr 2007

Projection HD All The Way

Projection HD All The Way

Setting up a home theater in your home has never been easier as prices for projectors continue to tumble towards greater affordability with video quality climbing in the opposite direction. Currently, home projectors are all the rage, thanks largely to the widespread availability of DVD movies that are dropping in prices (to counter piracy to a certain extent), evermore expensive cinema ticket prices and growing interest in high-definition content. Joining us today for your consideration is the new PT-AE1000U from Panasonic, a handsome looking projector that promises full HD resolution of up to 1920 by 1080 pixels.

Black and Simple

For a product targetted for use at home, it makes perfect sense that the Panasonic PT-AE1000U is available in black, as it means it can easily blend into the décor of most homes. To carry its clean and sharp appearance across, the PT-AE1000U only has two dials on its body for adjusting the horizontal and vertical axes of the lens. All other menu buttons are cleverly hidden under the panel on the side, thus giving it a very sleek look. Inevitably visible however, are two HDMI ports, a VGA port, a component port and a SCART connector found at the rear of the projector.

While bundled remote controls are mostly limited to nothing more than executing preprogrammed instructions, the PT-AE1000’s remote control is one that literally learns commands. What it is to you and your little ones is a universal remote control and it's easy to use, thanks largely to its large buttons and straightforward labels. On the visual end of the remote control is the on-screen user interface that's decidedly uncomplicated and very logically designed.

At the very least, you should be able to fiddle around with the settings without getting yourself acquainted with the user manual first. It's also worthy to note that the projector is very responsive to commands from the remote control. This is most evident when changes were reflected instantly as we were tweaking video settings to achieve the best picture quality.

Hassle-Free Viewing

For the less adventurous sort, the PT-AE1000U has several factory video presets with different color saturation, brightness and black levels for you to choose from. For the more discerning users, an advanced menu with access to settings to tweak individual red, green, and blue values is available. Noise reduction capability is also part of the projector's capability.

Being a home projector that's geared towards home movie enjoyment, black level is naturally very important. For that, we're happy to report that the PT-AE1000U is more than capable in that department. Color saturation and sharpness were also good, certainly making our demo High-definition clips and movies more engaging and enjoyable to behold. The same can also be said about its performance when handling standard definition (SD) content. Pleasing as well was the low noise level of the exhaust fan, which is especially critical for a projector that's targeted at home entertainment.

Final Thoughts

Compared to other high-end projectors in the market today, a relatively low retail price of USD$5,160 (S$7,999) means that the Panasonic PT-AE1000U is definitely not one to be ignored. If you're planning to hop onboard the high-definition 1080p bandwagon, the Panasonic PT-AE1000U has all the right checkboxes ticked and will surely be a welcome addition to your home.

 

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