| Reviews : Panasonic PT-AX200U 720p 3LCD Home Theater Projector |
Technical Details
- 1280 x 720, 720p HD Resolution and 6,000:1 Contrast Ratio
- 2000 Lumens Brightness via a 220 W UHM lamp
- LCD x 3 R, G, B
- 2 HDMI, 1 Component, 1 S-Video, 1 Video Inputs
- Comes with power cord, wireless remote control and batteries for remote
Product Description
The PT-AX200 is ideal for watching sports events or playing video games in daylight conditions and surely for viewing movies in a dark room. Powerful 2000-lumen brightness and new Light Harmonizer 2 technology make it easy for people to enjoy vibrant, dynamic images even if they don't have a special theater room. Panasonic's advanced technologies improve color reproduction accuracy in movies, to deliver images with a refined "Hollywood picture quality," making this projector ideal as the heart of a home cinema system.Similar Products
Customer Reviews
By Voltaire (Harrisonburg, VA United States)
I bought this to replace both my computer monitor and my TV, which it has done flawlessly. I've owned this projector for 9 months, 1400hrs on the bulb. The first one I received had one dead red pixel, so I had to send it back, which was a hassle. But it was under warranty, so no big deal. I just hated to have to send it back because halfway into a 720P movie I'd instantly fallen in love with it!
Since I received the replacement, (no dead pixels!), I've had it on for about 5 hours a day. And I can't stop myself. You can't get away from it. It's addictively good image quality. I use it with my PC 95% of the time, 5% Wii/360. I've used it once with TV (Superbowl) in standard definition, an I will say that standard definition really doesn't do it justice. Online services & a Blu-Ray player through my PC provide me with all the HD movies and TV I need. The age of the media PC is beginning people, join in.
At roughly 1000 hours the bulb began flickering occasionally. It still does, but it's only noticeable when the screen is white (like when you are typing an Amazon review). And actually it hasn't done it since I began this review. It's a very intermittent issue, and not at all a deal breaker for me.
Pros:
-Super easy setup, very adjustable once it is setup.
-Resolution is amazing considering the throw size.
-2 HDMI inputs is a plus.
-720P movies look theater quality.
-Have never seen video games look this good.
Cons:
-It has a VGA input for older low-res video cards. Dumb. Why no DVI input? I had to buy a DVI to HDMI cable.
-Only one component input. Dumb. I had to buy a switch for my Wii/360 inputs.
-Bulb flickers. Oh well though, if you're going to buy a projector, you really need to figure buying a bulb every year or two into your purchase, which I did.
-Will steal hours of your life away that you will never get back! (But hey, at least you spent them with the best projector around for the price).
By Scorpio69 (Hawaii, America's Paradise)
I had a Panasonic PT-AE900U that bit the dust after 3 1/2 years of constant (~4 hours a day) use, so I opted for this unit as a replacement, which is now 2 generations ahead of the PT-AE900U, which was pretty darn good by any measure. All I can say about this latest version is that it is indeed an improvement in every sense, at about 60% of the price I paid for the old one. Better in every way: Brighter, sharper, yet smoother and more film-like in its presentation. I was able to simply plug it in in place of my old one and it looks fabulous right out of the box. I don't see any need for adjustment. I watched 'Dark Knight' on Blu-ray as projected onto my Da-Lite Manual 106" Diagonal HDTV Format Home Theater Wall Screen with High Contrast Matte White Fabric (1.1 gain) and it looked just gorgeous. Excellent contrast and depth, color is perfect and the blacks are deep and no longer have the annoying "sheen" I was seeing on the older model.
There really is no reason whatsoever to spend 2x as much (or more) to go 1080P. The difference, even doing an A/B comparison, would be virtually unnoticeable. The only format that even has 1080P is Blu-ray, and I cannot imagine that it could look any better than presented by this unit, which accepts the 1080P signal and scales to 720P. High-def is high-def. Indeed, HDTV is all 720P, and ESPN prefers it to 1080P due to the fact that it's better for motion shots.
This unit is now available for less than ten Ben Franklins. At that price, it's insane not to buy one. You could buy one of these brand new every time the bulb burned out (2000 hours) several times in a row and still spend less than what one 1080P projector would set you back.
And did I mention the Game Mode? PS3 'Motorstorm Pacific Rift' and 'Grand Theft Auto IV' are just nuts with this unit! Have your pals over for some life-size gaming action and they may never leave!
So just buy it already!
By J. Hietpas (Brooklyn, NY)
Understand that I'm new to projectors, so I don't have a lot of background for comparison. I recently moved to a new apartment with a massive living room and I thought to myself "This would be a great opportunity to set up the home theater I always wanted." I spent a good two months researching online for the perfect entry-level hd projector. After slogging through hundreds, if not thousands, of amateur and professional reviews, it was neck and neck between the Panasonic and the Optoma HD65. The Optoma is significantly less expensive, but I was scared off by the potential for "rainbows". (Google "rainbow effect" if you don't know what I'm talking about.) Rainbows tend to occur far more often with high-contrast images, and since I watch a lot of B&W movies, I wanted to make sure this wouldn't be an issue, and as the Panasonic is an LCD projector, it won't be. I ended up purchasing a refurb model of the PT AX200u on eBay for a terrific price.
The biggest concern I had was what to do for a screen. If you spend any time on AV forums online you find that, like with many things, there's an ongoing battle over whether to use a high-end screen from a trusted manufacturer (Draper, Da-lite, etc.) or to make one yourself. I decided that, as a noob, I would just paint a screen on the wall and save up for a nice one. When I got the projector yesterday I set it up (which took about five minutes) just to make sure it was working properly. I hadn't gotten around to painting the screen yet, since I was planning it as a project for the weekend. I connected my mac mini, which I use as a media pc, and switched on the projector. Cue the stunned silence. In a moment I had an image of my mac desktop covering nearly the entirety of my living room wall, about 7'x 13'!!! Since I haven't received my blu-ray player yet (it arrives tomorrow) I decided to pull up Front Row and check out how some of my movies looked. I have a number of dvd's ripped to an external harddrive. The first one was "Casablanca". For a regular old MP4 rip of a standard def dvd it looked amazing. For contrast, I pulled up "Kingdom of Heaven" and, with a color film, you can certainly see a bit more grain and the film titles have a fair amount of pixelization, but it's still totally watchable. Did I mention I hadn't painted the screen yet? It turns out our pale green walls, which have a fair amount of gray in them, work perfectly well as a screen. I had to do some color correction to make sure the skin tones looked right, but I'm perfectly satisfied.
Now, if a THX tech came by tomorrow he'd probably laugh in my face over how amateur my setup is, but for a first time projector owner, I'm floored by how great the picture looks. The thing is also incredibly bright. Though at night our living room is very dark, I'm currently writing this at 9:30 a.m. on a drizzly morning and the picture is perfectly viewable, even with tons of ambient light. Overall, I'm very impressed. I'll leave you with this: My wife, who resisted the whole idea of a home theater for a long time, came into the room last night just after I got the projector set up. She stared at the wall in silence for a moment, then said to me "We're having people over this weekend." How's that for a seal of approval?
UPDATE 6/15/09
It's been about ten days and this may be the greatest thing I've ever owned. Hooked up a Panasonic blu-ray player and wow. Just...wow. Had friends over the other night and watched Kubrick's 2001 in blu-ray projected about 14'x8' (the size of some arthouse multiplexes I've paid good money at in LA & NYC) and everyone was blown away. We've also watched standard dvd's upconverted and they really look pretty darn good. Even Netflix instant watch and Hulu are completely watchable, though I usually shrink the screen to about 120" diagonal. I've got a movie theater in my apartment!!! How cool is that?
By D. J.
Hi, I have owned this projector for over a year now. Currently we have 1598 hours on our bulb, and we just ordered a new one to have as a spare when this bulb finally gives.
We use this projector to watch TV and movies. It is the only "TV" in the house and we watch movies/TV constantly (1598 hours in about a year, that says it all right there)
We have a 8 foot piece of polywall for a screen, and the room gets filtered light in the day, and we use an S-video feed for the direct tv (not hd yet!), an hdmi cable for the movies...and despite all this, the picture quality is amazing! We originally got the polywall piece from home depot as a temporary screen to use until we figured out placement and what size screen we wanted, but we have been so happy with the picture quality that we haven't gotten around to spending the money and replacing it yet. This week we are upgrading our direct tv to HD and I'm pretty stoked.
I spent months researching projectors before finally settling on this one. I am so glad I did, this projector has far exceeded my expectations in every way. Here are some of its best features:
--In terms of placement, its very flexible. I have it sitting on top of my book case in the rear of the room. I can easily zoom the picture in, make it smaller, and move it up/down/right/left. This is especially handy when switching from widescreen movies to the 4:3 TV format.
--This projector is really bright. I have the lamp on "natural" which is one the dimmest settings, and the output is good. I can see details in dark movies that I missed while in the movie theater! For example, DARK KNIGHT was AWESOME to watch with this projector because its a very very dark movie.
--I was VERY concerned about the lamp hours when I bought the projector. There was no "average" runtime given, so I was kind of expecting the bulb to go out around 700 hours. But here I am, at 1598 hours and the lamp is showing no signs of slowing down.
--The unit is very quiet. I live in a very warm climate and I was worried about having the projector mounted on my bookcase and overheating. The fan is located on the side of the projector and even after a 8 hour movie marathon, I have no problems with overheating.
Overall, I would recommend this projector to everyone. I am so glad I didn't waste money on a small plasma flat screen. My family was worried that we would be spending too much money on replacement bulbs. So far, even with our excessive use of the TV, we are only spending $350 a year on replacement bulbs. To be able to watch sports on an 8 FOOT SCREEN and have a theater style living room for movie nights, $350/year is SOOOOO worth it!
By J. Oglesby
quiet, high res, many features for a really good price. Adjustable throw distance is a plus.
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