Panasonic PT-AX200E review

The PT-AX200E is one of the brightest 720p home cinema projectors we've seen thanks to its 2,000 lumens lamp.

This extra brightness means the projector is more flexible than most. For example, you can enjoy films, sports and games in daylight without having to close your curtains.

A light sensor detects the ambient level and adjusts the dynamic iris, gamma settings and lamp power accordingly. This means you don't have to make constant adjustments to the settings, although manual controls are also provided.

In a darkened room you benefit from the 6,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. In our tests, image quality was excellent and the great contrast helped to resolve detail in darker areas. Skin tones looked realistic, and colours were vibrant. Motion was smooth, with no unsightly jagged edges or juddering. This is the best-quality 720p LCD projector we've seen. What's more, because it's LCD there's no rainbow effect, from which DLP projectors often suffer.

The PT-AX200E will accept HD inputs at resolutions up to 1080p, and it does a good job of scaling video to its native 1,280x720 resolution. It's also compatible with 24p video found on Blu-ray discs. This retains a movie's original 24 frames per second (fps) to give a more cinematic appearance to motion. There are two HDMI inputs as well as one set of component connectors for HD sources. Definition set-top boxes have to be connected via S-video or composite.

As well as the usual range of preset modes such as Natural, Dynamic and Cinema, the PT-AX200E has a Game mode. This reduces the image processing time to a minimum to ensure almost instant response times. It also boosts gamma levels in darker areas of the screen, so you won't miss any critical details. We can't say we noticed the former, but the latter is welcome.

It's a good-looking projector and quiet, producing only 25dBA at settings. Positioning should be easy thanks to the 2x zoom ratio. You can project a 120in image at a throw distance of 3.7m to 7.4m. Despite the relatively low price, the PT-AX200E even has lens shift. This lets you adjust where the lens points, vertically and horizontally, so you don't need to place the projector squarely in front of the screen.

The lamp lasts for a respectable 2,000 hours, but with replacements costing £245 including VAT, running costs are well above average at roughly 12p an hour. Eco mode should increase lamp life significantly, at the cost of brightness, though Panasonic couldn't give us figures for either brightness or hours in this mode.

The PT-AX200E costs around £100 more than our current Best Buy, BenQ's W500. The W500 is cheaper to run at only 8p an hour. However, if you want to use your projector with the curtains open or you play games regularly, the PT-AX200E is a better choice.