Appealing in many ways – and could be ideal as an ‘occasional-use’ coffee-table tool

Too noisy and basic to seriously compete, even at this price.

Good colour reproduction at a bargain price.

Wi-Fi is a great feature, but image quality is lacking.

Good picture, built in DVD player, easy to use -- all at a price you won't believe.

If you want big, bright, cheap images, check this Benq projector out.

Hot on the heels of last month’s sub- $2500 projector roundup is HP’s new vp6315.

Hitachi’s PJ-TX10 is the monster of the group – in that it’s by far the biggest and the heaviest projector.

A high quality projector to finish it all off, the Optoma EP739 scored respectably in just about every aspect of every test thrown at it.

The only projector that disappointed was the NEC VT47.

The PD113P is a very capable business projector, as well as being small and lightweight.

The PB2140 from BenQ is a small form-factor data projector with some excellent image nous.

The Dell 1100MP is a data projector for the most part, but was submitted by Dell for this review with the home theatre projectors.

When we last compared sub-$2,500 projectors (December 2003) Dell was unable at the time to supply us with a review model. We were eager to see what their brand new sub-$2,000 projector was capable of, but it's taken it a while to complete the circuitous route to our offices.

Sanyo’s PLC-SW30 is the only projector in this round-up to break the $2,000 barrier, and we’re happy to say it’s not a bad unit at all.

Before we even delve into this projector's specs, the most important and standout metric with the EMP-S1 is its extremely humble $1,999 price tag, which when compared to the usual $5-10K standard for home cinema, puts the EMP-S1 well within reach of people for whom home video projection was merely a dream.