Projectors. Lamp or Laser? That is the Question.

It’s the 2020’s, and you find yourself with the projector that’s seen your son and your daughter go from elementary to college.

You’ve shown a few dozen wedding images on it. More than its fair share of memorial videos. You’ve changed the bulbs a few times to give it back that brightness and punch it used to have when you first bought it. You’ve cared for it as best as you can, when you can rent that scissor lift to get to it, that is. It’s a member of the family.

But it’s time to upgrade. You’re in the market, looking for the right replacement for Old Betsy, and you’re not only hit with the flurry of options such as lumens, resolution, video signal input, wifi capabilities, remote monitoring, and others. But, now, you’re faced with the lighting technology. Bulb vs laser. What’s the difference, and which one is right for you?

Let’s explore it.

The primary difference between laser and lamp projectors is the light source of the machine. In traditional lamp projectors, the light source is a lamp, whereas the light source in laser projectors is a laser engine. The light source is bound to affect the projectors’ shelf-life, brightness, picture quality and cost.

Lamp vs Laser Projectors. BEGIN!

Laser Advantages Over Lamp

Life & Maintenance: Longer shelf life with zero maintenance

The most significant advantage of buying laser projectors is that they have a longer shelf life than lamp projectors. To be specific, a laser projector can easily last for 20 to 30,000 hours, whereas a lamp projector can only last for 6 to 10,000 hours which is half the capacity of a laser projector. Nevertheless, laser projectors come with zero maintenance cost.

Since laser projectors don’t heat up, they don’t require ventilation for cooling and accumulate dust in the filter. Therefore, the filters in laser projectors don’t need to be cleaned. Apart from this, you don’t need to replace the laser engines very often unless something is drastically wrong. It’s a one-time investment.

Laser never loses brightness over time

Laser projectors don’t lose brightness as they age, even if the projector has been running for a long time. This is not so with lamp projectors. No matter how well you maintain lamp projectors, you will notice the projector’s picture turning light Gray after a certain amount of time.

An added advantage of laser projectors is that they will still projects images even if the laser engines malfunction. In contrast, you cannot project images if the lamp explodes in lamp projectors.

Better Picture Quality: It matters a lot for everyone. 

No doubt, laser projectors give you better picture quality. The colors are brighter and sharper, and the contrast is better than in lamp projectors. However, the colors you get in lamp projectors are a little muted and deteriorate with time.

Easy Installation

Since laser projectors come with a 360-degree installation, they can be installed anywhere. On the other hand, the lamp in a lamp projector is fixed and therefore cannot be installed any and everywhere.

Laser Projectors are Noiseless

Because lamp projectors need a constant cooling source, so they do not get heated up too often. In addition, most projectors come with a built-in fan that creates noise as long as the projector runs, whereas laser projectors are completely silent because they do not require any fan for cooling.

Start it and Go.

There is no wait time involved when using a laser projector. These projectors start as soon as you push the button. In contrast, lamp projectors take a couple of minutes to operate. This is because every time you start a lamp projector, the lamp requires heating up, which takes time. Since laser projectors do not require initial heating up, they can start immediately.

Safety

Previously there was a belief that lamp projectors were safer than laser projectors but not anymore. Today laser projectors have an auto-cut system. As soon as the beam hits an object, it automatically cuts off. Therefore, it is entirely safe.

Lamp projectors: Lamp Advantages Over Laser 

Laser projectors have a lot of features, but it doesn’t mean that lamp projectors don’t have their own set of advantages.

Inexpensive

Lamp projectors are cheaper. In some cases less than half, or more the price of laser projectors at the same amount of brightness. Of course, you have to make sure that you’re talking apples to apples as well. This means, if you’re comparing 6,000 lumen projectors, then make sure they’re the same native resolution and technology. So, if cost is your primary concern, we suggest opting for a lamp projector over a laser projector.

Even though lamp projectors come with an additional maintenance cost as long as it works, because you need to clean the filters and change the lamps occasionally, the initial investment is much lesser than a laser projector. Just remember, though, you will need to buy new lamps in the future. Keep that cost in your mind as you buy a projector because though you didn’t pay for it today, you will pay for it.

Sharp / NEC NP-PA803UL

Availability

There are a lot of choices in the lamp projector arena. They range from almost no lumens to nearly 75,000 lumens. That’s a lot of heat! You can choose from the 1980s computer resolution to 4k with just a VGA input to HD-SDI. Options galore. Lasers variety isn’t small, but it’s definitely not as expansive.