Casio’s near monopoly on viable lampless education and businesses projectors is coming to an end with at least three manufacturers announcing new mainstream models with either pure laser or hybrid laser / LED lightsources.
On show on TI’s booth at BETT last month, Optoma showed a new hybrid model and BenQ revealed a new laser projector that uses a six segment phosphor colour wheel. These are both described in detail elsewhere in this issue (see page 8). Shortly after BETT, ViewSonic announced a full HD 1080p home cinema laser / LED hybrid projector – said to be the first on the market.
Commenting on the entrance of new competitors to the lampless sector, Nieve Cavanagh, Casio Projectors’ senior product marketing manager, said “Only time will tell if vendors can market both lamp-free and conventional lamp-based projectors, without directly contradicting themselves. The benefit of Laser & LED hybrid light source technology is that it resolves most of the problems with lamp-based products. Successfully merging the two ranges together will be a hard task for any marketer.”
See AV News February 2012 for a full report and a review of the BenQ LW61ST.
