Big Screen Battle! 100″ QLED TV vs Projector vs UST

Is a 100” TV better than a 100” projector screen? On paper, absolutely, but stick around to see why you still might want a projector instead. In this video I’ve got the current best ultra-short throw and lifestyle projectors, the Hisense PX3-Pro and Valerion Pro 2, and I’m going to put them head to head against this 100” Hisense U7 QLED TV to see which one is the best fit for your space. I can almost guarantee the results will surprise you, because they were nothing like I was expecting.

Pricing

Starting with price, TVs seem to be the only thing in this economy getting cheaper and the Hisense U76N is no exception.  For $1899 you get a full 100” 4K QLED TV with full array local dimming, 4K144Hz input, and support for all the latest video formats and features. I know that’s not exactly cheap, but that’s a heck of a deal, especially compared to the best lifestyle projector on the market, the Valerion Pro 2, which was recently on Kickstarter for $2099. But if you didn’t get in on that, now it will cost you $2999. The Valerion also works best with an ALR screen, and for this video I’ll be pairing it with the Valerion long throw Fresnel ALR screen for $849, making the total package $3850, which is over twice as much as the TV.

The best ultra-short throw/laser TV on the market, the Hisense PX3-Pro, sells for $3500 and also needs a screen. For this video, I’ll be using the Nexigo 100” Fresnel ALR screen which is another $800, for a grand total of $4300, making it the most expensive option. 

But surely those big projector price tags come with better performance, right?

Brightness, Contrast, Color Testing

I ran through all my standard tests using Calman Ultimate, starting with my brightness and contrast patterns on each display’s most color accurate mode and the Valerion Pro 2 had the lowest peak brightness at 239.4 nits with a black floor of 0.023 nits with EBL on giving it a dynamic contrast of 10499:1, which is pretty good. The Hisense PX3-Pro had a peak brightness of 334 nits with a black floor of 0.03 nits and a dynamic contrast of 11257:1, also very good. But using my standard test pattern, which lights up the entire screen, the U76N was still the brightest, putting out a respectable 382 nits and, thanks to its full array local dimming, it had a basically infinite contrast ratio. But, the most impressive part about local dimming is that normal content rarely just shows an entire full white screen. So, for smaller areas and highlights it can dump extra power into those specific backlights, and using a smaller 25% test window the U76N put out 767.7 nits in its most color accurate mode, giving it over twice the peak brightness of the PX3 Pro, even on a high gain Fresnel ALR screen.

I also measured of the box color accuracy and on SDR theater mode the Valerion Pro 2 was the least accurate with an average color error of 4 with a max error of 10.9, the U76N was in 2^nd with an average error of 3.8 and a max of 6.44, and the Hisense PX3-Pro came in as the most color accurate with an average error of 3.28 and a maximum error of 6.22.

However, one area where triple laser projectors definitely dominate is in color gamut coverage, and the Valerion came out on top with 96.51% coverage of the largest BT2020 HDR color space, the PX3-Pro came in second with 93.7%, and in a distant third the U76N’s QLED LCD panel covered just 75.64% of BT2020. But we’ll see if that actually hurts the overall viewing, since most HDR content is mastered for the smaller DCI-P3 color space, of which the U76N still covered 95%.

Perfect Room Performance

But enough numbers, let’s see how they actually compare, starting with the best possible conditions, a dark room with no windows and no lights, surrounded by black curtains, which I’ve always thought of as the conditions where a projector would easily beat a TV.

Starting with the Hisense PX3-Pro on the left and the Hisense U76N on the right. One of the coolest parts about comparing these three displays is that they all use the same image processing chip, the Pentonic 700, so they have almost all the same picture options and I can set them all up identically for a full apples-to-apples comparison.

As we watch a little bit of content, one thing I do feel like I need to say is that all these displays look ridiculously good, and if you’ve never seen a premium 100” screen you would be absolutely blown away by all three. But in the 1% darkest and 1% brightest scenes, the TV absolutely dominated the projector here. You can see that in Wicked using Dolby Vision, the clouds in the super bright sky at the end of The Wizard and I are blown out on the PX3-Pro but are perfectly rendered on the U76N, and in the torturously dark staircase scene in 1917, the TV does a great job preserving detail and avoiding crushing shadows while the local dimming zones give incredibly deep black levels, especially compared to the projector.

However, if we exclude the 2% most difficult scenes and focus on the other 98% of scenes that aren’t pushing the display to its limits, I thought the PX3-Pro was ever so slightly better with a little higher intra-scene contrast and better color saturation which made the U76N look a little hazy in comparison.

Still, there’s no denying that the overall dark room performance of the U76N TV was better than the PX3 Pro ultra-short throw projector, so next it was time to see how the standard throw Valerion Pro 2 would fare against the U76N. This time, in the brightest scenes I thought the Valerion was absolutely dominant, and compared to the TV, the projector had an intensely dramatic image that really felt like stepping out into the sunlight on a bright day but still resisted clipping the highlights in the clouds. Like the PX3-Pro I also thought that the vast majority of scenes looked to have slightly higher contrast on the Valerion with better color saturation and vibrance. However, the darkest scenes were much more of a test, and even though you can see the laser dimming of the Valerion working hard, it still can’t match the full array local dimming of the TV. If you’re familiar with this scene from 1917, you know that both displays are doing an amazing job here, but the TV is ever so slightly better, especially if the color of the black bars is distracting for you.

Content like Gemini Man which doesn’t have those black bars is much closer and you can see the Valerion maintains better color saturation at low brightness and looks less washed out especially near the end of the scene. I’m going to call this a win for the Valerion overall, but these two were very close.

And last, for good measure here’s the PX3 Pro on the left and the Valerion Pro 2 on the right, and in bright scenes you can see that the Valerion has a much more dramatic image with extremely bright highlights, good contrast, and shadow detail, while the PX3-Pro is a bit more muted. In dark scenes the laser dimming algorithm on the Valerion is miles ahead of the PX3-Pro, which despite having over twice the native contrast can’t come close to competing with the Valerion.

That means that overall, in a completely dark room, I think the standard throw Valerion Pro 2 was the best, followed by the Hisense U76N, and the Hisense PX3-Pro came in third. But what about bright conditions, because I think most people either don’t have or don’t want a completely pitch black room.

Bright Room Performance

For this test I turned on a bank of overhead LED lights that span nearly the entire room about 12 ft from the screens, and you can immediately see that the problem is that the color of the screen with the display off is the darkest black that the screen can ever be, because for both a TV and a projector, you can only add more light, you can’t take any away. You can see that even a high performing ambient light rejecting screen looks completely gray next to a TV screen.

Starting with the PX3 Pro on the left and the U76N on the right, I would describe the PX3-Pro as watchable in these conditions, but I wouldn’t call it good. The TV is clearly superior even in bright scenes, and dark scenes on the projector were just terrible, even with 3500 lumens and a top of the line ambient light rejecting screen.

Unfortunately, the Valerion didn’t do much better, and again, I thought bright content was very watchable but clearly inferior to the TV, and dark content was just a complete mess in a bright room. But I also think this is a bit of an extreme, and while the positioning of the lights in the room happened to work for this viewing angle, the glare and reflections on the TV were significant.

Dim Room Performance

That got me thinking about my friend who has a large bank of windows directly behind their seating area, and even with the blinds closed, the reflection on the TV is visible. To try to simulate those conditions, I set up a small, faux skylight directly behind the camera which works by projecting light at the floor rather than at the screen and mimicking the sun coming through a window.

Starting with a dark scene, with the light on minimum brightness to simulate the late day sun coming through a window with curtains drawn, you can see the Nexigo ultra-short throw ALR screen does a better job of rejecting light than the Valerion standard throw ALR screen and while the U76N clearly had the deepest black levels, it also had a big bright spot in the middle of the screen which was horribly distracting in dark scenes, but not that big of a deal in bright scenes where it was barely noticeable. But I also thought the projectors looked pretty great in those bright scenes with just the small amount of ambient light to contend with.

However, turning the brightness up to simulate more midday sun or less effective curtains results in a distracting glare even in the brightest scenes, and the brighter light also washes out the projector screens even more. So, while neither option is ideal, a lot of it will depend on the exact positioning of the lights and windows in your space and whether you prefer a slightly washed out screen with no glare, or a high contrast image with distracting reflections. Overall, I think it’s fair to say that in a perfect room, a TV is just as good if not better than a projector, in a bright room the TV is clearly superior, and in a dim room it really just depends on the placement of your windows and lights. So, since the U76N is less than half the price of the Valerion or PX3-Pro, it’s got to be the clear pick, right?

Logistics

Well, next it’s time to talk about logistics which is where projectors start to shine. A 100” screen is 88” wide and about 51” tall. Once you decide where you want your screen, the next question is how you’re going to get it there. A 100” TV is wider than a sheet of plywood even without accounting for the box, so it isn’t fitting into any vehicle except an open bed pickup truck. While the Hisense U7 is actually one of the lighter TVs on the market it still weighs 140lbs. If you’ve got stairs or tight corners to contend with, you’re going to need help, a lot of pivoting, and a little bit of luck, and if you’re planning on moving every few years I don’t know if your 100” TV is coming with you.

A lifestyle projector like the Valerion Pro 2 on the other hand is designed to be portable and you can ceiling mount it or you can sit it on a table and use optical zoom to project a 100” screen from anywhere between 80 and 130” away. While I personally wouldn’t recommend it, you can also put it to the side of your seating area and use digital keystone to fit the image onto the screen.

An ultra-short throw projector like the PX3-Pro is somewhere in the middle in terms of ease of setup because it’s slightly less flexible when it comes to placement, but once installed, the experience is much more comparable to a TV where you don’t need to worry about people walking in front of the projector and blocking the image.

The other good news for projectors is that the screens come in pieces in relatively small boxes. The easiest option is to assemble them in the room where they’ll be mounted, but at around 25 pounds, they’re also pretty easy to maneuver around or even disassemble if necessary.

Projectors also have the massive benefit of being able to use drop down and floor rising screens. So, if you don’t have a wall that can fit a big screen without blocking a window, or you just don’t want a giant black rectangle on the wall when you aren’t watching your TV, you can have your big screen on demand. 

Also, for this video I used 100” screens for both projectors, but there’s nothing stopping you from going up to 120” or even 150” with the PX3-Pro, and the Valerion sells screens all the way up to 220” for their Vision Master series. I know it seems like 120” wouldn’t be that much bigger than 100, but it’s actually 44% bigger and is the equivalent of adding the area of an additional 65” TV, so if you want a screen size over 100”, a projector is basically still the only option.

And last, here’s a rapid fire of a bunch of things you might want to consider before deciding on a TV or a projector.

Wire Management

Starting with cable management. A properly installed wall mounted TV with wires running through the wall is about as clean of a look as you can get, but it does require more work to run the cables through the wall. An ultra-short throw projector on the other hand just sits on an entertainment console and provides the same clean look with wires tucked out of the way without needing to feed them through a wall. And while standard throw projector works great when you’re using built in apps and speakers, if you ever want to hook up a video game console, surround sound, or even a soundbar, things start to look a little more unruly and cable management becomes an issue since your projector is going to be at least 7 to 10 feet away from where the rest of your equipment is likely located. So, from a cable management perspective, TVs and ultra-short throw projectors have a big advantage.

Gaming Performance

Next, let’s talk gaming. When comparing a TV to a projector there are two factors to consider.

First, you’ve got input lag, which is the amount of time the display takes to process the signal coming in before it produces an image on the screen. DLP Projectors refresh the entire screen at the same time, so the top of the screen has the exact same input lag as the bottom, and both the PX3-Pro and Valerion Pro 2 get very close to single frame input lag meaning 16.7 ms for 60Hz, 8.3 ms for 120Hz and 4.2 ms for 240Hz refresh rates.

In contrast the U76N TV uses an LCD panel meaning it refreshes from the top of the screen down and at 60Hz the top of the screen has less than one frame of input lag, but the bottom has slightly more. That’s also the same for 120Hz, 144Hz and 240Hz, which by the way is another major advantage of the U76N, which supports 4K120Hz and even 4K144Hz, while there are currently zero DLP projectors on the market that can output even 4K120Hz.

The second thing to consider when choosing a DLP projector or an LCD TV is called pixel response time, which is how long it takes each pixel to change from one color to another. In this case DLP has the advantage with basically instantaneous pixel response time which, when combined with the ping pong buffer system, leads to zero screen tearing and nearly zero motion blur in fast paced games. So, for console gaming I’ll give the slight edge to the projectors, but if you’ve got a monster gaming PC that can handle 4K120Hz or 144Hz output, the TV may be better.

3D Moview

DLP projection is also the last remaining way to consume 3D content outside of a VR headset using active DLP link glasses. So, if 3D movies are something that interests you, and yes, they are still releasing them, then a projector is pretty much the only option.

DLP Problems

For some people, though, DLP projection has some major drawbacks starting with sensitivity to the rainbow effect, which is when high contrast areas look like they have a rainbow border caused by the sequential projection of each color, but an LCD TV has no such effect.

Also, both the PX3 Pro and Valerion Pro 2 are triple laser projectors, which can have noticeable laser speckle based on the screen material you’re choose, and again certain people are more sensitive to the glittering effect of laser speckle than others.

Conclusions

In conclusion, after close to 30 hours of side-by-side viewing of these three screens, what’s my recommendation?

If you have the space on your wall for exactly a 100” screen, you’re able to get it in your house and to your room, and you don’t have windows directly behind your viewing area, you should get the TV. At less than half the cost of a comparable projector setup, the image quality is unbelievably good and some way, somehow, I’m going to get this thing up the stairs and into my bedroom to replace my current 100” fixed frame projector setup.

But, if you want a roll down screen, a floor rising screen, or a screen over 100”, I think the side-by-side comparisons show there isn’t THAT big of a difference between the picture quality of a projector and a TV, and there are so many things that a projector can do and places a projector can go that a 100” TV just can’t. But that flexibility comes at a cost, and you do pay significantly more for a projector to get the same, or slightly less performance than you’d get with a TV. 

If you still can’t decide, I’ve got recent reviews of all the best ultra-short throw projectors, all the best lifestyle projectors, and 19 of the most popular projector screens on the market, and as always there are no sponsored reviews on this channel. 

I do have links below for the three displays in this video and as always, I appreciate it when you use those links since as an Amazon Affiliate I do earn a small commission on the sale at no cost to you.

Thank you so much to my awesome patrons over at Patreon that make it possible for me to do these unsponsored reviews, and if you’re interested in supporting my channel please check out the links below. If you enjoyed this video, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel and, as always, thanks for watching The Hook Up.