Philips has announced that it will enter the professional projector market with its latest ProPix projectors, and it's doing so with a light source technology that's celebrating its 30th birthday.
Developed by Screeneo Innovation (which licenses the Philips brand, much like TP Vision does with Philips TVs), the ProPix 650 and ProPix 850 leverage an advanced Ultra High Performance (UHP) lamp light source first developed by Philips in 1994. With a claimed luminance of 4000 lumens and a lamp life of up to 10,000 hours in eco mode (which Philips claims is an industry-leading statistic), this duo of ProPix projectors certainly look to impress where brightness is concerned.
Philips/Screenio also touts a compact form factor (and a weight of just 2.5kg) despite these high brightness claims, and that's with a 2W internal speaker built in too; though we don't have particularly high expectations when it comes to audio. Thankfully, there is a 3.5mm jack for hooking it up to external audio sources and HDMI (one on the 650, two on the 850) for connecting media streamers, Blu-ray players and consoles.
Both models are capable of projecting an image from 70- to 150 inches with a throw ratio of 1.49:1; Philips claims that a 120-inch picture is possible by placing the projector four metres away from your screen. There's also support for multiple different aspect ratios – 4:3/16:9/16:1/0/native – as well as manual focus and keystone correction controls.
Unfortunately, neither model supports a 4K resolution; in fact, only one is Full HD, that being the ProPix 850, while the 650 has a resolution of 1280x800. There is also no mention of HDR support for either model, which suggests that these projectors might be better suited to an office environment rather than a home cinema room.
That becomes slightly more forgivable when we reveal the pricing though, as they're very affordable by projector standards. The ProPix 650 will cost just £449 / $499 (around AU$880) when it launches in January 2025, while the ProPix 850 will retail for £599 / $699 (around AU$1175) when it releases next month.
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