As we wave goodbye to the 4th of July and say hello to Prime Day, many folks may feel like they missed out on good projector deals during the 4th. Thankfully, there are still a lot of great deals left over from the 4th of July if you need something now, not to mention the deals coming up as Prime Day approaches. In fact, we’re likely to see more and better deals as the next few days pass and we lead up to Prime Day, whether it’s from Amazon itself or other retailers.
Of course, if you can wait a few days for Prime Day to shop, that will be the best choice for your wallet. Besides the fact that Prime Day deals are often the best deals of the year and better than the ones leading up to it, the truth is that a lot of other retailers are going to try and get into the game and undercut Amazon’s prices. More specifically, Walmart and Best Buy will likely try and outprice Amazon regarding electronics like projectors. As such, if you can hold back for a little bit longer, you’ll end up with the best deals your wallet can handle.
Best Prime Day Projector deals 2022
- NEBULA Anker Capsule —
- BenQ TH585P 1080p Home Entertainment Projector —
- Epson EpiqVision Mini EF12 —
- LG HU810PW 4K Smart Dual Laser CineBeam Projector —
NEBULA Anker Capsule — $280 (with coupon), was $300
Why Buy
- Tiny and easy to carry around
- Great value
- Comes with streaming apps
- Has integrated speaker
Back just a few years ago, portable pr0jectors were still not very portable, either because they were the size of a lunchbox or because their battery lasted for less time than it took you to get to the halfway point of a movie. Since then, projectors have become so small they’re basically pocketable, and one of the best in that category is the Nebula Anker Capsule, that’s literally tiny. We’re not even kidding, the whole thing is about the size of a soda can, so you can slip it into your backpack or handbag relatively easily without taking a bunch of space.
Of course, the smaller size means you’re making some compromises, and the biggest one is the image resolution, which is only 854×480, and if you haven’t seen that resolution for a while, it’s the standard definition. Even so, the image is surprisingly good for something this small and with such low resolution, being relatively crisp and not as smudgy as some other pocket projectors in the same price range. Brightness hits around 80-100 lumens, so it’s not incredibly bright and won’t work in broad daylight, but it is more than enough for nighttime viewing, which is probably what most folks will want it for anyway.
What’s more impressive, though, is that the capsule comes with its own JBL speaker right below the projector lens, so you don’t need an independent sound system to listen, and while it’s not super powerful, it’s pretty good for its size, especially given how to experience JBL is with the form factor. Another nice convenience feature is that it has Netflix right on the home page, and since it runs on Android, you can get access to pretty much all the streaming apps. As for battery life, you can expect around three hours or so, depending on the brightness you use, but it does come with a mini-USB port for charging, so you can hook it up to a power bank and extend that for a bit longer as well, which is a nice feature and means you can get a proper night of movie watching out of it.
All in all, the Anker capsule is great for the price, and there’s even a cool R2-D2 Nebula Capsule version which is cute. Either way, it’s a great Prime Day projector deal if you want something small and portable.
BenQ TH585P 1080p Home Entertainment Projector — $599, was $699
Why Buy
- Lightweight and easy to carry
- Good resolution for the price
- Bright enough for day use
- Has a gaming mode
While not a pocket projector per se, the catchy-sounding BenQ TH585P is surprisingly lightweight and portable, which means it’s a great portable projector to take with you if you need it, although it doesn’t have an internal battery, so that’s important to remember. The upshot is that it can hit a whopping 3,500 lumens, which means you can even use it in the daytime using the Bright mode, with the common green tinge to it, although much less noticeable than other projectors. Whether you end up using that mode outside is uncertain, but even without it can still manage some daytime use with the other modes, assuming that you aren’t using it in direct sunlight or on a relatively bright day.
As for the image, you’re getting FHD quality here; although the chip can handle 1,920 x 1,200, what BenQ does is let you use those extra few pixels to adjust the image up and down from the center, which is quite useful when trying to fine-tune it on a screen outside, plus you get another 30 degrees to work with if you need them. Color quality is pretty good, especially if you use something like Cinema mode, and the overall image is sharp and not prone to any blurring or weirdness that you might see in other projectors in the same price bracket. Also, lamp life is rated at 15,000 hours, which should last you at least a few years, even if you regularly use it for gaming.
Interestingly enough, the BenQ TH585P comes with a Gaming mode that offers a lower input lag, not something you often see in projectors in the price range, and gives you much better contrast, with discernable detail in the dark areas, which is impressive. There’s an included 10-watt speaker in the projector, although it’s not that great or fancy, and if you’re gaming or watching an action-packed movie, you’re likely going to want to hook it up to a proper sound system. Sadly there’s no ARC support here, but you do get 3.5mm audio in and out ports to make life a bit easier, as well as two HDMI ports, a 1.5amp USB port that should handle most streaming sticks, and an RS-232 port if you need that.
Overall, the BenQ TH585P is a great little portable projector, and if you want a Prime Day projector deal for an entry-to-mid range projector you can game on, this one fits the bill.
Epson EpiqVision Mini EF12 — $900, was $1,000
Why Buy
- Great Audio
- Comes with HDR
- Built on Android TV
- Full HD with 4k downconverting
If you want something a little bit more substantial than BenQ TH585P, this little Epson EqipVision Mini Ef12 might do the trick, and in fact, its older sibling, the Epson EpiqVision LS300, shows up on the best short-throw projector list, so you know you’re in good company. Right off the bat, there’s an important thing to address, and that’s the HDR; while the Mini EF12 does have both HDR 10 and HLG, the latter of which is used in broadcasting, most projectors can’t do HDR properly yet, at least in this price range. While the HDR here does do some good work in terms of contrast and color quality, it’s not going to be the same as you’d see on a TV of the same cost, so don’t feel underwhelmed by what you hear.
Besides that, though, the overall image quality is great for the price range, with 1080p resolution and the option to downscale from 4k, which can be useful given how much of our media is moving on from 1080p. The Mini EF12 offers six different modes, with Dynamic being the brightest and Bright Cinema being the best for image and color quality. While this projector is sometimes called both in-door and out-door, it can only reach about 1,000 lumens, which may not be enough for daylight, but should be more than enough when the sun goes down. Unfortunately, there’s no zoom on this, so you will have to move it back and forth to change the screen size, although that’s not too bad, and you can even ceiling mount it if you want to set it up permanently.
One of the big positives of the Mini EF12 is that it comes with built-in streaming in the form of Android TV, so you get access to all the streaming platforms you want, which is excellent and means you don’t need to have an extra HDMI cable going into it if you don’t want to. Even better, it comes with two built-in 5-watt Yamaha speakers, which can easily fill a family room with really good audio quality, which isn’t surprising given how well-known Yamaha is for their audio gear. That being said, you can also hook it up to a sound system, and there’s even HDMI ARC support, so you don’t need to have an extra cable running from the projector. There is also a 3.5mm audio out for a headset or earphones if you want a more private experience, or if everybody else in the house is asleep and you don’t want to wake them up.
All-in-all, while the Epson EqipVision Mini Ef12 is a little pricier, it’s a great Prime Day projector deal if you want something with good in-built audio, streaming, and picture quality while being under $1,000.
LG HU810PW 4K Smart Dual Laser CineBeam Projector — $2,466, was $3,000
Why Buy
- Has two projection lasers
- Can project 4k resolution
- Sharp image
- Comes with streaming options
The LG HU810PW might seem quite expensive at first glance, and for a projector of the quality, it somewhat is until you realize that the whole image system is driven by two lasers rather than the traditional lamp and laser combo that some modern projectors have. How it works with the LG HU810PW is that it has a blue laser and a red laser, with the blue laser being split and sent through a green phosphor filter to get the green light. All that means that it creates not only its light but also its color, allowing for impressive image quality. Laser lights also start up and shut down much faster than lamps, being only a few seconds, and their lifetime is also significantly different, with the lasers in this projector rated to an impressive 20,000 hours.
We also want to point out that even though this is a laser projector, it still needs some form of cooling and does have the traditional projector whine you may be familiar with, although it’s still reasonably quiet, so it shouldn’t affect you too much.
To get one thing out of the way first, at least when it comes to image, it’s that the contrast ratio is not great, at least for something with this price tag. Even so, it does a lot of other stuff excellently, such as its wide color gamut, which is wider than other projects in its class. The 4k resolution is also really, really sharp and detailed, and it doesn’t have the motion blur issue that other projectors do, not to mention the 2700 ANSI lumens that are provided by the two lasers, making it a bright projector overall and can easily compete with a living room that has a few lights on. It also comes with HDR 10 and HLG, although, as we mentioned previously, projectors can’t handle HDR that well, and either way, the contrast on the LG HU810PW is not that great.
One non-starter with the LG HU810PW is that it does have a few streaming options, such as Youtube and Prime Video, but it doesn’t have things like Netflix or Hulu, so you’re ultimately going to be left needing to stream that from somewhere else. That being said, if you’re buying a projector at this price range, you’re likely going to be doing that anyway, so it’s not that big a deal, although be aware that the USB ports are only 0.5 amps, which may cause issues when trying to use a streaming stick, so be sure that whichever stick you use can handle it. That being said, it does have a lot of ports in the back, including two 2.1 HDMI ports and one HDMI 2.0 port so that you can connect a bunch of different sources to it.
While the LG HU810PW does have a sub-par contrast ratio for the price you’re paying, all the other aspects of its image make up for it, making it a great Prime Day projector deal if you want something with good image quality at 4k, even if the contrast ratio isn’t that great.
Prime Day Projector deals FAQ (H2)
Is Prime Day a good time to buy a projector?
Prime Day is usually the best time of the year to grab electronics, including things like projects, so you should certainly pick one up during Prime Day if you’re planning to get one. There’s also Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but since these tend to be overstock events, quantities are limited, and you have to jump on the deals as fast as possible. Plus, the deals aren’t necessarily that great, or the products available are not that varied, so grabbing something on Prime Day is the smart choice.
When do the Prime Day projector deals start?
The recent announcement from Amazon on the Prime Day 2022 dates said that Prime Day would be on both July 12 and July 13, although Amazon also mentioned that there would be some deals starting as early as June 21, at least as far as it comes to Amazon’s own products like the Echo and Fire TV. Amazon did mention that it would be working with some third-party brands to bring out some good early sales as well, and we have seen some stuff to that effect.
There’s also the fact that the 4th of July just happened, so we are seeing some residual deals from that.
Should you shop the Prime Day projector deals now or wait until July 12?
Yes, absolutely! While there are a few good deals in the days leading up to Prime Day, the truth is that the best deals will be on Prime Day itself. Even more importantly, Prime Day is right around the corner, and on a product like a projector that isn’t a necessity, it’s worth waiting a few extra days to get the best deal that you can. Not only that, but we’re likely to see many other retailers undercut Amazon on projectors, including Walmart and Best buy, so it’s definitely in your best interests to wait an extra day or two.
We also encourage you to check out some Prime Day TV deals as an alternative, especially since you can often get better image quality and resolution for roughly the same prices. Even better, Best Buy will have better Prime Day TV deals, so you might get an even better TV than you could usually, even compared to projectors at the higher end of the price bracket.
How to choose a projector after Prime Day
When choosing a projector, you’ll need to consider the brightness of your projector and the room that it will be used. Projectors are ideal for basements that have either no windows or small windows that can be easily blocked with blackout shades. If it’s for your living room and you don’t like the look of thick blackout curtains, you might want to opt for a TV instead.
Another issue with room selection is the size of a screen. If you have very smooth, very white walls, you might be able to get away with projecting directly onto the wall if there’s enough empty space. But most people much prefer the look of an image when it’s projected onto a screen. A screen can easily roll away when it’s not in use, so it needn’t be a bulky piece of kit. But you will need enough space to install the screen and roll it down somewhere with comfortable viewing options.
You also need to ensure there’s an appropriate distance between where your projector is located and where your screen is located, called the “throw distance.” Measure the distance in your space and look for a projector with a similar throw distance. Remember that you can mount your projector to the ceiling to keep it out of the way, so you might have some room for adjustment of throw distance by moving the projector rather than the screen.
The biggest decisions to make when selecting a projector are resolution and budget. These two are closely related — if you don’t want to spend more than $100, you’re not going to get a 4K projector — so think about what you can afford. We’d recommend a 1080p resolution as the very lowest for home theaters, as resolutions lower than this just aren’t pleasant for watching a movie. Of course, if you want a portable projector for showing slideshows at work, for example, then your needs might be different. In that case, you can pick up a very cheap option, and it will do what you need. 4K projectors are now commonly available, and for the movie enthusiast, these are a great choice if you’re willing to spend the extra money.
Another issue to consider is the audio included in the projector. Many projectors now come with built-in speakers, but these are usually very weak and not good for watching movies. Again, this might be okay if all you need is the occasional sound effect for your work presentations. But if you’re planning to settle down and enjoy a movie, then you’ll likely want to get a separate speaker system.
When it comes to brands of projectors, you’ll find a massive array from many brands you’ve likely never heard of. For a cheap projector for casual use, that’s not a big deal. But if you’re after a high-quality projector for serious use, look out for top respected brands like Optoma, BenQ, LG, or Sony. For Prime Day, also keep a lookout for Amazon’s Anker brand, which offers affordable projectors that are popular due to their solid quality.
