Optoma HD73 720p DLP Home Theater Projector

 (13 customer reviews)

We had a Sanyo Z2 projector for three years and were getting close to the realization that technology had moved along quite a bit since our purchase. In the world of Sanyo, they had gone from the Z2 to the Z3, Z4 and most recently the Z5. Some of the performance changes were more incremental than revolutionary, but it was hard to argue that the picture quality difference between the Z2 and Z5 was anything other than significant.

Still, I was lured by the DLP "DarkChip3" technology as opposed to the LCD of the Sanyo. We had experienced problems with dust blobs, dead pixels and finally dead LCD panels. Sanyo did repair the machine under the warranty, but the process was anything but seamless and it required a threat of legal action to get the warranty coverage.

First the down side. As a DLP machine, there are limits of image adjustability (offset) that come into play when mounting the projector. If you have low ceilings (<8 feet), you might have an issue...Read more

I've had this for over 24 months. It's being phased out, but it really has an incredible picture. Very film like in quality. I rate it an extreme value for the money. I project in a basement rec room. My sole caveat is that it isn't capable of handling a lot of ambient light. But the picture quality is breath taking. I'm hooked on projectors. I have a 100 inch (diagonal) picture that beats my LCD TV's. I love Blu-Rays on it.

Very pleased. It gets a lot of use. First bulb lasted over 2000 hours using the AI function. Easily replaced.

I bought this projector to be used with a media center pc and a few game consoles. I do really enjoy the projector as it looks sharp and has good black levels.

I only have 2 complaints. The first is that this projector runs natively at a 1280x768 resolution which is meant to cater to the pc market, I believe I read that it was more friendly to pc resolutions (being 15:9 vs the norm 16:9 for tvs) I find this more of a hindrance than anything since if you run a 16:9 source and have black bars from a movie or something else, you get two different colored black bars (annoying). Bottom line on this issue is that a 16:9 would have been much better and the option to run 15:9 just seems to get in the way.

The other issue is the rainbow effect. I believe I may pickup on it more than most people, but I see it a good amount on this projector. Even though it has a good color-wheel. Again, oh well. Still a great projo for the money.