12 Best Projectors Under $500 for Home Cinema in 2020

This is the best short throw projector under $500. It only needs to be 30” from the surface you’re projecting onto. That makes it great for watching TV in a bedroom or making a presentation in a small office. It’s bright, too. At 3,200 lumens, you won’t have to make the room darker than normal, and you won’t have to worry about dimming the lights in the office.

Its native resolution is only 800×600, which is decent for more affordable projectors, but it will support source resolutions of up to 1080p with no problem. Read the buyer’s guide following these reviews for more information about native versus supported resolution.

What Customers Are Saying

People love the brightness, which is among the brightest of all projectors in this price range. Some have even used it for outdoor movie nights in their backyards. The overall feeling is that this model offers the best value among affordable projectors.

Pros/Cons

Here’s an all-around good projector. It offers a great image with deep, bright colors and awesome sound from the two built-in speakers. What we have here can rival the very expensive projectors of the previous generation’s technology. It offers an immersive experience with a bright, colorful image and great sound.

What Customers Are Saying

This is also a pretty bright projector, and everyone has noticed. They like that they don’t have to worry about dimming the room to watch movies or play games. There has been some confusion about the resolution. This is not a 1080p projector, as it is advertised by some online sellers. There have been complaints about that, but it isn’t Vankyo’s fault.

All in all, everyone loves the image quality, ease of use and the overall value.

Pros/Cons

The brightness of this one is incredible. Combined with the sweet contrast ratio, you get a fantastic picture. A native resolution of 1080p gives the best HD picture of any projector on our list. It can support 4K as well. When you put together the brightness, contrast and high resolution, you get the best 4K projector under $500.

What Customers Are Saying

Who doesn’t love something that’s easy to set up? Those who take the time to learn how to use the keystone adjustment feature talk about how easy it is to get it going and have a great, perfectly shaped picture. They like how super bright it is, too. 6,000 lumens in awesome for any projector, but it’s incredible for a projector under $500.

Pros/Cons

We like this little projector for its great picture quality and easy setup.It can be placed just a few feet away from the viewing surface, but it must be within twelve feet. So it would be good for a bedroom or smaller living room, but it’s not the best for larger rooms.

What Customers Are Saying

People who like to have a big TV image in a small room, like their bedroom, like the short throw. They can have a 50” picture with a throw of only about five feet. The picture quality is a big hit as well. Good contrast and a bright projection make for a realistic image.

Pros/Cons

When most projectors of this price range claim a resolution of 1280, they mean that they support that resolution. The actual res is usually lower. But this budget HD projector has a true native res of 1280×800. That’s real HD.

The brightness and contrast translate into a superb picture. And that picture can be a whopping 300”. You’ll need about 28 feet between the projector and the viewing surface for that size, but you can still have a good 200” picture with around 20 feet of throw room.

What Customers Are Saying

People who have owned other projectors say that this is the best in its price range. They like the resolution, which is a true 1280×800. Combine that with the decent contrast, and you’ll understand why people rave about the picture quality.

Pros/Cons

You want a small projector that you can take with you anywhere? This one is less that six inches high and three inches in diameter. There’s no need to bring along a DVD player. It connects to WiFi, so you can access your cloud-based entertainment, pictures and videos from just about anywhere.

What Customers Are Saying

Everyone loves smart devices. That’s one reason for this tiny projector’s popularity. People like that it can connect to WiFi and to phones and tablets with Bluetooth.

Most are surprised with the picture. It doesn’t look like you would get a full projector experience out of this little thing, but you really do. The biggest difference people notice is the picture size. The maximum size is 100”.

Pros/Cons

This is the best gaming projector under $500. The bright image, high contrast and big picture make for an immersive experience. But a big consideration for a gaming projector is lag time. You want less than 50 milliseconds. Well, this cool projector has a lag of only 16ms. That’s unbelievable for a projector of this price.

What Customers Are Saying

Gamers are very impressed that they can have a gaming projector for under $500 that isn’t a piece of junk. Many gamers who own this one had tried cheap projectors for games before and thought that they would have to spend over $1,000 for a decent one. They were pleasantly surprised when they started playing with this model!

Pros/Cons

This one offers a very good, bright and colorful picture up to 170”. All this comes in a small package that you can take with you anywhere. The sound isn’t great, and there’s no way to connect your sound equipment to it. So you may want to look elsewhere if you need to have strong, dynamic sound.

What Customers Are Saying

First off, people wish that there was a way to connect additional speakers. Apparently, the integrated speakers leave something to be desired.

But most bought this one for its portability. And that’s where it shines. It’s 8”x6”x3”. It can fit in a purse or a small duffel bag. The picture quality hasn’t drawn many complaints. In fact, everyone is pretty happy with it. It has good resolution and nice coloring.

Pros/Cons

We think this is the best portable projector under $500. It’s small, light and has the ultimate minimalist design.

The only input is a single HDMI port. There is a USB port, but it is only a power source for streaming players and phones. You can get an adapter to allow your phone to work through the HDMI port, no matter what kind of phone you have. The sound is pretty good, but it isn’t the best. It is, however, the best sound of any projector of this size and design.

What Customers Are Saying

People who understand what it is and what it’s for like it a lot. Some have complained that it only has HDMI inputs and that the sound isn’t great. But this was designed for simplicity and the ultimate in portability. And it excels in those areas.

Pros/Cons

The keyword here is value. This projector gives performance comparable to a full-size projector at a much higher price. I mean, it’s got 1280 native res! It’s also very bright: 4,500 lumens. The high contrast means bright and deep colors.

A price tag of $600 would be reasonable for this one. But the actual price is less than $150. At that price, you could get a few and replace most of the TVs in your home with projectors.

What Customers Are Saying

People are usually surprised that they get this kind of performance from a projector of this price and size. Many of those who are experienced with projectors compare this one favorably to models well over $500, even though this one costs around $130. That really is an amazing price for this thing.

Some people have taken advantage of the great value to put a projector in their bedroom or even a guest room.

Pros/Cons

How would you like a nice big 300” picture? You can have it with this affordable HD projector, as long as you have a good 43-foot throw. The remarkable thing about this projector is the color. The contrast is good at around 2,000:1, but the proprietary SuperColor technology is the star. It utilizes a six-segment color wheel for optimum clarity and color separation.

What Customers Are Saying

Many have commented on the clarity of the picture. That has to do with the multi-layer precision glass lens. Multi-layer lenses are usually seen only on more expensive projectors.

Some have griped that the sound quality of the speaker isn’t that great, but there is an audio out jack. One innovative buyer purchased a dongle to connect to the audio jack so he could use his Bluetooth speaker.

Pros/Cons

This is a good pocket projector. Many people use it for office presentations. It can be used for entertainment purposes, but the room has to be pretty dark.

What Customers Are Saying

People have complained about the brightness and the loudness of the speaker. They say that the room has to be dark for a good image and that the speaker isn’t as loud as a smartphone speaker.

Well, this is a pocket projector. It isn’t the best for entertainment, but it is fantastic for presentations. Those who use it for its intended purpose are impressed. There are people who use it for movies and TV, but most of them use an external speaker.

Pros/Cons

Think about these factors when weighing your options so you can get the best home theater projector under $500.

Native Resolution Vs Supported Resolution

Avoid the number one amateur mistake by understanding the difference.

Think of native resolution as actual resolution. Regardless of the input, native res is what will be displayed.

Supported resolution is the highest res that will be accepted as input.

For example, say you have a projector with a native resolution of 720p and a supported resolution of 1080p. You can play a source of up to 1080p, but it will be converted to 720p before being projected.

Brightness And Contrast

The brightness of projectors under $500 is usually comparable to those of more expensive models. Light sources aren’t expensive.

Contrast is a different story. It’s determined by the image chip, which is a big cost factor.

A contrast ratio of 2,000:1 is pretty good for a projector priced under $500. If you want to save a little more then check out our projectors under $ 300

Throw Distance

Less expensive projectors are often made for the purpose of smaller rooms. That means that they sometimes have a shorter throw distance, but not always.

Just check the specs. Measure the distance from the surface you’re going to project onto to the place you want to put the projector. Then make sure the throw distance of the model you’re considering covers that.

Gaming

There are some extra considerations for projectors that will be used for playing games. Follow the same rules for home projectors in regards to contrast, brightness and other picture factors.

But you need to pay attention to lag. Lag is the amount of time it takes for the frame to appear as an image after being received by the projector. It’s measured in milliseconds, or ms.

Anything under 45ms is good for gaming, but lower is better. We’ve reviewed two projectors above with lags of 16ms, and they would be great for gaming. Check them out.

Here are the questions that people who are looking for the best digital projector under $500 ask the most.

How can they afford to sell projectors so cheap?

Manufacturers use cheaper image processing components to save on costs, then pass that savings along to the consumer. That’s why projectors under $500 usually have a contrast ratio of under 3,000:1 and native resolution of 720p and below.

In order to save a bunch of money, like a thousand dollars, you have to sacrifice some image quality.

How hard is it to set a portable projector up?

Many people who want a cheap projector are looking for a portable one. It may seem intimidating to have to set it up every time you want to use it.

All projectors can be set on a table. That’s probably what you’ll want to do if you’re giving a presentation or playing a game at a friend’s house.

Keystone correction is useful in these scenarios. That’s a feature that basically allows you to move the lens up, down or side to side to compensate for an uneven surface, like a table.

If the lens isn’t perpendicular, the image will not be a perfect square or rectangle.

What kind of inputs do affordable projectors usually have?

Almost all projectors have at least one HDMI port. That covers most any device or console you’d want to connect to it.  Even phones can connect to an HDMI port.

You just need an adaptor. Some cheap projectors also have VGA hookups, which is a common means of connecting to a PC or laptop.

USBs are pretty common connections on affordable projectors, but sometimes they’re just for supplying power to devices that are connected to them through another port. Check and see if the USB is a power port or a data port.