Projectors are all about brightness, as they are literal light throwers and not internally-lit like TVs and monitors. The brighter a projector, the larger the projection size, at least in terms of consistently good display quality. Sure, a low brightness projector can still cast a large image, but the quality will be very poor as there’s not enough light emanating from the projector to cover the projection area.
Not only that, but projector brightness is essential for “overcoming” ambient lighting. In a perfectly dark room a low brightness projector may still be OK, but add even a little light from windows or other light sources, and the projection gets washed out. So, there’s a minimal brightness threshold any good projector must pass in order to offer good visuals in diverse environments. Without that brightness, which is basically projection power, an 80” projection that looks nice in a nearly-dark basement may be barely visible in a living room with windows during the day.
To help you make the right choice, we’ve created this ambient light set up guide for our GV30 and GS50 portable projectors. But what you see here applies just as well to any projector, with the main point to keep in mind before going further being that the very minimum brightness for any projector is 300 lumens. Do not be tempted by very cheap models that try to hide their 100-lumen output, those are nearly useless in even dimly lit environments for anything but PowerPoint presentations. And now, our guide: