Aha! Just when you thought you wouldn’t be seeing any more reviews of this excellent projector, here comes another one. This time Home Theater Magazine takes a gander and reports on what they found.

You remember this projector, right? It’s the cost-effective LCD projector with lens shift and a motorized zoom lens. And don’t forget that dynamic iris to produce a great contrast ratio. Then there’s the good remote, HDMI input, blah blah blah. You’ve read it all before. What does Home Theater think of the picture quality, though?

Indeed, with the lights off, the image has excellent depth and richness, be it through the component video or HDMI input. The black level is just a hair higher than some other LCD projectors we’ve reviewed recently, and I occasionally noticed a lack of precise detail in dark areas

and

Color and detail are also excellent. HDTV material looked sharp and vivid on my 60-inch screen. The PT-AE900U has excellent color decoders and a gray scale that tracks pretty closely to the 6500 Kelvin standard before calibration. After calibration, the numbers get a little better, but you don’t have to calibrate this one if you don’t want to.

Conclusion?

Yep, there’s a lot to like about the PT-AE900U, but versatility is undoubtedly its greatest asset. We’ve looked at several HD LCD projectors over the past year, some of which carry lower MSRPs than this one. However, all of those projectors came with some caveats, while the PT-AE900U is wonderfully caveat free. It’s simply a great choice for someone looking for a well-rounded, midpriced projector.

Home Theater: Panasonic PT-AE900U LCD Projector