- Table of Contents
- Intro
- Best Projector
- Best Bright Room
- Best Portable
- Notable Mentions
- Recent Updates
- All Reviews
- Comments
Only a few good options are available if you're looking for projectors under $500. The TV market has many options under $500 that are good enough for most consumers, but the cheapest projectors tend to be small portable models, which are typically extremely dim. Still, some more affordable models can deliver a decent viewing experience, and many of them have great smart features, eliminating the need to spend more on an external streaming device. Typically, the more portable a projector is, the worse its image quality, so keep that in mind when shopping for the best projector for your needs.
We've bought and tested more than 45 projectors, and below, you'll find the best models to buy for under $500. For larger budgets, look at the best home projectors and the best projectors under $1,000. If you want to take your projector outside, consider the best outdoor projectors instead. You can also vote on which ones you want us to purchase and test.
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Best Projector Under $500
Movies6.3Brightness5.1Contrast8.8Pre-Calibration Color Accuracy3.9Resolution1080pIf you're looking for the best projector under $500, consider the NexiGo PJ40 (Gen 3), the best overall model at this price point. Yes, it's not the brightest projector in its class, but it makes up for it with its excellent contrast and sharp 1080p projection. This makes it a solid pick for light-controlled rooms, as its brightness is good enough to provide a pleasant experience when the lights are off, and the resulting image is punchy. It's too bad that its colors are muted, but at this price point, it delivers surprisingly good image quality. It's rather inaccurate out of the box, but you're not likely to care much at this price point.
It doesn't just perform well, it also has a fairly complete set of features: Bluetooth 5.1, Wi-Fi, and full casting support with Miracast and Apple AirPlay. It technically comes with built-in Android TV, but it's barebones, so you'll need to use a streaming dongle if you really care about using streaming apps. It has two HDMI ports, one with ARC support, which is useful if you want to plug a soundbar directly into the unit. It also comes with a 20W speaker system, in case you just want to hear sound from the projector itself. To round it out, the projector comes with a dedicated Game Mode and HDR10 support. It might not be bright enough to impress in brighter rooms, but it sure offers a lot at its price point, making it the best option under $500.
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Best Bright Room Projector Under $500
Movies6.6Brightness8.8Contrast4.1Pre-Calibration Color Accuracy7.2ResolutionOtherHoping to get a really cheap projector to use in a brighter room? Look no further than the Epson EpiqVision Flex CO-W01, which is far brighter than the NexiGo PJ40 (Gen 3). It projects an extremely bright 1280 x 800 resolution image that is perfect for well-lit rooms, like a bright office. Unfortunately, the projector's contrast is poor, so it's not an ideal choice for a dark home theater room; instead, stick to rooms with a few lights, and you won't notice the unit's raised blacks. Or you could also just buy the NexiGo if you're mostly looking to use your projector in light-controlled rooms. Thankfully, the Epson's color accuracy is decent out of the box and is certainly good enough for most people.
It does lack a few bells and whistles when compared to the NexiGo, as it doesn't have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or even basic casting support; an external streaming dongle is a must. It has a USB-B port through which you can project some audio and video files directly from a PC, and you can also project a few file formats through the unit's USB-A port. It only has one HDMI port, so you can't connect multiple HDMI devices to the projector unless you're using a dock. Ultimately, the EpiqVision Flex CO-W01 is one of the best value projectors you can get, especially for brighter rooms.
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Best Portable Projector Under $500
Movies5.8Brightness4.8Contrast6.2Pre-Calibration Color Accuracy5.1Resolution720pIf you're looking for a cheap projector that you can easily carry around, check out the XGIMI MoGo 2. The MoGo 2 is a very small projector and weighs only 2.4 pounds, so you can easily throw it into a backpack. While it doesn't have an internal battery like some other more expensive portable projectors, it does support external charging via power banks through its USB-C port. It has many image correction features, like full auto keystone, autofocus, intelligent screen alignment, and obstacle avoidance. To round up the package, it has the Android TV 11 smart interface, Chromecast and AirScreen support, and Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 capabilities.
Unfortunately, the projector is very dim. You need to turn off all the lights to get a pleasant image, and even then, it's not exactly the most vibrant viewing experience possible. Its contrast is mediocre but good enough to provide a passable dark room viewing experience. It also has a wide color gamut and HDR support but isn't bright enough to take advantage of them. Ultimately, if portability is what you're looking for and you don't care so much about image quality, then the MoGo 2 is the best option at this price point.
Notable Mentions
- Epson EX3280: The Epson EX3280 is a good productivity projector. It's very bright and has excellent color accuracy, but it projects a 1024 x 768 image, which is a 4:3 aspect ratio. That's a great aspect ratio for work, but the wider and more common 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratios are better for watching movies. The Epson EpiqVision Flex CO-W01 is more versatile due to its 16:10 aspect ratio and is cheaper than the EX3280. See our review
- XGIMI MoGo 2 Pro: The XGIMI MoGo 2 Pro is better than the XGIMI MoGo 2, but it's not worth the price difference. The Pro projects a sharper 1080p image than the cheaper MoGo 2, but it comes at the cost of a slight reduction in brightness. The Pro is also significantly less accurate than the MoGo 2, and while it has much better contrast, the base MoGo 2 is the superior value overall. See our review
Recent Updates
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We've removed the BenQ TH671ST as our top pick since it was too often sold above $500 to belong in this article. The NexiGo PJ40 (Gen 3) is now our new top pick.
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The NexiGo PJ40 (Gen 3) is now our 'Best Dark Room Projector Under $500' pick, while the Epson EpiqVision Flex CO-W01 is the new 'Best Bright Room Projector Under $500.'
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Sep 25, 2024 : Verified our picks for accuracy and consistency and ensured they're all still widely available.
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Aug 27, 2024 : The BenQ TH671ST is now the 'Best Projector Under $500' due to its versatility, image accuracy, and wide color gamut. The brighter Epson Home Cinema 1080 is now in the Notable Mentions.
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Jul 30, 2024 : Added a few links to some of our other recommendation articles, and updated the text in a few of our picks.
All Reviews
Our recommendations above are what we think are currently the best projector models under $500 to buy for most people. We factor in the price (a cheaper projector wins over a pricier one if the difference isn't worth it), feedback from our visitors, and availability (no projectors that are difficult to find or almost out of stock everywhere).
If you'd like to do the work of choosing yourself, here's the list of all our reviews of projectors available under $500. Be careful not to get too caught up in the details. While no projector is perfect, many are good enough for most uses; however, avoid the worst models to ensure adequate quality.
Comments
Best Projectors Under $500: Main Discussion
What do you think of our picks? Let us know below.
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- 21010
Touch controls…a 7.1?
More like a 2.0!
I get these (and the review) are a few years old but I recently picked up a refurb pair for a very good price direct from JBL ($30 USD). For that price they’re fantastic and you can only complain so much. The fit, comfort, SQ (fairly typical/expected JBL sound), all those things are quite good IMO and reflected in the review here. But the controls? Ugh.
It would be quite amiss for me to not mention somewhere online….just how woefully bad the touch controls are on these. The controls are so bad it’s nearly unbelievable! I have some other TWS buds with touch controls (a pair of Soundstream/Havit ones, nothing special) and I thought the touch controls on those were kind of marginal at best. But these JBLs are like in a whole other dimension of bad. It’s great you can customise some of the controls in the app–some functions are greyed out and can’t be changed so I assume that means it can be on other models but not these. But the actual controls themselves, I dunno if it’s just my pair but the controls are absolutely atrocious. Given it’s the same on both the left and right side I don’t think it’s a matter of them being defective in some way. I think that’s just how they are.
Swiping…lol swiping. 90% of the time swiping just does the same thing as a single tap (i.e. play/pause). So basically you set and try to change the volume with swiping and you can swipe at every different angle, every different pressure, every different speed you can possibly think it’s “looking for” to determine a swipe annnnd NOPE! It will just register it as a tap! 🙄 So yeah forget about swiping, period. If you want to change the volume, do so on your phone, otherwise be prepared to just be pausing/unpausing instead.
Then even tapping is poor. A lot of times it doesn’t even register a tap and then you can start tapping like mad while it does nothing, and then sometimes because you get so frustrated tapping it ends up registering your tap as a “long press” and brings up your phone assistant or whatever instead of doing play/pause. Finally, sometimes it registers the tap (it beeps) but the phone does nothing? I’m not sure if that’s an issue on the phone end or what but yeah it’s another reason there’s no point in using the touch controls.
Only other thing to say is the battery life seems pretty poor too, esp. using outside as you’ll likely have the volume up a good ways (it seems like you have to be at around 75% volume when outdoors which is more than say my of non-TWS JBL Reflect Mini2s). About an hour of use and I’m down to 60% battery so I don’t expect you’d see more than about 2-2.5 hrs out of them in an outdoor situation.
Again at the price I paid the battery life is a minor nitpick, and the touch controls are just a matter of pretending they don’t exist and not using them. Had I paid full original retail price for these when they were a new model…man I’d be quite disappointed.
Edited 1 year ago: fix minor error - 21010
Hey thanks for the reply!
I’ve actually tried a few more of these things since posting and the truth is they are all pretty darn poor when it comes to sound quality. They’re so bad I’m looking into my next option of just building my own and having the power source be a tool battery. I’ve seen some other ppl do this online and am starting to get some ideas on what to do for my own. The jobsite speakers, they all have a similar sound profile–harsh. I understand they should be loud (and they do get relatively loud for a given size) but there’s also a lot of BT speakers that get loud and don’t sound so poor.
I think the real problem is the lack of reviews from an audio perspective just lets the tool companies keep on truckin’ with putting out what would have been acceptable in a 1989 clock radio, lol. In other words there’s no one to “keep them honest” as it were. I also started looking more carefully at the more critical user reviews and the same thing comes up in those. However it’s only a minority of people that mention this. When “everyone gives it 5 stars” because it turns on and works, that’s basically just telling the tool companies that everyone is happy. Which I suppose most might be but it’s a bit frustrating at the prices they charge for these things.
Not sure how that problem gets solved apart from audio reviews that can highlight this for people (and the tool companies). I don’t really have any particular model to suggest but if you guys ever get the chance to review any one of them in a similar class to say Charge and Megaboom, please do! It’d be interesting to see the results. To me they pretty much all sound the same (bad) so just reviewing one and having comparative data, will tell the story. While I can’t say what you’d find and how it’d do in all your ratings categories, I’m pretty sure it’s going to come out with the “jobsite speaker” doing very poorly on things related to sound…apart from maximum dB.