Sony has announced the successors to a pair of compact home/business projectors launched in 2020, this time going so far as calling the VPL-PHZ61 and VPL-PHZ51 models the world's smallest WUXGA 3LCD laser projectors.
Destined to hang from the ceilings of corporate meeting spaces, classrooms, museums or entertainment venues, the new laser projectors each measure 422 x 100 x 333 mm (16.6 x 3.93 x 13.1 in), including the new dust filter covering the dedicated cooling duct of the 3LCD panels – which Sony claims is compact enough for it to earn that world's smallest title.
Each of the three BrightEra LCD panels at the heart of the projection system rocks WUXGA (1,920 x 1,200) resolution, for very nearly 4K output at 6,912,000 pixels. Both projectors can each throw up to 300-diagonal-inch visuals, and there's support 4K/60p input for compatibility with 4K UHD video sources.
Where many of the 4K laser projectors we feature can be used with some ambient lighting in the space, thanks to 6,400 lumens put out by the VPL-PHZ61 model (or even 7,000 lumens at the center) and 5,300 lumens from the VPL-PHZ51 flavor (5,800 at the center), even a well-lit meeting room or lecture hall should prove no match for these new pups.
And there should be no loss of picture definition either, with customized Bright View functionality ensuring vivid colors, and Sony's newly improved Reality Creation real-time signal processing, mapping and analysis technology taking care of the crispness of images, diagrams and text. A built-in ambient light sensor allows for automatic tweaking of such settings depending on a room's lighting.
Both models offer +/-30% keystone correction, come with manual focus, and boast the widest vertical shift capabilities of Sony's fixed-lens models – at -35%/+55% – for installation flexibility.
Connectivity shapes up as two HDMI ports with audio support and HDCP (plus there's a handy auto power-on feature that activates the projector when a video input signal is detected), plus serial ports, Ethernet LAN, audio in/out jacks, and a powered USB port for providing juice to plugged-in media sticks. A single 16-W speaker is included for in-house sonics.
Sony has confirmed that the VPL-PHZ61 model will be priced at US$3,795, while the VPL-PHZ51 projector comes in at $3,025. Both are scheduled for release in early 2023.
