18. Sanyo PLV-Z2

As soon as it's out of the box, the gray color of the shell gives an impression of sturdiness and quality manufacturing. The projector has two adjustable feet, a trap door for changing the lamp, the on/off button and one for accessing the menu and selecting input signals. Finally, four arrows and a selection button let you navigate through the menus. The front trap door opens to reveal two dials called Lens Shift Rings. These let you shift the projected image up and down and right to left. Also, the PLV-Z2's fairly short focal length lets you install it in a room with a short projection distance.

At a distance of 10.8 ft. (3.3 meters) from the screen, we were able to get an image with a 98" (2.5-meter) diagonal. The remote control fits nicely in your hand and there's a button on its side for turning on the backlighting. The fan is quite silent, above all in economy mode, which lets you improve the depth of the blacks by reducing the brightness.