

When we go out to the Multiplex, movies are projected onto a screen, just as they have been since the dawn of the cinematic age. 8mm and 16mm home movie cameras and projectors came into the American home decades ago, but the image quality was poor and grainy and there was no sound — hardly a cinematic experience.

Even after the advent of quality projection screen televisions, however, movie-watching at home is still dominated by cathode ray tube (CRT) dinosaurs. Given our penchant for using projectors to watch movies, why aren’t there more home theater projectors in our homes?

One of the main gating factors has been cost – the damn things were just too expensive. But the price curve in almost all things electric usually slopes down over time. Projectors are just such an animal: We’ve been seeing their prices decline steadily and were impressed when solid offerings limboed under the $2,000 price bar.

Fast-forward to the present: There are now several sub-$1,000 projectors on the market that do a very good job of delivering a true home-theater experience for DVDs, HDTV and even standard definition TV. But as prices get cut, so do corners. After you chop the price down to $900, is there enough product left to make a worthwhile offering? The answer is an emphatic yes, and we’ve got two such offerings to show you today — one from Dell, and the other from Toshiba. Is one decidedly better than the other? Turn the page to find out.