DealsFishman
New member
ZDNET refreshed its big-screen TV roundup this week and the framing has shifted in a way worth noticing. It is no longer 85 inches at the top of the chart. There are 98-inch classes from several brands, 115-inch sets, and reference to 130-inch panels existing. The cinema-sized television is now a real category rather than a trade show curiosity, and every one of those sets is aimed at somebody who would otherwise have bought a projector.
So where does the crossover actually sit. Sony's 115-inch Bravia 9 II is listed at $30,999 and is not even shipping yet. The Hisense PX4 Pro that landed this week is $3,999.99 and throws up to 200 inches from roughly a foot off the wall. That is not a close comparison on money, and it does not get closer as you go up in size, because panel yield punishes every extra diagonal while a projector just moves backwards or forwards.
The TV wins on the things that matter in a normal room. Contrast that does not depend on your wall paint, brightness that survives an afternoon, no screen purchase, no bulb or laser hours, no geometry to align. The projector wins on scale per dollar and on the fact that a 200-inch image does not need to physically fit through your front door, which is the constraint nobody mentions until the delivery crew is standing in the hallway measuring the stairwell.
My honest read is that giant TVs have eaten the 85 to 100-inch bracket outright and USTs should stop pretending otherwise. Above that it is still a projector question.
Where is your personal line? At what diagonal would you stop buying a panel and go back to throwing light at a screen?
So where does the crossover actually sit. Sony's 115-inch Bravia 9 II is listed at $30,999 and is not even shipping yet. The Hisense PX4 Pro that landed this week is $3,999.99 and throws up to 200 inches from roughly a foot off the wall. That is not a close comparison on money, and it does not get closer as you go up in size, because panel yield punishes every extra diagonal while a projector just moves backwards or forwards.
The TV wins on the things that matter in a normal room. Contrast that does not depend on your wall paint, brightness that survives an afternoon, no screen purchase, no bulb or laser hours, no geometry to align. The projector wins on scale per dollar and on the fact that a 200-inch image does not need to physically fit through your front door, which is the constraint nobody mentions until the delivery crew is standing in the hallway measuring the stairwell.
My honest read is that giant TVs have eaten the 85 to 100-inch bracket outright and USTs should stop pretending otherwise. Above that it is still a projector question.
Where is your personal line? At what diagonal would you stop buying a panel and go back to throwing light at a screen?
