Viewsonic PJ506D Projector; RLC-018 Projector Lamp

The Viewsonic PJ506D is definitely a fine balance of manufacturing prowess. It truly is a great value for anyone looking for a reasonably priced home theatre projector or something for light office use. It has a low entry price, great combination of brightness and contrast, and a really good lamp life.

The price of the PJ506D was $900 USD when it first came out in December of 2006; however since then one can now be acquired for roughly $700 USD brand new out of the box. This is still little higher than some of the new entry level Optoma projectors, however, the Viewsonic provides a little more bang for your buck.

It is bright enough to watch your favorite movies and television with ambient light, such as indirect sunlight, present in the room since it has 2000 ANSI Lumens. In this same environment, the dark black images are quite true to black because the lens has been calibrated so that the contrast level is sitting at 2000:1. It does not have a variable iris, but for your average home theatre use and simple office use, this will hardly be necessary.

Technically the resolution on the PJ506D is still quite basic, and for a projector released in 2006, you would figure that they would have had a higher native resolution. Unfortunately, Viewsonic still went with 800x600p, and therefore don’t expect to take full advantage of High Definition movies or TV. That being said, it does have maximum compression of up to 1280x1024p, so you may be able to fool your eyes into thinking that you are watching true HD, just don’t be too picky.

The projector lamp inside the unit is a 200W UHP lamp that lasts for an average of 2000 hours; that is about 500 hours more than the industry average. The projector lamp identification number is RLC-018, and can be purchased at myprojectorlamps.com by clicking link here.

The PJ506D does have all your standards inputs, except for HDMI of course, but does not have the option for interchangeable lenses. There is almost no need here to be meddling around trying to optimize this projector since what you see is what you get. Audibly speaking, it does not get too loud when functioning; however the 36.0 db is louder than your average projector produced today. Overall this projector is very good value for your money, but that is where you must understand that it truly is an entry level projector.