ViewSonic PA503S 3800 Lumens SVGA High Brightness Projector for Home and Office with HDMI Vertical Keystone

This is fantastic and I used it at chistmas for out door Christmas movies. People drive by and would watch. I even had my neighbors come with their lsen chairs to watch a Christmas movie! It was crisp and clear and super easy to use. I plugged it into another speaker full full sound. It was a huge hit! Cant wait to have a movie night this summer with our neighbors. I wish it had a lense protector though. I kept the box, and store it in there. Honestly big bang for your dollar! I bought a grey see through type of screen, but a white sheet will work too. The remoted is easy to navigate. It took me 10 minutes to set up. Ran movies off my cell phone, then my lap top. It does not have a port for flash drives. No USB which is another little ding. But not enough to give it 4 stars. You have 1 HDMI port, 1 VGA port, 1 AUX port, and 1 for a micro USB, which nothing I had fit into it. You can use it for business, indoor/outdoor movies, or decorating. Game night in your garage for the guys! It offers rear projection too.

I use the projector for exclusively outdoor movie nights. My previous set up (an ageing NEC projector) has been the source of many happy family memories. With COVID limiting social gatherings, I wanted to create a better experience … and hopefully one that was easier to set up. Achieving this turned out to be an interesting journey so thought I would share in case it helps anyone. The short version – the View Sonic PA 503S was the winner, but whether this makes sense for you does depend on what you need from a projector. Read on for the details…Initially I went back and forth on whether it was worth upgrading at all. My existing set up was a 10 yr old NEC projector, a bed sheet, and UE Boom speaker. It had the huge advantage of being available & free! However, there were some things I was looking for in an upgrade. Highest on my list was the ability to use a cell phone as an input source (the NEC projector could only use an input from a portable DVD player), plus it needed to be almost fully dark before I started the movie. In addition, it was fiddly to set up and the sound was not great.The screen was the first issue to solve. After significant research, I went with a Yard Master 135” screen. It was expensive, but it works great and I am very happy with it. I can relocate movie watching from where I used to hang the bedsheet to the more convenient location of my back patio – much more comfortable. I addressed the audio by using a Vizio sound bar I had lying around, which gave a huge leap in performance.Now for the projector… and here is where it gets interesting. I attempted to research projectors, but there were only a few sites I could find that did a decent comparison test. In fact, many sites comparing projectors seemed to simply re-cycle the marketing blurb from each product. One can spend $100 or $1000 on a projector, and its not easy to figure out whether spending more gets you a better experience. So I bought 3 projectors and ran a back to back test.The units I tested were the ViewSonic PA503S ($300), the Vankyo Leisure 3 ($127) and the QKK Mini Projector (2020 version, claiming 4200 Lux, cost $100). I also found a cable which promised to turn HDMI signal into an S-Video input, which I could then plug into the NEC projector. Findings below.4th place. NEC projector plus cable. Failed to get out of the starting blocks. The cable did not do as promised, and ended up mangling the Netflix formatting.3rd place. Vankyo Leisure 3. Did a great job with video display. It was a little brighter (but not by much) vs the NEC. The focus ring and keystone adjustment feel like the weak spot for this unit.. and likely all similarly priced mini projectors. On this particular unit, the keystone adjustment was so loose it shifted when you adjusted the focus. And the focus had to be cranked right to end extreme in order to get a sharp image … to be honest it wasn’t really in focus even then. My guess is that this was just the unit I had… but it did not inspire confidence As with many reviewers, I could not get Netflix to produce sound thru the projector, but that was not a show stopper as I am using a sound bar with ARC-HDMI input as my audio.2nd place. QKK. Like the Vankyo, it did a great job of video, and had the same audio issues. Video was sharp, and a little brighter vs the NEC. It was relatively short throw… I filled the 135” screen at a projection distance of around 12 feet, which worked well for my set up. A word on quality control. Like the Vankyo, focus / keystone adjustment is a weak spot. It’s a very plasticky and crude mechanism. Incredibly I had to buy 3 of these units before I got one that worked. The first one was a lemon – it never focused properly. You could get focus in the center of the screen but not the edges, which really killed us when we had a movie with sub titles. The 2nd unit was lost in delivery. Amazon refunded it. The 3rd one I reviewed here. Its focus ring / keystone adjustment mechanism worked well, and it was easy to get good focus.1st place. View Sonic PA503S. The View Sonic is at a completely different level of quality, plus it offers one huge advantage – it is literally twice as bright as the QKK & Vankyo. Firstly the image – its clear, and the focus is easy to adjust to perfection. No softness at the edge of the screen, it was ‘movie theater’ quality. One slight difference vs the QKK… the throw is a little longer. I needed 19 feet projection distance to fill the screen, thankfully not a problem for my set up. Secondly audio – Netflix works on this unit. Again, I had a work around so this wasn’t essential, but in case that matters for your set up. Most importantly of all, the brightness. The View Sonic claims 3600 lumens. It was (by eyeball estimation) twice as bright as the others. This means I can start watching a movie just as the sun goes down, fully 1 hour before the QKK / Vankyo were viable options. This turns out to be a huge deal. The QKK and Vankyo both needed it to be fully dark to watch the movie. Around here that means starting to watch a movie at 9:20pm in the summer… and therefore finishing well after 11pm. With the View Sonic I can start watching at 8:15pm. For comparison the QKK claims 4200 lux, and after some digging I found a claim of 2200 lumens. So for me, a combination of brightness plus a generally much improved build quality convinced me to keep the $300 View Sonic and return the others.

This projector is working way better than I thought it would based on the price. We are using in a large Buildng with a throw of at least 25 feet and the picture is clear vivid and bright.

We needed something that was easily set up and use for multiple teachers. This did just that.

I was please with the brightness of the stock bulb. It was sharp and visible even in a well-lighted room. Be careful ordering replacement bulbs. This one comes with a 3600. Go for 3800 lumens if possible.