Sony VPL-XW5000ES 4K HDR Laser Home Theater Projector

I’ve had my Sony XW5000ES for 2 weeks now. After watching plenty of content both streaming and disc & comparing with my old Sony HW40ES, I’m very happy with this new projector. 4K content looks fantastic. Upscaled by the 5000, HD content looks amazing. It’s a major improvement over my old projector. Black level, accurate detailed color, and overall picture quality all look fantastic.

To really appreciate what this projector is capable of you will want to consider a 4K UHD disc player. But even if you just stick to streaming & Blu-ray’s, you will not be disappointed. Everything just looks so much better on this projector.

Yes. Blacks are much darker than my previous projector, but the bright highlights and rich color? WOW!! That’s where the 5000 clearly shines. Another thing I really appreciate about the 5000 is how it handles gradients. My old projector had only 8-bit color depth which looked great 90% of the time until a scene came along with lots of gradients and then the 8-bit color-depth limitation reared its ugly head showing gradient-banding. Ahh, but the XW5000 gradients are as smooth as butter.

HDR content is handled very well on the 5000. I’m quite relieved about that after hearing stories saying HDR looks too dark on projectors. I’m continually impressed how well the 5000 pushes plenty of light where the image calls for it while remaining dark in the same frame for the dark areas of the frame.

Sony’s image-processing and its solid consistent “out of the box” calibration are why many people choose Sony projectors. You can select any of the pre-calibrated setting buttons to your liking and your set to go. I prefer “Reference” in my pitch black theater room, but if you have a little ambient light, you might prefer the Cine-Bright button for a bright calibrated image. For those of us who like to dial in the picture even further, Sony has you covered. All the familiar Sony menu settings are here with a few extras that give you plenty of room to make adjustments.

Performance:
After careful examination, I did not find any focus issues or streaking issues. The sharpness and clarity look great. Using test patterns and white movie titles on black background. Small-print end-credits look sharp and consistent across the screen with excellent black-level and crisp white text.

The big selling point will be the laser light engine. This means no more lamp replacements for the life of the projector. That’s big! The OEM replacement lamps are expensive and lose brightness fairly quickly. The XW5000 laser light engine is rated at 20,000 hours which may outlive the projector itself. If you watched 1 movie every day, the light-engine would last 27 years. Yikes! I’ll be ready to upgrade long before then 🙂
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PROS:
* True Native 4K
* Tight sharp image with good black level.
* Sony’s “X1 Ultimate Processor for Projectors”
* Excellent and consistent “Out of the box calibration”
* Brilliant specular highlights
* Rich full 10bit color
* Impressive HDR for a projector.
* Laser light engine means no more lamps.
* Smaller shell compared to last year’s model.
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CONS:
* Fan-Noise.
Louder than expected compared to the whisper of my old Sony VPL-HW40ES.
Noise Level is not terrible, just noticeably louder.
You can reduce fan noise by lowering the laser light output level to 50 with very little loss of light but a big drop in fan-noise. I personally set the laser where I want it and I’m already not noticing the fan when watching movies. I should also point out that my old 40ES kicked out some serious heat, but putting your hand near the exhaust of the 5000 is lukewarm at the most.

* No 3D at all on the XW5000.
I’m sad about that since I have a dozen 3D movies.
But I understand Sony had to cut it to reach this price point. If 3D is a deal breaker for you, then you need to jump up to the XW6000.

* Manual lens (focus, shift, zoom). For me it’s no big deal. “Set it and forget it” and it’s exactly the same as my HW40ES and I’m perfectly happy with the manual lens. Cut from the list to reach this price point.
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Sony’s cost cutting measures on the 5000 make total sense in my opinion and were absolutely the right call. The 5000 is the most affordable premium native 4K laser projector on the market today. Upgrading to the XW6000 at double the cost of the 5000 gets you a motorized-lens, a better lens, 3-D option, and an extra 500 lumens of brightness.
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Conclusion:
The Sony VPL-XW5000ES is an excellent projector at an attractive price point. I suspect the 5000 will be very successful for Sony and I look forward to future models at this level from Sony. The attached screenshots are intended to show how the XW5000 handles some challenging images.

Bought to replace a SONY VPL-VW100 that had worked since 2009 but finally gave up. We waited for SONY to make a laser projector, and chose the 5000-ES over the 6000-ES because we can set the lens once and move on with our lives $6500 richer.

In the pictures I attached, the projector brightness is at 50%. It works with the lights on just fine. Unless you are a videophile, the 5000-ES is great for home theater/den use.

4 stars for the remote because, come on SONY make a new remote. (it does the job though)

I can’t say there was ever a moment in the few hours of viewing that I ever felt the picture wasn’t stellar, or that I couldn’t live happily with it long term, relying either on its superb out-of-box tuning or after taking advantage of its many available image.

I currently have Panasonic PT-AE800U 1080p Projector, projecting on to a 182 inch 2:35:1 screen. It produces bright but softer images due to the screen size. I have had it for last 8 years. I decided to upgraded to the Sony when I saw it on sale.

Compared to the $1600 Panasonic, Sony has no features.

1. There is no HDMI-CEC, I used to use the Apple TV remote to control everything. You can’t do that anymore as the projector does not turn on or off without having its remote

2. I bought it knowing Sony has all manual controls, but if Panasonic can give it on a $1600 projector, why not on $6000 projector.

3. There is no lens mask. I used the masking to avoid overfill of the screen when 2.35:1 content switches to 16:9. Unless you spend another $6000 for an anamorphic lens, you can’t use it with 2.35:1 screen

4. There is no keystone adjustment. The projector I got had incorrect keystone where the image was wider on top and narrower on bottom unevenly. I was not able to correct it.

5. Only good part is the picture quality. Native 4K made a world difference in picture quality. But some scenes looked digitized. May be the dynamic contrast!

6. It is huge and looks ugly.

7. Remote has backlit button, it turns backlit on after pressing it. Why not turn on backlit as soon as you press any button?

8. Cable connectors are on the side and it will be visible anywhere from the room

9. It is going back! I might get the JVC NZ7!

Spectacular true 4k image. It’s absolutely stunning when you have the right source material (like Eugene Belsky’s 8k60fps HDR videos on YouTube.) The image can be too dark which may be remedied with a screen. The remote is junk. It is too large, too many functions and despite having an ES receiver, I can’t control everything from a single remote. Ceiling mounting was also an issue because Sony chose 3 vs 4 mount points. Yet it’s all worth it for the spectacular image.

this projector is amazing in every way, contrast, resolution, image processing, brightness. It was worth the money and the entire family is enjoying movie nights on our 150″ screen.

This projector is a great surprise. It is so bright I can use it a room with the shades open just like a TV. This my fourth projector. I know what I’m talking about. Do not hesitate to but this projector!

This product wasn’t what I was expecting. I was hoping for a clearer picture but wasn’t very crisp. I feel robbed for spending this much.

This, my fourth Sony projector, hits it out of the ballpark. Amazing picture, amazing. I replaced my recently acquired 525es with this beauty and I’m amazed at the picture quality. This projector is an improvement over my 525es by about 35%. Well worth the money. I think that at this price point Sony is just giving this projector away to once and for all capture the mid-level home projector market. Hands down, you couldn’t possibly do better. This unit is quiet and it is cool, something that was a major point of concern with my 525es. The 525 used to run hot because of the demand on the lamp. Well, we have a laser engine here. The 5000ES is about half the weight of the 525ES. Easy to set up, easy. There isn’t too much calibrating to be done here. This is an out-of-the-box kind of deal. The picture setting, by factory default, is at mid-levels. So, all you need to do is tweek those levels to your liking.
The only thing that I found to be better with the 525ES is the size of the picture. Given the exact same room and conditions, the 525ES produced a larger picture by about 10%.
The bottom line, run, don’t walk.

True Native 4K. The picture is amazing! Great value for the money. Caught a great sale $4999.

I wished that I had a motorized lens cover. This is Sony’s entry level projector but it is Fantastic!