Projector Reviews

LG CF181D Projector Review

CF181D Projector Highlights

  • Extremely bright “best” mode for movie watching – over 900 lumens
  • Very bright “brightest” mode one of the very brightest
  • Very good post calibration color accuracy
  • Skin tones and overall color are exceptionally natural
  • Sharp image
  • Very good placement flexibility
  • Dynamic or manual iris modes, provide good, not exceptional black level performance
  • CFI and other dynamic features
  • Very good price performance

LG CF181D Projector Overview

Well, the LG CF181D finally arrived. Getting one for review wasn’t easy. All considered, I think it was worth the wait. The CF181D projector, which for most of this review, I’ll probably mostly refer to it as the LG projector, is a 3 chip LCoS design. That puts its closest competition, the JVC DLA-RS15, the Sony VPL-HW15, and the Cinetron HD700, all LCoS projectors. Of course, there’s plenty of other competition for the LG projector, including the less expensive Panasonic PT-AE4000, and, of course, the Epson Home Cinema 8500UB, as well as an assortment of Mitsubishi’s, Optoma’s, BenQ’s and others. The CF181D is a medium-largeish 1080p projector. It sells in the mid-$2000 range in the US, and happens to be particularly bright. And the picture is most impressive. Color is really rather excellent after calibration. Lot’s of good things to talk about. The LG has CFI – creative frame interpolation, although we had some issues with that, discussed further down this page. There’s the usual collection of intputs, and very good, though not exceptional, placement flexibility. The CF181D has a number of dynamic features. There are three settings for the Dynamic iris, (more on that below), and creative frame interpolation. Despite any issues about some of these features, the CF181D has a really good combination of strengths, and no major weaknesses. Let’s get started!