ViewSonic PX747-4K First Look Review – Now for $999!

The ViewSonic PX747-4K is the sibling to the already-reviewed PX727-4K, and sports 4K UHD resolution. ViewSonic has long been a leader in some of the lowest-cost home theater and home entertainment projectors, and they’ve done it again! Right now, you can get the PX747-4K on Amazon for just $999, making it the most affordable 4K UHD projector on the market. This projector and its twin, the PX727-4K, are identical in all but a few ways – we will discuss the ways they differ in this First Look Review of the ViewSonic PX747-4K.

Before we get into it – what is a First Look Review? Our First Look Reviews are one-page, simple reviews based on the projector’s specs, features, and our thoughts based on those aspects, before we get the projector in for review – these First Looks are a mixture of insight and common sense. Though we have not yet published the full review of this projector, we can make assumptions from what we know about its sibling, in addition to those specs/features. Now, on with our First Look Review of the ViewSonic PX747-4K!

The ViewSonic PX747-4K is the bright room version of the PX727-4K, a 4K UHD projector intended for use in the home theater. Also a 4K UHD projector, the 3,500 lumen PX747-4K will be at home in  any living room, family room, media room, or bedroom that cannot be fully darkened, and therefore will always have some degree of ambient light. Now, Art reports that the projector did not quite hit its mark, coming in at around 3,200 in its brightest mode – but that’s still plenty to cut through some pretty serious ambient light.

This is a DLP projector with an RGBW color wheel, rather than the RGBRGB type found on the PX727-4K. Generally speaking, that RGBRGB color wheel is more of a home theater type wheel, whereas the RGBW is found more often on home entertainment and business/education projectors. The “W” in RGBW refers to a clear slice that allows a lot of light to pass through, improving the amount of white lumens the projector is capable of outputting, resulting in an ultimately brighter image.

The ViewSonic PX747-4K has an impressive lamp life of up to 15,000 hours – but that’s with SuperEco on. With it off, you can probably expect it air on the higher side of the norm for lamp based projectors. Either way, the projector will give you a lot of bang for your buck – especially at the reduced price – and have you enjoying many thousands of hours of entertainment before you will need to switch out the lamp.

It has a 12,000:1 contrast ratio, which is the same as its home theater twin, but you can expect the ViewSonic PX727-4K to have better black level performance than the brighter PX747-4K. No matter – the ViewSonic PX747-4K will undoubtedly have better dark shadow detail, which means you will be able to see details in dark scenes better than you will on the PX727-4K

Like most ViewSonic projectors, the PX747-4K is compact and portable. Weighing less than 10 pounds, this ViewSonic measures just 13.1” wide, 5.3” tall, and 10.3” deep. Next up is our list of highlights, followed by a discussion of special features, then our discussion of the hardware of the ViewSonic PX747-4K home entertainment projector.

The ViewSonic PX747-4K is a 4K capable projector with 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) resolution. Though not true 4K, you can still expect this projector to be nicely sharp and a step up from those 1920 x 1080 x2 pixel shifters in terms of sharpness. The ViewSonic also has support for HDR on 4K content, but does not support the expanded color space P3/BT.2020 like many other 4K capable projectors can – just plain old REC.709 (regular HDTV) for this guy. That’s not a huge problem, only something to be aware of when making your decision.

There’s a special feature on this projector, and the PX727-4K, called Silence Mode. This makes the projector run at its quietest, akin to running in ECO, and does so by disabling pixel shifting. Pixel shifting tends to add some extra noise, so if you’re only running 1080p content and want to turn off the pixel shifting, this is the only way to do so. I wouldn’t, however, because then you’re making this 4K capable projector perform like ViewSonic’s sub-$800 1080p projectors in terms of sharpness and detail.

The ViewSonic PX747-4K has a rather simple setup in terms of inputs and connectors. Oh, it has all of the inputs you need for your home entertainment needs, but we always would rather have three HDMI inputs instead of two. Most of us have more than two systems we like to run content off of – I myself have a PS4 (most used), a 4K UHD player (second most used), an Apple TV, and the NVIDIA Shield, so having an extra input would have been nice. No matter.

Starting from the left, this ViewSonic has stacked Audio jacks, one for In and one for Out. Next to that is the old-school VGA port for connecting older PCs. To its right are the two HDMIs – one 1.4 and one 2.2 for accepting 4K content – and a Mini USB port. There is also an RS-232 connector for old-school command and control, a USB Type-B, and a 12-Volt Trigger port for wired remote control.