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PROJECTOR REVIEW
If you look closely at NEC's small conference-room projector, the GT950, you're bound to notice some characteristics from the company's bigger units.
With the GT950, NEC has essentially shrunk the stylish but bigger GT1150, lost a few lumens, lowered the price and added a nifty lens-shift feature.
NEC advertises the GT950 as producing 2,000 ANSI lumens of light and, according to my measurements, that's an honest claim. In the wide-zoom setting, the projector exceeded that spec, measuring 2,093 ANSI lumens. For the ANSI contrast ratio, measured using the same contrast and brightness settings, I recorded 160-to-1, which is a good number and about average for other recently tested projectors. When I quantified the black-white sequential contrast ratio, the NEC measured 278-to-1, much lower than NEC's 400-to-1 spec. I would have liked to see more contrast from this unit.
Regarding color saturation, the GT950 measured 15.9 color units - just slightly below the 15.94 unit average for large conference-room projectors.
This projector's white point, though, was about as good as it gets, only 2.73 units away from true white. The NEC's images also exhibited excellent onscreen uniformity, with only 4-percent brightness variation across the screen and an 86-percent cornerbrightness reading. All in all, this unit's images from computer-graphic sources looked great, with lots of brightness and vivid colors.
I am a bit more critical of its video performance. Although the GT950 produced natural-looking, evenly colored images, its gamma setting was a little off, leaving the shadows too dark. Unlike some other projectors, the GT950 doesn't take out the interlaced-toprogressive scan-conversion artifacts, leaving some choppy effects in the images.
The NEC has a sturdy handle and, since it weighs 16 pounds, that's reassuring. This projector also uses four adjustable screw feet (one at each corner), which work together for side-to-side or front-to-back tilt adjustments. All the NEC's easy-to-use connections, including power, are located in the rear, which makes setup simple. A PC Card slot on the...